House of Commons
Prayers
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Oral Answers to Questions
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
Losing a loved one is always extremely difficult, particularly if it happens overseas. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office supports about 4,000 families affected by death abroad annually. Consular staff work tirelessly to provide information on local laws and systems, and offer tailored support to British people and their families in order to make arrangements.
Antony Higginbotham
In my constituency, we have sadly had two recent and high-profile cases of families losing a loved one abroad, including Susan and John Cooper in Egypt, and more recently Kelsey Devlin in Pakistan. Will my right hon. Friend look into those two cases to see whether there is anything further that the Foreign Office can do in order that the families can finally get the answers they need so that they can grieve?
Amanda Milling
May I first offer my deepest sympathies to my hon. Friend’s constituents following the deaths of their loved ones? Officials continue to support Mr and Mrs Cooper’s family and are working with Her Majesty’s Coroner and Egyptian authorities to enable the inquest to take place as soon as possible. My officials are also supporting Ms Devlin’s family, and will assist them in reporting their concerns surrounding this tragic case to the police in Pakistan. I would also like to offer to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these two cases.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that although charities such as the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust in Northern Ireland do a tremendous job in assisting with complex repatriation, there is a greater role and need for a Government-led repatriation section to be established?
Amanda Milling
As I said, FCDO consular staff provide assistance to about 4,000 British families a year. The purpose of the assistance is to provide tailored support depending on families’ particular needs.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
Development programmes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories work to preserve the prospect of a negotiated two-state solution and simultaneously to improve the lives of Palestinians, in line with the UK’s long-standing approach to the middle east peace process. Although the UK will no longer provide direct funding to the Palestinian Authority, we understand the importance of capacity building of Palestinian institutions.
John Howell
Earlier this year, the long-awaited EU review into the Palestinian Authority’s school curriculum was published, and it confirmed numerous examples of antisemitism. I note the Minister’s recent announcement that the UK is no longer funding Palestinian teachers to draft and deliver this curriculum, but will he ensure that any further UK support to Palestinian education is conditional on a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism, and that that is shown at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East?
James Cleverly
I assure my hon. Friend that the UK Government take a zero-tolerance approach to anti- semitism, wherever it is. The reduction in funding to the Palestinian Authority was in direct response to the official development assistance prioritisation review, which was itself in response to the economic constraints driven by covid. We do, however, continue to support the Palestinians through the UNRWA. We will ensure that, as we have done, we continue to press for that education curriculum to be devoid of any examples of antisemitism.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
I obviously totally agree with bringing pressure to bear on issues such as antisemitism. Nevertheless, the humanitarian crisis that exists in Gaza in particular ought to shock the world, with a lack of access to clean water and of proper education, particularly for young girls and women in Gaza. As a country, we still ought to support the provision of those things. Can the Minister give us a clear understanding of when that assistance will return, because it matters?
James Cleverly
As I said, the UK continues to support UNRWA, which does fantastic work in both the west bank and Gaza. On my recent trip to Egypt, I spoke with Egyptian officials about the work that they had done to help to support Gaza after the conflict. The best thing that we can all do for the people of Gaza, the OPTs and the wider region is to push for a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. That will remain the foundation stone of the UK’s policy in the region.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
I welcome the new Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and I hope that she has a long and welcome time in that place.
How can this Government be serious about supporting the peace process and striving for reconciliation when they are cutting aid spending by 71%? With further deeply damaging cuts expected in tomorrow’s Budget and spending review, does the Minister not see that slashing the aid budget fundamentally undermines our national security as well as being against our national interest?
James Cleverly
I remind the House that because of covid this country experienced the worst economic contraction in three centuries, and it was absolutely right that we responded to that. We remain, in both absolute and percentage terms, one of the most generous aid donors in the world. We are proud of that record, as I and my right hon. Friends in Government have said. We aim to return to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal situation allows.
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
We are deepening our economic and security ties with allies, including the United States, members of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, and India. We need to win the battle for economic influence through free enterprise and economies based on democracy.
James Grundy
Boosting our economic ties with India could provide opportunities for businesses in my constituency of Leigh and across the UK. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that she will do everything she can to turbo-charge that relationship?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I was in New Delhi and Mumbai last week doing just that. India is a key strategic partner for the United Kingdom. It is the world’s largest democracy. There are huge opportunities. We are shortly about to launch trade talks with India and we are working to increase two-way investment flows.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I welcome the Foreign Secretary to her role and congratulate her on becoming the second woman in history to hold the post. I think I speak for Labour Members when I say that we look forward to welcoming the third. The Foreign Secretary is right to make delivering build back better a priority. COP26 will fail without a commitment to clean and reliable infrastructure in the developing world. We will never be taken seriously in Beijing if we do not claw back some of the influence we have lost in the world. She is right to identify that being a pushover with the Treasury does nothing for our national interest and nothing for our national security. However, the non-official development aid budget has been halved—ODA spending is down by £4 billion—and the Treasury’s accounting tricks will leave her coffers almost empty. With just days to go until the most important climate summit in a generation, has she clawed back some of that funding in tomorrow’s Budget, or will we see the same story playing out of a Foreign Secretary who is not taken seriously in Beijing because she is not taken seriously around her own Cabinet table?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Lady for her warm welcome to the Dispatch Box. I look forward to working with her over the coming years—many, many years. I do not think the Chancellor would be very happy if I announced the spending review today—and I am not sure you, Mr Speaker, would be very happy either. However, I assure her that we are absolutely prioritising our humanitarian aid budget. We are prioritising women and girls as part of our development budget, and we are prioritising investing in honest, reliable infrastructure in developing countries, particularly clean, green infrastructure.
Lisa Nandy
If the Foreign Secretary is still the only person in this country who has not seen the contents of the Budget, may I refer her to the Daily Mail, which has the entire read-out for her and for the rest of us?
When the Foreign Secretary’s budget has been devastated over the past 10 years of Tory Government, can she not see the problem with no new money being announced in the Budget tomorrow? The Department she inherited was hollowed out under her predecessor and everything that she says she plans to do depends on her ability to reverse that. This House needs not more words but a serious plan. Only a few months ago, Members of this House made clear our view that what has been happening in Xinjiang constitutes genocide. She is an enthusiastic supporter of the UK’s application to join the trans-Pacific partnership, which she mentioned in relation to an earlier question. However, China’s application leaves open the very prospect that this House sought to avoid and that her predecessor blocked. We should not be entering into preferential trade arrangements with countries that commit genocide. If she cannot give the House guarantees that she has won the battle for resources, can she at least guarantee that she will veto China’s membership if the application is successful?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with the hon. Lady about the terrible atrocities that are taking place in Xinjiang, and I raised that with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, on the phone last week, as well as our concerns over Hong Kong, which I have also raised publicly. It is important that we trade with China, but we need to ensure that it is reliable trade, that it avoids strategic dependency and that it does not involve the violation of intellectual property rights or forced technology transfer. I urge China to respect the rules of the World Trade Organisation. Of course, the United Kingdom is not yet a member of the CPTPP, so we do not have rights over decisions, but I am clear that any country that enters the CPTPP needs to follow its high rules and standards, including high environmental and labour standards.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend to her place at the Dispatch Box. Given her past experience and her former jobs, can she tell us how she will build on the economic power of the United Kingdom to develop our strategic influence around the world? This country grew rich not on the force of arms, but on the force of law and the different ways in which we have traded and travelled around the world. It would be fantastic to hear from her how she will use the office she now holds to defend the place of law both at home and abroad and to shape our alliances to promote our interests.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that developing our economic ties with like-minded allies is vital to developing our influence in the world and also the influence of free enterprise, freedom and democracy. That is why we are pursuing trade deals with the likes of the CPTPP, India and the United States, which are all democratic and free enterprise-based. We now have a unique opportunity, as post-Brexit Britain, with all the tools at our disposal—development, trade, diplomacy and security—to build those links that I describe as a network of liberty across the world.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I know the Foreign Secretary will agree that the sharply reducing ice in the Arctic is producing huge environmental challenges and serious economic and commercial opportunities, but also therefore an increase in security risks and the possibility of militarisation of one kind or another. Does she agree that the Arctic is an area worthy of intense diplomatic activity in the years to come?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree with my hon. Friend. Following our successful partnership with Australia and the United States on AUKUS, we are looking for similar partnerships that cover regions like the Arctic, working with close allies, such as Canada.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I also welcome the Foreign Secretary to her place. Like many other Members, I look forward to seeing many more glossy pictures of her in exciting places around the world doing her job looking fabulous. Perhaps she should sign them for Members keen to have more images of her.
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
We will get a signed copy for you.
Alyn Smith
That would be most kind, if the Minister can arrange that. Consistency in international law is vital for credibility and for building trust, none more importantly than in Cyprus, where part of the island remains under illegal occupation. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the only basis for peace in Cyprus is a bizonal, bicommunal federation and that any speculation —we have heard some speculation—to the contrary would be deeply unhelpful and a retrograde step?
Elizabeth Truss
I am pleased to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s reading material. What I would say on the subject of Cyprus is that the UK supports a comprehensive settlement based on previous parameters set out in the UN Security Council resolution, so I do not agree with the premise of his question.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The security situation in Afghanistan remains fragile and volatile. Islamic State has launched deadly terror attacks, including at Kabul airport and a number of Shi’a mosques. The situation for women and girls has become even more difficult since the Taliban took power. Women are now largely absent from public life and barred from many roles in the workplace. We continue to press the Taliban to allow secondary education for girls to ensure full and equal access to education for all. Between April and 18 October, we disbursed nearly £35 million of life-saving humanitarian support to Afghanistan.
Caroline Dinenage
Before the Taliban took control, more than 3.5 million girls were in school, and many more were in university and vital roles across the Afghan economy. Taliban spokesmen say that girls can go to school, yet in many areas they are permitted only up to grade 6 or 7, and in some areas they are not permitted at all. There is a growing gap between the Taliban’s promises and the reality. To those girls and women, it must feel that the doors that opened over the last two decades are slamming shut in their faces, and those who have stood against that have been met by violence. What are our Government doing to give them hope?
James Cleverly
I thank my hon. Friend for her question about this incredibly important issue. This year, we are doubling our humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan to £286 million, including for women and girls. We continue to press the Taliban to ensure that women play a full and equal role in life and that girls of all ages can go to school, holding the Taliban to the commitments that they have made. On 5 October, the Prime Minister’s high representative for the Afghan transition, Sir Simon Gass, travelled to Afghanistan and held talks directly with the Taliban in which they discussed the humanitarian crisis and we pushed for improved rights for women and girls.
Karl MᶜCartney
I thank my right hon. Friend for grouping my question. Many colleagues on the Government Benches and across the House have made representations to the Department regarding specific individuals in Afghanistan whose lives, or whose families’ lives, are at risk and would benefit from UK support similar to that given in previous years to our country’s agencies and armed forces while in Afghanistan. If former UK special forces members can vouch for certain individuals, why has the Minister’s Department not acted quickly to patriate these individuals to the safety of the UK? Would it help if they played football?
James Cleverly
The Afghan relocations and assistance policy is designed to allow Afghan nationals who served alongside Her Majesty’s armed forces and wider Government in Afghanistan, and those whom we judge to be at serious risk because of that service, to settle in the UK. We continue to assist those who were called forward under that scheme during Operation Pitting. Sadly, we were not able to evacuate all, but we continue to seek to evacuate those who can be evacuated.
My hon. Friend referred to football—I take it that he means the Afghan junior women’s football team. As we have just discussed, the situation for women in Afghanistan is particularly acute and we are prioritising those people who are at serious risk of reprisals.
Dan Jarvis
Further to the question from the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), the Minister will know that hundreds of people, including men who I served alongside, remain stranded in Afghanistan. Many are being hunted by the Taliban, and some have already been murdered, all because of their association with us. Will the Minister say a bit more about what the Government are doing to ensure that those who risk their lives for us are afforded safe passage out of Afghanistan?
James Cleverly
I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the question. He is right that many people in the House—himself included—have served alongside incredibly brave members of the Afghan armed forces, translators and others who supported our work while we attempted to support the Afghans. The ARAP scheme is designed specifically to facilitate their evacuation from Afghanistan. He, perhaps more than most, will understand the practical difficulties in executing that on the ground.
My noble Friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon speaks regularly with the countries in the neighbourhood to facilitate the evacuation from Afghanistan. I assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the UK Government take incredibly seriously the debt of honour that we owe to those brave Afghans who are currently in danger because of their support for our work in the country.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I realise that the Government can do much more for at-risk Afghan women who have managed to cross the border and are outside the country. One thing they can do for at-risk Afghans who are still in Afghanistan is link the provision of extra aid with their not being persecuted. How explicit are we making that link? How strongly are we exploiting that leverage?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I assure him that we hold the Taliban to their word. They will be judged on their actions, rather than just on what they have said. Clearly, they now find themselves the de facto Government of Afghanistan. We have made it clear that the support from us and the wider international community will be contingent on their behaving in a way that they have said that they intend to behave. We will always base our decisions on Afghanistan on the facts on the ground, not just on the words of Taliban spokespeople.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Like the shadow Foreign Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), I welcome the Foreign Secretary and her team to their places.
It has emerged that our ambassador in Kabul sent a series of diplomatic cables to the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), in July and August, warning him that Kabul would fall at pace and with little resistance. The former Foreign Secretary’s response to those urgent telegrams was to go on holiday. Will the new Foreign Secretary assure the House that she is putting early-warning systems in place across her Department to ensure that such a catastrophic failure of decision making is never allowed to occur again? Will she commit to coming to the House within the shortest possible timescale to make a statement outlining our political, diplomatic, economic and security strategy for Afghanistan, as opposed to making policy on the hoof, as her predecessor did?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman takes the opportunity to talk about things that have been widely discussed in this House, rather than about the future. That is of course up to him. The former Foreign Secretary explained his actions and there is nothing much more that I can add. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and the ministerial team that she leads remain entirely focused on ensuring that where we can exert influence to bring about peace and stability in Afghanistan, we will continue to do so.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
The G20 Rome summit is an opportunity to rally the most powerful nations to tackle the ongoing covid-19 crisis and to secure a sustainable, inclusive recovery. The summit this weekend is immediately before the UK hosts COP26. We will work to build a consensus on climate objectives and to drive forward priorities on health, girls’ education and the economic recovery to build back better.
Chris Elmore
The Minister mentioned in her answer tackling the covid-19 pandemic. Last week, WHO’s ambassador for global health financing, Gordon Brown, shared that 240 million doses of covid-19 vaccine are lying unused. Will the Minister set out what will be prioritised at the G20 to ensure that the poorest nations around the world can gain access to those unused vaccines? As has been said many times, we are not all vaccinated until everyone is vaccinated.
Amanda Milling
This is a global pandemic and we need to get the global population vaccinated. That is why we led the way at the G7 summit earlier in the year, where the Prime Minister committed to sharing 100 million doses by June 2022, 80% of which will go to COVAX. We need to ensure that the global population gets vaccinated.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
One of the best ways to ensure a global recovery from the covid pandemic is to enable northern businesses to trade freely across the world. One of the biggest challenges is the non-tariff barriers that they face in advance of any trade deal. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister confirm to the House what support is available through our embassy network and how do businesses access it?
Amanda Milling
My right hon. Friend is a real campaigner for the north of England. Having lived there for 15 years, I know that it is very important. I have just come back from a visit to the Philippines, Singapore and Japan, and one of the things I saw was posts doing everything they can to promote British business on the ground to ensure trade links in exports and in foreign direct investment.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Minister to her place. She mentioned her visit to the Pacific, but the G20 also includes one African representative, and it usually invites the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. I hope that the specific economic health climate and the humanitarian crises affecting some countries in Africa will be discussed, not least because we heard yesterday about the terrible events in Sudan. I also hope that the UK will raise the worsening situation in Ethiopia, which is a past G20 invitee, given the resumption of attacks on Mekelle, human rights atrocities, and the humanitarian crisis affecting people in Tigray and beyond. What will the Government be doing specifically on that issue at the G20, other than cutting our assistance to Africa?
Amanda Milling
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there was an urgent question yesterday about the situation in Sudan. The situation in northern Ethiopia is dire, and the UK condemns the ongoing violence and the spread of the conflict into Afar and Amhara, as well as the airstrikes impacting civilians and the ongoing human rights abuses and violations. We call on both sides urgently to implement a ceasefire and for the Eritrean forces to depart, and to seek a solution.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
We strongly condemn forced marriage and the forced conversion of women and girls, including in Pakistan. We regularly raise our concerns, including individual cases, at a senior level with the Pakistani authorities. We fund projects in Pakistan to address child and forced marriages, gender-based violence, and discrimination and intolerance, especially against minorities.
Sir Edward Leigh
At the age of 14, Maira Shahbaz was abducted, forced into a marriage against her will, and raped. She managed to escape, and she is living in fear for her life in one room with her entire family. We have now been campaigning for over a year, 12,000 people have signed a petition, and we saw the Home Secretary. Can the Foreign Office not do more? Is it for fear of alienating the Pakistan Government, to whom we give £300 million a year? Can we have action this day to move the court case on, get her out, and get her to safety in the United Kingdom?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend will understand that it is difficult and sometimes counterproductive to discuss individual cases in detail, as to do so could put individuals and their families at risk. The House, and indeed hon. Members, will have heard his points, and I assure him that requests for asylum will be considered on their merits.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Child marriage is an abhorrent practice wherever it is found, and I urge the House to support the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) in her Bill to ban it in this country. I welcome the Foreign Secretary to her place, and particularly the fact that she has kept the women and girls brief. Will she explain why, in her first week in the job, she signed off £183 million in cuts to education for women and girls, when such funding is one of the key drivers to prevent child marriage?
James Cleverly
I assure the Chair of the International Development Committee, and the whole House, that my right hon. Friend, the Department, and the wider Government take the rights of women around the world incredibly seriously. Education for girls remains a priority for the Prime Minister, and we will continue to advocate for that internationally, and fight for that as a priority within Government.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The UK is committed to being a force for good in the world, which includes upholding the rule of law. We promote the rule of law through our policy and programme engagement, which includes the UK’s Rule of Law Expertise Programme. That engages with stakeholders across the legal, judicial and development sectors, and is currently working in Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Andrew Selous
For many poor people around the world, lack of access to justice is their biggest issue. If someone is too frightened to go to school because they think they will be raped on the way, or too scared to develop their smallholding because they think someone will steal the land, it will be much more difficult to escape poverty. What proportion of our development spending goes on ensuring easy access to a robust criminal justice system for the global poor?
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend is a true campaigner for freedom, human rights and, as we have heard, access to justice. Many of the UK’s programmes contribute directly or indirectly towards access to justice, and we therefore do not quantify the exact proportion of our development spending in that area. The UK remains a world leader in international development, and we use our aid budget to strengthen democratic institutions, defend human rights, champion free media, and promote effective governance.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
I am sure the Minister agrees that reports that the Turkish Government are to expel many of our allies’ ambassadors from the country, after they rightly raised concerns about the ongoing slide in civil liberties and freedom of expression, are extremely worrying. We simply must not hang our allies out to dry. Given that Turkey is a key NATO ally, will the Minister join us in finally making clear, as she has not publicly in the past, that the UK will not accept any further attempts to undermine civil liberties, and that we stand with the 10 countries whose representation in Turkey has been affected by such a provocative act?
Vicky Ford
We are very pleased that Turkey and the 10 countries concerned have found a way to resolve this diplomatic crisis. We will continue to work closely with Turkey, which is a very important NATO ally, and we will continue to work with other key partners to strengthen the productive ties with Turkey from which we all benefit.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
We are strengthening our relationships to promote a free and secure Indo-Pacific. That includes working with like-minded allies to build strong economic partnerships, to undertake joint military exercises as part of the carrier strike group, which I was fortunate to visit this week, and to secure our accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership.
Rob Butler
In recent weeks, there has been an alarming increase in the number of Chinese military jets staging incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. Given China’s repeated statements that reunification with Taiwan must happen, which of course the Taiwanese do not want, and China’s recent record in Hong Kong, will my right hon. Friend tell the House what diplomatic efforts are being made to strengthen UK relations in order to ensure the stability of that region?
Elizabeth Truss
The large number of Chinese military flights that took place near Taiwan at the beginning of October are not conducive to peace and stability in the region. We need peaceful resolution through constructive dialogue, and the work that the United Kingdom is doing through the carrier strike group and our security partnerships is contributing to peace across the region.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
We have the deepest sympathy for Harry’s family. I have spoken to them about the case. I raised the case with Secretary Blinken, and we also raised it with President Biden when we were over in the United States. I am very clear that justice needs to be delivered for Harry and his family.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I pay tribute to Harry’s mum, Charlotte, and Harry’s dad, Tim, for their incredible courage in determining that they will achieve justice for Harry one way or another. They have already been striving for that for more than two years. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have to do everything possible with our great allies around the world to ensure mutual respect, and that abiding by the rule of law and achieving justice in a harrowing situation such as this is vital to those relationships?
Elizabeth Truss
I praise my right hon. Friend for the huge support that she has given to the family of Harry Dunn. I had the opportunity to speak with them; of course, the situation they find themselves in is absolutely terrible. I am determined that we should deliver justice for Harry and his family, and I am pushing the United States. Of course it is a key ally of the United Kingdom, but we must see justice delivered.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The Government continue to do all they can to ensure safe passage of eligible individuals who wish to leave Afghanistan. The UK has had constructive engagement with near neighbours, led by my noble Friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon. British nationals continue to be facilitated and supported in their exit from Afghanistan, including through Qatar Airways flights. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary met Afghan evacuees and the Qatari authorities on this very issue on her recent trip.
Neale Hanvey
I thank the Minister for that answer and the Secretary of State for her recent update on this issue. It is important to acknowledge the considerable efforts that are being made, but concerns persist for those who remain and are seeking refuge or safe passage from Afghanistan. Members will understand that I cannot name my constituents for fear of putting their relatives in a deeply perilous state, but what more can the Government do to assist hon. Members to alleviate the anguish and distress of constituents with loved ones in Afghanistan? Will the Government commit to working with Members to secure safe passage from Afghanistan, removing their constituents from immediate risk?
James Cleverly
The situation in Afghanistan is painful for us all. Three routes have been set up: for British nationals, through the Foreign Office; for Afghan nationals, through the Home Office; and for those who have supported us directly, through the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme. We continue to engage directly with the Taliban. The Prime Minister’s High Representative for Afghanistan, Simon Gass, and the Chargé d’Affaires of the UK mission to Afghanistan based in Doha, Dr Martin Longden, travelled to Afghanistan on 5 October to have direct talks with the Taliban, and to hold them to the commitments they have made about respecting and protecting people within Afghanistan.
Stephen Farry
Outside the ARAP scheme and within Operation Pitting, a number of other people were called forward for evacuation. Can the Minister give the House full transparency in terms of how many people were actually called forward, how many people were evacuated, and how many of that cohort still remain in Afghanistan?
James Cleverly
Since 28 August, over 500 more individuals eligible to come to the UK have been able to leave Afghanistan, as well as more than 400 British nationals and their dependants. We have assisted over 135 British nationals and their dependants to leave Afghanistan on Qatar-chartered flights. The total number of people who may be eligible is almost impossible for us to assess with clarity.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
We continue to monitor the political and human rights developments in Bahrain. Bahrain is a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office human rights priority country. We publish our assessment of the situation, including on areas of concern and areas of improvement in Bahrain, in the annual FCDO human rights report, most recently published on 8 July 2021. The details the hon. Lady requires are available in that document.
Margaret Ferrier
Over a decade after pro-democracy protests were crushed and oversight mechanisms, which the UK helped to fund, were adopted, cosmetic reforms have failed to remedy Bahrain’s deep-rooted problems. Will the Government show their commitment to Bahrain and publicly call for meaningful and inclusive political dialogue there, and for the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Dr al-Singace, Hassan Mushaima, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, and Sheikh Ali Salman?
James Cleverly
The United Kingdom enjoys a constructive relationship with Bahrain, which means that where there are areas of concern we are able to bring them up directly. I myself have done so in bilateral meetings I have had with Bahraini officials, both here in the UK and on my trips to Bahrain. We continue to monitor the cases the hon. Lady raises, and others as necessary.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The UK has long condemned Iran’s regional destabilising activities. We regularly raise our concerns at the United Nations, most recently doing so on 9 August. We support the security of our allies in the middle east, including defence partnerships and capability building. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary discussed continued security collaboration with her Saudi counterparts on 20 October and her Israeli counterparts on 19 October.
Greg Smith
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Iran remains the world’s leading sponsor of terror groups, including those committed to the destruction of Israel, and continues to enjoy impunity for its actions. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that having a nuclear weapon would give Iran the ultimate protection to spread its malign influence in the region? Will he confirm that the UK will keep all options on the table to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power?
James Cleverly
I can assure my hon. Friend that our priority remains to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Sadly, Iran’s nuclear programme has never been more advanced, and it is more worrying today than perhaps it has ever been. We regularly call strongly on Iran to halt all activities in violation of the joint comprehensive plan of action without delay and take the opportunity in front of it at the Vienna talks to restore the JCPOA. The current offer cannot remain on the table indefinitely.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
To protect freedom and democracy around the world, it is vital that we deepen our security relationships with friends and allies. AUKUS represents a long-term commitment to deeper co-operation on future defence capabilities with Australia and the United States, and we want to build on it, including with other partners.
Ruth Edwards
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. Could she set out how the Government intend to expand the scope of partnerships such as AUKUS to cover civilian and dual-use technologies such as semi- conductor chips and 5G?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right; we must ensure that technology standards and advances are shaped by the free world, whether that is the free flow of data, cyber, artificial intelligence, 5G or quantum computing. In India this week I agreed a partnership on future technology, especially on 5G. We are also working with the US and other partners to shape the future of technology.
Paul Holmes
I thank my right hon. Friend for her earlier answer. She recently spoke of building
“a network of liberty across the globe.”
Beyond Australia and the United States, can she advise the House of any other nations with which she would like to deepen our security relationship, to improve our position and security across the globe?
Elizabeth Truss
Alongside AUKUS and of course NATO we are building partnerships with other allies. I recently hosted the Baltic three to talk about increased co-operation in the area, we have agreed enhanced co-operation with Greece and we are in talks with Japan about future security co-operation.
Henry Smith
My right hon. Friend correctly spoke about the network of liberty referred to earlier. What discussions has she had with the world’s largest democracy, India, on security co-operation?
Elizabeth Truss
India is a very strong ally of the United Kingdom and we want to work more closely together across a range of security and defence issues. While I was in Mumbai, the UK carrier strike group was stationed off the coast; we have just conducted the UK’s largest ever joint exercise with Indian armed forces, and we are now deepening that co-operation.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
As Foreign Secretary, I will work to deepen our economic and security partnerships, to challenge malign actors from a position of strength. In our development budget, I will prioritise investing in honest, reliable infrastructure in developing countries, providing life-saving humanitarian aid and supporting women and girls across the world. We are pursuing a positive, proactive foreign policy that delivers for people across our great country.
Gary Sambrook
I am sure my right hon. Friend shares my grave concern at Iran’s escalation of uranium enrichment to 60% and production of uranium metal, which has no credible civilian purpose. Will the Government therefore seek a resolution of censure at the next International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors session, so we can ensure that we hold Iran to account?
Elizabeth Truss
Iran has no credible civilian justification for its nuclear escalation. As I made clear to my Iranian counterpart, Iran urgently needs to return to the negotiating table and, if it does not engage meaningfully in negotiations, we will reconsider our approach. All options are on the table.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Secretary of State to her place. Yesterday, it emerged that the Prime Minister’s pleading at the G7 and the United Nations to deliver £100 billion of climate finance has failed. With that, we had another example of the waning global influence of this Government in retreat. I had hoped that the new Foreign and Development Secretary would have put a stop to that, but her first act was to sign off on savage aid cuts to climate programmes and climate-vulnerable countries, disproportionately impacting women and girls, weeks before the most important climate summit of our lifetime. Does the Secretary of State agree that cuts to programmes such as the green economic growth initiative to preserve Papua’s 90% forest cover, and cuts to the aid budget, have actively undermined the UK’s ability to deliver not only at the conference of the parties, but on the world stage, exposing global Britain as little more than a slogan?
Elizabeth Truss
I do not agree with the hon. Lady’s analysis at all. We are making very positive progress on COP26; only this morning, we heard Australia’s announcement about its commitment to net zero. I am looking forward to attending COP in Glasgow next week and presenting a very ambitious finance package. Only a few weeks ago, when we were in the United States, we saw it commit to over £11 billion of climate finance. There are trillions available in the private sector that we will be unlocking to deal with the climate crisis.[Official Report, 27 October 2021, Vol. 702, c. 2MC.]
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Wendy Morton)
I know that my right hon. Friend takes a keen interest in the topic of nutrition. The prevention and treatment of malnutrition remain important for the UK as part of our work on global health humanitarian response and in support of our goals on girls’ education. I assure him that the Government are actively considering our approach to the Nutrition for Growth summit, including any commitments on nutrition, and we will update the House following the conclusion of the spending review.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
The UK committed more than £500 million to the COVAX facility and helped it to deliver more than 81 million doses to 44 African countries. In addition, we are providing UK emergency medical teams to 10 African countries. We have put a public health rapid support team into Nigeria, Gambia, Tunisia and other countries in Africa. At the World Bank annual meetings the week before last, I raised the importance of ensuring longer-term vaccine financing for Africa and that all programmes work together. We are strengthening the support that we give in African countries, to help them to have the health systems they need to continue providing essential health and getting those vaccines out.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Wendy Morton
I was delighted that yesterday the Foreign Secretary met the Greek Foreign Minister, Minister Dendias, and signed a new strategic bilateral framework that will build on the co-operation between our countries. It will open up new opportunities for trade and investment in both countries, allowing us to build on the £4.5 billion-worth of annual trade that we already have. It will also enable better co-operation among our businesses, investors and industry, and will promote even stronger security and defence co-operation, both as NATO allies and in enhancing Europe’s resilience in the face of security threats.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary engages regularly with the leadership of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It remains a foundation stone of UK foreign policy in the region to pursue, support and, where possible, facilitate a two-state solution based on 1967 lines with agreed land swaps and Jerusalem as a shared capital of both states.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right: we absolutely must stop Iran securing those nuclear capabilities, and we are working closely with our allies across the world. I have chaired a meeting of the five permanent members of the Security Council to discuss this very issue.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the terrible situation in Afghanistan. I travelled to the region this week—I went to Qatar, where I met evacuees from Afghanistan—and we are working very closely with our international allies. We have increased our aid for Afghanistan to £286 million, and we are working to hold the Taliban to account to ensure that they live up to the promises they have made.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
James Cleverly
Pakistan is a significant, important and close partner to the UK. Travellers from Pakistan can come to the UK freely provided that they adhere to the relevant covid-19 restrictions, the details of which are on the gov.uk website. We will continue to work with our Pakistani colleagues to reopen international travel safely.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
James Cleverly
The UK’s relationship with Israel is strong and important, and the strength of that relationship allows us to raise sensitive issues such as this. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will be speaking to our friends and colleagues in the Israeli Government about the reasons why they felt that they needed to designate those organisations.
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary referred in her opening remarks to the work that her Department was doing, but did not mention the support that she is providing for environmental projects, particularly the valuable projects in the Congo basin. May I ask her to ensure that the work she does on land, in forests, is matched by support for marine projects, where the loss of habitats is equally serious and the benefits for tackling climate change can be enormous?
Vicky Ford
I assure my right hon. Friend that this Government are determined to protect the ocean. We are leading international efforts to protect 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030, and are substantially increasing our investment to support that. Our £500 million blue plant fund will protect mangroves and coral reefs, tackle ocean plastic pollution, and reduce coastal poverty.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
The UK is deeply concerned about what is happening in the north-western regions of Myanmar, particularly the significant troop movements by the Myanmar armed forces, and about reports of multiple civilian casualties and displacements. On 15 October, the UK released a statement urging the military to end their campaign of violence. We are monitoring developments closely, and are in discussion with our international partners in the UN Security Council.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
I warmly welcome my successor’s successor to her place, although saying that makes me feel rather old. She will know that Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband, has restarted his hunger strike this week. She will also know that Nazanin is not going to come home until we pay the debt that we owe Iran for the Challenger tanks, which the Defence Secretary has accepted that we owe Iran. When are we going to repay that debt, and what will the Minister do to ensure that hostage taking never pays?
Elizabeth Truss
I have huge sympathy for Nazanin and Richard Ratcliffe. I have spoken to both of them about the terrible situation that Nazanin faces. It is imperative that she is not put back into jail in Iran, and I am working as hard as I can, both directly with the Iranian authorities—I have had a meeting with Iranian Ministers—and with our international allies to bring Nazanin and the other UK detainees home.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
What discussions has the Foreign Secretary had with the Government of Nigeria about the attacks by Boko Haram and other groups on just about every minority in Nigeria, particularly Christians?
Vicky Ford
We absolutely condemn violence across Nigeria. These attacks have devastating effects on all communities. Religious identity is a factor in some incidents of intercommunal violence, but the root causes are very complex. When I met African heads of mission in London on 21 September, I emphasised that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are all core UK values and that those values also include the freedom of religion or belief.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
We know that 2,763 Yazidi women, girls and children are still missing, seven years after they were abducted by Daesh in Iraq. Many were taken as sexual slaves and child soldiers. Will the Minister meet me and members of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief to review what action the UK can take to support the call to assist those people by members of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance this week?
Vicky Ford
I thank my hon. Friend for her important question and for all the work she does in this area. This Government and I are committed to freedom of religion or belief and to the protection of women and girls, and I would be happy to discuss with her this issue and the wider issues of concern in this area.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Can the Foreign Secretary and former Lord Chancellor impress upon her counterparts in Poland the importance of a judiciary that is free from political interference, as that seems to be under threat there? Can she also reiterate that, post Brexit, Her Majesty’s sovereign Government control their own border policy, which totally entitles them to exclude hate speakers such as the polemicist Rafał Ziemkiewicz, as happened the other day at Heathrow airport?
Wendy Morton
In relation to Poland, we are aware of the recent European Court of Human Rights ruling, which found that recent Polish constitutional court rulings involving controversially appointed judges did not constitute a tribunal established by law. It is for each country to decide on its constitutional arrangements, but here in the UK we expect alignment with international law.
Petition
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition from Hull North constituents and others signing online at change.org.
Hull is a city of ambition, aspiration and enterprise—we are the energy estuary, a freeport and a recent UK city of culture—but that has not been reflected in our worsening rail services. Tomorrow’s spending review, and the integrated rail plan expected in November, will show whether the Government are serious about levelling up the whole of the north and about green transport ahead of COP26. Hull’s MPs have also written to Ministers setting out seven tests on levelling up for transport.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to prioritise the rail electrification of the Hull-Selby line and the upgrading of the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole by inclusion in the forthcoming Integrated Rail Plan.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that rail links to Hull are among the poorest in the north of England; further that the current train service reliability of 60 per cent or lower means it is quicker to travel to Leeds by road; further that the Humberside economy is increasingly supplying renewable energy but poor rail connections to Hull and the port do not encourage sustainable transport choices; further that electrifying the Leeds to Hull route via Selby, and significantly upgrading the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole, will permit cleaner, faster and more reliable trains to run in and out of Hull; further that this will provide an electrified railway from east to west and allow freight to cross coast to coast more efficiently; and notes that the Government has committed to a carbon neutral economy by 2050.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to prioritise the rail electrification of the Hull-Selby line and the upgrading of the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole by inclusion in the forthcoming Integrated Rail Plan.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002694]
Budget: Pre-announcement of Provisions
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
Before we come to the urgent question, I have a short statement to make. I have repeatedly stated in the clearest possible terms that important announcements should be made by the Government first in this House rather than outside it. I did so again yesterday in relation to the briefings issued to the media about the Budget. I was therefore disappointed to see more stories in the media today with apparently very well-briefed information about what will be in tomorrow’s Budget. The Government do not just have to take my word for this; their own ministerial code says:
“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.”—
in this House.
As I said yesterday, I do not have to give a reason for my decisions about urgent question applications, but in this case I want the House, and especially the Government, to be clear that if the Government continue to treat this House in this discourteous manner, I will do everything in my power to ensure that Ministers are called here at the earliest opportunity to explain themselves. I personally have nothing against the Minister and I feel sorry for the person who has to answer at the Dispatch Box but, once again, this House will not be taken for granted. It is not right for everybody else to be briefed. It is not more important to go on the news in the morning; it is more important to come here. Let us get the message across that these elected Members represent this United Kingdom. It is not done through Sky TV.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a statement on the details of all the provisions in the upcoming Budget that have been made public in advance of the Chancellor’s statement.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
Mr Speaker, I have the deepest respect for you, this House and all its processes. It is a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. The ability of Parliament to scrutinise the Government, including the Budget, is clearly crucial, which is why we have five days of parliamentary debate ahead of us this week and next, and it is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will, in addition, be appearing before two Select Committees of this House next week.
Tomorrow my right hon. Friend will announce a Budget that delivers a stronger economy for the British people, invests in public services and levelling up, and delivers on growth and jobs with a pay rise for 7 million people— 5 million in the public sector and 2 million through an increase in the national living wage.
I will briefly summarise the headline announcements we have already made on the Budget, with the caveat that the bulk of the detail of the Budget will be delivered by the Chancellor himself at this Dispatch Box tomorrow. Importantly, that includes all market-sensitive information. Part of the Government’s objective in trailing specific aspects of the Budget in advance is to help communicate to the public what we are doing with their hard-earned money, because we believe there is merit in clear and accurate information.
I now turn briefly to just a few of the measures we have announced: an increase in the national living wage from £8.91 to £9.50 an hour, meaning an extra £1,000 a year for a full-time worker; £3 billion-worth of investment to build a high-wage, high-skill economy, with a doubling of investment in 16 to 19-year-olds and a quadrupling of the number of skills boot camps; and a multibillion-pound overhaul of local transport to help level up communities across England, with transport settlements for city regions increased to £5.7 billion and allocated directly to cities. As part of the spending review, there is a £5.9 billion deal for the NHS to tackle the backlog of non-emergency procedures and to modernise digital technology, with at least 100 community diagnostic centres to help clear most test backlogs by the end of this Parliament.
These are just a few of the measures that the Chancellor will outline to the House tomorrow as the Government continue their work to deliver a stronger economy for the British people.
Bridget Phillipson
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.
We face an urgent cost of living crisis. Prices are up in our shops, at our petrol pumps and on our heating bills. Families and businesses are waiting and hoping for the Chancellor to take the action that they and our country desperately need. He has not even delivered his Budget yet and it is already falling apart. In recent days, we have read thousands of words about what he plans to do, but the silence is deafening on the soaring bills and rising prices facing families and businesses.
I have five questions for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury today, and I ask him to answer them clearly and simply, not through a press release but to this House. First, will he properly justify withholding from Parliament decisions that he and his colleagues have detailed in the press?
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman just stood at the Dispatch Box and said that he believes in clear and accurate information. On that basis, will he confirm he understands that, for a full-time worker on the minimum wage in receipt of universal credit, a rise to £9.50 an hour will place far less than an extra £1,000 in their pocket?
Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the public sector pay rises that Ministers told newspapers about yesterday will be real-terms pay rises, as the Under- Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), was unable to do so on the telly this morning?
Fourthly, will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury follow Labour’s lead and confirm today, now he is with us, that he will be cutting VAT on domestic heating bills to 0% for six months? Finally, will he back Britain’s high-street firms and freeze business rates now and replace them with a better system fast?
The right hon. Gentleman can tell the newspapers; it is time for him to tell this House.
Mr Clarke
It is important that we consider all the measures that have been trailed in the round. It is clear that the wider announcements that have been made are entirely accurate. The national living wage is to rise by £1,000 a year, which will take the benefit for a full-time worker on the national living wage to £5,000 since 2016. That is a substantial increase. It beggars belief that the Labour party can stand there and say that a 6.6% increase in the national living wage is somehow not enough. It needs to be considered in conjunction with all the other announcements that have been made, including the £500 million household support fund, the energy price cap and all the action that we have taken to freeze fuel duty and to keep bills low. We are acutely conscious of the pressures that face households and we take action to modify them.
On public sector pay, which the hon. Lady asked about, I am delighted that we will be returning to the normal processes that adjust public sector pay in the light of all the pressures that exist. It will be for the relevant pay review bodies to discuss that, in conjunction with the Government, in the normal way. I am not going to pre- empt that work, but we will work closely with them to make sure that what is announced is right. The Chancellor will have further details on that in his speech.
On the cost of energy, the energy price cap is protecting households, with up to £100 a year off their bills. That is the right thing to do. We all recognise that that is a priority for all our constituents.
On business rates, we will get the upshot of the fundamental review of how we can get the future of business rates right. The Labour party has committed to abolishing business rates, without any clear idea of how it would fund that. Indeed, the disconnect between what the Labour party has committed to and what it has actually identified the funding for is somewhere in the region of £400 billion of commitments with £5 billion of savings to pay for them. That is not a responsible way to run the economy.
What you will be hearing from the Government Benches tomorrow, Mr Speaker, is a clear plan to make sure that we can not only balance the books but take our economy forward in a way that works for the benefit of all our communities. That is obviously the priority for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and for me.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
This is not the first Government who have wanted more than one day’s news out of a Budget, but the right way to do it is for all Ministers to observe complete Budget secrecy, for the Chancellor to announce the tax changes and the block totals on spending and then, in the days that follow, for Cabinet Ministers to come to the House to announce the detailed spending plans and subject them to our scrutiny. If that was right for all previous Governments, why is it not right for this one?
Mr Clarke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I completely share his assessment of the importance of this House, of which both the Chancellor and I are acutely aware. In 2013, the then Chancellor, George Osborne, asked the permanent secretary for Her Majesty’s Treasury to conduct a review of the practice of the release of Budget information under embargo on Budget day, and he set out a series of recommendations. His central conclusion was that the Treasury should introduce
“a ban on the pre-release of the core of the Budget…that is: the economic and fiscal projections, the fiscal judgement and individual tax rates, reliefs and allowances.”
We have observed that stricture in full and I am obviously totally committed to continuing to do that.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I do not know whether to congratulate the Minister on his promotion, as he has come here to give us the Budget a day early. What he has not given this House is an apology. He should not be announcing things on Twitter; we should be waiting for the Budget to see the full detail. This has been going on since September—it is not new. There have been daily announcements drip-feeding the entire Budget ahead of time. Of course, the Government hold all the cards, along with the Office for Budget Responsibility, because we cannot tell what the detail actually means. For Scotland, we cannot tell what the Barnett consequentials —if, indeed, there are any—will be.
We know what is going to be in the Budget speech and we know what is not going to be in it, because the Government have not done things such as carbon capture and storage in Scotland. Of course, none of it is what the Government and the Chancellor should be doing in the Budget speech. They should be reinstating the £20 universal credit cut; scrapping the national insurance tax on jobs; tackling the spiralling cost-of-living crisis; and supporting hospitality and tourism with a VAT cut to see them through the winter months and into next year.
If the Government cannot be responsible with the powers that they hold and if they cannot be trusted to give us the actual truth on Budget day tomorrow, all the financial powers—I call for this again—should be given to the Scottish Parliament so that we can make the decisions that are right for the people of Scotland.
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks. I think that we are much stronger as one United Kingdom. The OECD has reaffirmed that we are expected to have the fastest growth in the G7 both this year and next and that is something that we are achieving as one country together. She asked about the Barnett consequentials. Those will be set out very clearly in the Budget tomorrow. (Interruption.) I can assure her that, of course, we consider this very closely and we will be in a position to give good news for Scotland as part of a strong United Kingdom tomorrow. I had productive conversations about the future of the fiscal framework with the Scottish Finance Minister, Kate Forbes, just last week. I can commit that I will be speaking to her in accordance with the usual Budget conventions tomorrow morning, ahead of the statement.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I am sure that my right hon. Friend accepts that the rabbit may be out of the hat. So if the Chancellor is still looking for a fluffy bunny to present on Budget day, may I advise that we make a huge announcement about the Government’s levelling-up fund? That would be welcomed by communities across the north of England and demonstrate our Government’s commitment to make sure that we level up the peoples of the north.
Mr Clarke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right that levelling up is a core theme of this Government. It is something of which I am very proud, as a north-eastern MP, to have the chance to help deliver, and it is going to be one of the golden threads of the Budget and spending review tomorrow. I wish that I could start plucking rabbits out of the hat for him now, but he will have to wait just a few more hours to get some, hopefully, very welcome news.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. It has taken me nearly 30 years, but I now find that I agree with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) in his question. This is serious. As an Opposition, we cannot look in detail at the slew—the blizzard—of Budget announcements that have been going on week after week, because we do not have the OBR report and we do not have the detail. This is treating parliamentary democracy with utter contempt and the Minister should be completely ashamed of himself. He should have come to this House and apologised. His boss should have come to this House and apologised.
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Lady for her points. Clearly, as a former Treasury Minister herself, she would never have engaged in any activity of this kind. The point is that there is absolutely no question of our commitment to observing all the proprieties, reflecting the Macpherson review, which was an internal review conducted by Sir Nicholas, the then permanent secretary, to work out what was sensible in advance of the Budget. We have not commented on any of the substantive tax measures and there will be a raft of full information in both the Budget documents and the documents provided by the OBR, which obviously provides a level of detail that the last Labour Government never provided in terms of their equivalent events.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
There are two sides to this coin. The first is the Government broadcasting without first letting us know. The other is the information that they are trying to keep from us. Why was the leaked information on the substantial costs of winter plan B marked “Not for publication”? What are the Government trying to hide? Why are they frightened of our scrutiny?
Mr Clarke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I will not comment on leaks—[Laughter.] The absolute bottom line is that we are, of course, committed to plan A, and there is no question but that he will find that plan A remains the resolute conviction of both this Government and, I believe, this House in terms of how we can most sensibly take the country through the winter ahead. We are not moving to plan B. We are committed to plan A. He should be reassured that we want to keep our economy and society open as we move through the challenges of the weeks and months ahead.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I have been here for many years and have seen many Budgets. I have seen the Order Papers being waved on the day, and then the Budgets fall apart over the following hours and the following days, but this is the first Budget that I have seen fall apart before Budget day. We have heard the announcement about public sector pay, but we have not heard whether, if it is increased, that increase will be funded, or whether it will have to come from within existing budgets. When the Government were forced to increase the pay rise for nurses from 1% to 3%, they did not fund it; they forced it to be funded from within NHS resources. Since we are into leaks, will the Minister tell us whether the Government intend to fund a public sector pay increase?
Mr Clarke
Ensuring that we can move out of the shadow of the public sector pay freeze is obviously something that we are all glad to be able to do. The Chancellor will set out the full details of how that will operate in his statement tomorrow.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Minister is one of the nice guys in Parliament and richly deserved his promotion. What he did not deserve was to be put in this position by an untenable policy. I have to ask him the question: why is it important, right or necessary to share Budget information with the media before it is shared with this House, where it can be subjected to proper scrutiny, and will he give an undertaking on behalf of the Treasury team to stop doing it?
Mr Clarke
I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words. As a Treasury team—indeed, as a Government—we are all committed to ensuring that this House is fully respected. That remains at the core of our work. As a Member of this House, I take that very seriously, and so does the Chancellor. Clearly, when we set out certain announcements, we try to provide some specific information about what the Government are seeking to achieve with those measures. We have respected absolutely and in full the stricture that we should not be talking about tax measures or adjustments, and that is something that I can commit we will absolutely continue to do.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Education has been very much missing from the pre-announcements. Given the amount of learning that our children have lost due to covid, I wonder whether the Minister would give us another leak or pre-announcement by letting us know whether the full £15 billion advocated by the Government’s education recovery adviser before he resigned will be allocated to education, and what support he will be giving to the devolved nations on the same topic.
Mr Clarke
It is obviously tremendously important that we help our schools to catch up, given the impact of the months of lost learning owing to the pandemic. I have seen that in my constituency, as the hon. Member will have in hers. The Government have committed £3 billion to date to help with education catch-up. The Chancellor will be speaking more about this matter in his statement tomorrow.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Funded by taxpayers through Her Majesty’s Treasury, the NHS hospital building programme is a flagship policy and a key part of the Treasury’s medium-term forecasts. Kettering General Hospital is one of those hospitals. When NHS England approves the strategic outline case for the hospital and submits those proposals to the Chief Secretary for sign-off, will he look favourably upon it, because it is a key priority for constituents in Kettering?
Mr Clarke
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to speak up for the hospital in his constituency. The Government have committed to 40 new hospitals and 70 hospital upgrades. That is a core part of our programme to ensure that the NHS is fit for the future. I will, of course, be delighted to look at the case for Kettering General Hospital, as will ministerial colleagues across the piece, including at the Department of Health and Social Care. I would be delighted to have further meetings on the subject with my hon. Friend, if that would be useful to him.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, the Minister said at the beginning that he respected you and this House, but does he not accept that the reason that we are here now, having this urgent question, is precisely because the opposite has happened? When he answers that question, perhaps he can also enlighten us: has he had discussions with the Welsh Government about the UK shared prosperity fund in the way that he has with the editors of the national newspapers?
Mr Clarke
There is absolutely no doubt that we have observed all the proprieties by not talking about tax measures in any of the discussions that have been had. I am in regular contact with the Welsh Government. Indeed, I met the Welsh Finance Minister last week and will be speaking to her again tomorrow morning ahead of the Budget, in the usual way.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
I welcome the announcements that have been trailed ahead of the Budget, in particular the latest announcement on the national living wage. Will my right hon. Friend outline how this national living wage will help my constituents and his in Teesside?
Mr Clarke
Ensuring that work always pays is one of the foundational principles of this Government. It is what differentiates us, frankly, from the last Labour Government, who had a series of policies that, I am afraid, did not incentivise work. That led to what the then editor of The Spectator termed,
“the most expensive poverty in the world.”
I am afraid that that was the unfortunate legacy of a series of failed policies. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that the national living wage rise is the right thing to do. I am excited about that policy, and it continues our strong track record of ensuring that our plan for jobs is matched by rising living standards.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Diolch, Mr Speaker. Many of the pre-Budget announcements relate to the so-called levelling-up agenda, of which the community renewal fund is a key element. Given the delay in announcing the initial successful bidders, will the Minister press the Chancellor at this late stage to make an announcement tomorrow to extend the delivery time for those that were successful in the first phase?
Mr Clarke
I would be happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s recommendation, but there will be further announcements on the community ownership fund tomorrow.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, you may have read in the press that the Chancellor is preparing to tell us tomorrow that the national minimum wage will increase to £9.50 next April, but that remains way below the income that a worker can live on. Worse still, the savage age discrimination will carry on, with young people in Middlesbrough, across Teesside and across the country having to suffer appallingly low pay. The current rate for under-18s is £4.62 an hour. That is an increase of just 98p since 2010, meaning that their wages have gone down in real terms. Will the Government stop treating young people with such disdain, commit to scrapping the age bands and uplift the national minimum wage to £15 an hour, so that all workers can live fully flourishing lives?
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. Clearly, he might want to take this matter up with the leader of his own party, as I understand that it has been the subject of some disagreement. The Government are of course committed to ensuring that younger workers get fair pay. We obviously have to balance that against the wider commitment that we have to ensuring that we do not perpetuate the serious situation of youth unemployment that we inherited from the last Labour Government. There will be good news for younger workers in the Budget tomorrow.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
These decisions made by the Government deeply affect people’s lives: energy bills are rocketing; inflation is up; food and petrol prices are up; furlough has ended; and universal credit has been cut. It is no wonder that Citizens Advice Scotland is predicting that my constituents and others will face a really tough winter. They then face an increase in national insurance. With that in mind, is the Chancellor really going to give his old pals in the City a tax cut in the Budget tomorrow?
Mr Clarke
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the £500 million household support fund is being put in place precisely to ensure that we protect families through the winter that lies ahead. That comes on top of all the measures that we have put in place to ensure that we adjust for the cost of living. This Government tax people very fairly. The richest 1% and 5% are paying more tax than they did under the last Labour Government. That includes the banks, which pay their fair share as part of a wider economic settlement.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
VAT receipts have been climbing, which is a good thing. Will the Treasury look at helping those with very high fuel bills—for example, those with many children, those who have to keep their heating on during the day, those who are ill and pensioners—over the coming winter? Will the Minister consider that as part of tomorrow’s package—which, of course, will be announced tomorrow?
Mr Clarke
The household support fund is specifically targeted in order to help with the cost of living. Indeed, much of it is ringfenced for families with children, reflecting the sense of what the hon. Lady is saying. The energy price cap works with that, as does the warm home discount. The warm home discount is becoming more generous next year, as the number of people who benefit from it rises from 2.2 million to 3 million, and its value rises from £140 to £150. Those are the kinds of measures that we will continue to look at. The Chancellor will speak about VAT as part of the wider Budget settlement tomorrow.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
Eighteen years ago, I was deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union. I was a founder member of the drive for the living wage, when we organised 3,000 cleaners in Canary Wharf and the City of London. I agree with the Resolution Foundation that the proposed increase would “not remotely compensate” those who will lose £1,000 as a result of the cut to universal credit. With workers facing a cost of living crisis, rising energy costs, rising inflation, rising fuel costs and rising food prices, is it not the case that workers’ living standards will continue to be squeezed as the Government give with one hand and take away with another?
Mr Clarke
No, I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman’s point. We remain committed to our ambitious target of the national living wage reaching two thirds of median earnings by the end of the Parliament and expanding it to include workers over the age of 21. We have done an awful lot to help with living standards—doubling the personal tax threshold, doubling free childcare, expanding free school meals for all five to seven-year-olds, and introducing the new household support fund and the energy price cap—and further measures will be announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor tomorrow.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I suppose the attraction of delivering a Budget by press release is that it bypasses this House, so when the Government announce billions of pounds to level up transport in the north, I do not get to say that there is nothing in that for Newcastle, where extortionate bus fares are part of the cost of living crisis that my constituents are facing; and when the Minister says that the minimum wage is going up, I do not get to point out that universal credit recipients in Newcastle will still be £800 a year worse off. Why does he think that the Government should not be accountable to the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central?
Mr Clarke
I absolutely do believe that we should be accountable to the people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central. That is why I am here. It is why there will be a five-day Budget debate over the course of the days ahead. It is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will appear in front of a Select Committee. On the hon. Lady’s point about transport settlements, we need to unlock devolution in north-east England. My No. 1 ask of the Labour authorities in that part of the world would be to make sure that they get their act together and unlock a devolution settlement.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
As well as knowing what the Government will be doing, we also know what they intend not to do. We know that they will not be investing in carbon capture and underground storage in Scotland, and we know that they will not be match-funding the Scottish Government’s £500 million just transition fund. Yet the Treasury has raked in some £350 billion of oil revenues over the decades, so why is the Minister’s Department now turning its back on Scotland?
Mr Clarke
Leaving aside tired clichés about our attitude to Scotland, which I am afraid is all we ever get from SNP Members, we are of course a Government committed to the success of the whole of the United Kingdom. The Budget will contain within it many things that reflect the major benefits of the Union for Scotland just as much as for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As a proud British citizen, I would not accept the sense of what the hon. Gentleman says. On carbon capture, utilisation and storage, the Scottish project remains the first reserve, as he will know. We intend to take this project forward, alongside a flourishing North sea oil and gas sector, offshore wind and all the things that will go together to reflect the £30 billion-worth of commitments made as part of our net zero strategy.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Thank you for agreeing to this urgent question, Mr Speaker, because this is getting out of hand, as I am sure you will agree. Only yesterday, I asked the Universities Minister if she would announce the decision on the Augar review and the Government’s response publicly in the Chamber, and she would not commit to that. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, you could follow that up with the Department for Education and make sure that the announcement actually is delivered here in the Chamber. In the past few days we have had more announcements than you get on the Clapham omnibus about the Budget, much of it commercially sensitive. When were the newspapers given details of the announcements the Government were making in the Budget, and when was the advisory board of the Conservative party made aware of some of these announcements?
Mr Clarke
I really do not know what the hon. Gentleman is implying with his question, but clearly no impropriety has occurred. All announcements are made as usual through the normal Treasury and cross-Government processes to make sure that those announcements are released to the media.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that being drip-fed Budget snippets from the press rather than in this House makes it more difficult for right hon. and hon. Members to fully consider the principles without the biased slant of the media? Is he prepared to consider allowing Members access to the Budget the night before, under strict embargo, to enable consideration of the documentation rather than media presentation?
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is of course one of the most assiduous Members of this House. Clearly we all look to make sure that the Budget documentation is as full and as frank as possible—we have the work of the independent Office for Budget Responsibility as well—to make sure precisely that the Budget debate that follows can be as fully informed as possible as to the full implications of all the measures that are announced.
Mr Speaker
Can I just ask for a little clarification from the Minister? He has made an announcement to the House that I am not sure is correct: he said that it is a five-day debate, but I thought it was only four days.
Point of Order
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will remember that last Wednesday at COP26 questions I asked the Minister for COP if he would meet me to discuss the concerns of some businesses in my constituency that are having difficulty as a result of the COP restrictions that have been put in place, and he committed at the Dispatch Box to have that meeting with me. He now appears to be reneging on his promise to me in this House to have a meeting. Is there anything you can do, Mr Speaker, to advise what I should do in these circumstances, because the businesses in my constituency are extremely frustrated and disappointed to have this response from the Minister? I know and I accept that he is busy, but he made a promise in this House, and surely that should mean something.
Mr Speaker
I have great faith in the Minister, and I am sure that as President of COP his word is his bond. I am sure that he will be listening to this and arranging his diary forthwith. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will remind him of that commitment, and I would expect him to fulfil it.
Bill Presented
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Greg Hands, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Elizabeth Truss, Secretary Priti Patel, Secretary Michael Gove, Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Secretary Grant Shapps, presented a Bill to make provision for the implementation of a regulated asset base model for nuclear energy generation projects; for revenue collection for the purposes of that model; for a special administration regime for licensees subject to that model; and about the circumstances in which bodies corporate are not associated with site operators for the purposes of programmes relating to funding the decommissioning of nuclear sites.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 174) with explanatory notes (Bill 174-EN).
Electricity Grid (Review)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Electricity Grid (Review) Bill 2021-22 View all Electricity Grid (Review) Bill 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Government and Ofgem to conduct and act on a review of the electricity transmission grid and associated charges, to include consideration of abolishing charge differentials based on geographic location, incentivising renewable energy generation to maximise energy output, and minimising the passing on of charge fluctuation risk to consumers in the form of higher prices; and for connected purposes.
The driver behind this Bill is that Scotland currently has the highest grid charges in Europe. The Tory Government shrug their shoulders and say, “It’s nothing to do with us—it’s a matter for Ofgem.” However, they are the ones who set the rules for Ofgem to implement. What is the point of the Government bragging about a net zero target for 2050 and a plan to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2035 when they do not seem capable of seeing the bigger picture? While they probably do not care about Scotland having the highest grid charges—it fits their perception that Scotland is remote, so additional cost makes sense, and that anyway it is just us Scots whingeing again—the reality is that continuing as is jeopardises their own net zero plans as well as Scotland’s own targets. It makes a mockery of their levelling up agenda—which is, in reality, just about targeting the red wall seats of north England and the midlands. That agenda was confirmed last week by the disgraceful decision to class the Scottish carbon capture and storage cluster as a reserve.
The current grid charges system was introduced in 1992 following privatisation of the electricity market. Back then, it was based on the concept that electricity is generated from coal, gas, oil or large nuclear stations. With this embedded concept, the charging system is now still geared at incentivising power generation sites close to the centres of population—or, more accurately, the closer to London the better. It is utterly absurd that the UK Government have taken the welcome step to phase out coal-fired electricity generation but are retaining a grid charges system that is based on where to build coal-fired power stations. It is completely bonkers. The obvious strategy would be to consider what a future grid will look like, where are the best locations for the generation of clean renewable energy and what grid upgrades will be required to facilitate that, and then analyse the long-term costs of the grid upgrades and devise a fair system of charging to facilitate that. That is exactly what this Bill seeks to do.
Let us be clear: having the highest geographical charges in Europe creates an uneven playing field when looking for investment. The majority of the countries in Europe do not have locational charges. The ones that do charge way less than is imposed in Scotland. If a developer built a grid-connected turbine in each of these countries—Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, France, Slovakia, Romania and Belgium—the combined locational charges for those nine turbines across nine countries would be less than the charge imposed on a single turbine in the north of Scotland. That illustrates the investor competition for Scotland, let alone the fact that so many other countries, such as the Netherlands and Germany, do not impose geographical charges. Worse, the UK Government are building interconnectors that allow electricity imports that are exempt from these grid charges. I am supportive of an interconnected energy market, but the system incentivises international investors to invest in other countries.
Scotland has 25% of Europe’s offshore wind potential, so future planning should be about how to maximise that, especially when the UK Government have a 40 GW target for offshore wind by 2030, which is reliant on 10 GW coming from Scotland. Scotland also has fantastic potential with floating offshore wind, especially with the Hywind project already operational. Forward thinking should be about maximising opportunities for these leading technologies.
It is not just us in the Scottish National party saying that change is required; the wider industry is saying it too. ScottishPower, SSE, Vattenfall, RWE, Red Rock Power, RenewableUK and Scottish Renewables have all called for changes to the grid charging regime. Indeed, a survey by SSE showed that 93% of industry stakeholders support reform of the current transmission charging regime. Some 84% of respondents stated that the network charging system acts as a barrier to the delivery of their renewable projects in Scotland. What does it take for the UK Government to sit up and listen?
What could be more iniquitous than suffering the highest grid charges in Europe? Well, if we look within the UK energy market, Scotland is further disadvantaged, especially in comparison to southern England. Connections to the south of England result in generators being paid to connect to the grid. It is a physical impossibility to have a negative cost of managing one area of the transmission system, so this therefore appears to be another method of levelling down, not up. The Beatrice array off the coast of Moray pays a unit electricity price of £4.50 to connect to the grid. A comparator in southern England is paid £1.50 per unit of energy. Why is the leader of the Scottish Tories not speaking up about that? Another example in numbers is that a 1 GW site off the north Scottish coast will pay £38 million a year to connect to the grid, yet the same sized offshore windfarm connecting to southern England will get paid £7 million a year. That is a £45 million a year differential between the Scottish and English sides. Over 20 years, that is nearly a £l billion difference.
Scottish offshore windfarms are now 20% more expensive than those in English waters. When the lowest price is winner takes all in the contracts for difference auctions, that becomes a major issue and puts investment in offshore renewable energy in Scotland at risk. It means less direct jobs and less supply chain work, and it potentially hampers a just transition for the oil and gas industry.
The effects of the charging burden on Scottish projects can already be seen. In the 2015 auction round, Scottish projects accounted for almost 40% of the offshore wind contract awards. By the 2019 round, it was down to less than 10%. Surely that is not an intended consequence. Worse, if nothing is done, in the next few years, Scottish grid charges will be charged at a rate equivalent to 50% of the strike rate producers achieved for selling their energy, making it impossible to compete with those bidding in English waters. It is madness to have production prices falling and some of the best sites in Europe, but a grid charging regime blocking the route to market. By default, it means Scottish projects need to have 20% greater efficiency or outputs compared with southern England sites to be able to compete. However, higher output equals higher charges, so the cycle continues.
Another point about the current charging system is price volatility. While the actual cost of maintaining and operating the grid remains stable, the charging prices vary by up to 700%, demonstrating that the system is not fit for purpose. As companies cannot predict these fluctuations, it is a risk factor they have to add to their project costs. By the end of this decade, that will be costing consumers an estimated £400 million a year in wasted costs.
In terms of the best use of billpayers’ money when considering the future energy mix, we should not be spending billions of pounds on new nuclear. At £23 billion, Hinkley Point C is the most expensive power station in the world. Despite complete market failure in the nuclear sector, the UK Government still want to spend £20 billion- plus on Sizewell. Worse, these nuclear sites will get paid under the current regime to connect to the grid—more hidden subsidies for nuclear. Instead, investment should be committed to pumped storage hydro such as SSE’s Coire Glas and the Cruachan dam extension being planned by Drax. That creates renewable energy ready to be dispatched when required and at a fraction of the cost of nuclear. An Imperial College report suggests the system could save £700 million a year.
Wave and tidal is also at the stage of being able to scale up. All that is needed for the next stage of scaling up is some ringfenced money in the forthcoming contracts for difference auction. Money has been ringfenced for floating wind, so why not wave and tidal? I urge the Minister to act urgently, before it is too late. We cannot have another Westminster decision that adversely impacts Scotland. The Orbital O2 tidal generator situated off the coast of Orkney is already connected to the grid and working. It has 80% UK content, and it was the first vessel launched from Dundee in 40 years. Surely the UK Government want to maximise this technology?
It is clear that change is required, with a rounded energy policy that maps out a route to net zero, a policy that incentivises renewable energy production where it is best suited, an end to Scotland having the highest locational grid charges in Europe and an end to the volatility of the system operational charges. This Bill seeks to do that. I hope that the UK Government see sense, but there is an alternative: Scotland having full control of its destiny.
Mr Speaker
There is nothing like using every second of the 10 minutes. Well done.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Alan Brown, Alison Thewliss, Gavin Newlands, Patricia Gibson, Drew Hendry, Deirdre Brock, David Linden, Dr Philippa Whitford, Brendan O’Hara, Carol Monaghan and Stephen Flynn present the Bill.
Alan Brown accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 3 December, and to be printed (Bill 175).
Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
Ordered,
That the Order of 22 June 2021 (Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern Bill) (Programme)) be varied as follows:
(1) Paragraphs (4) and (5) of the Order shall be omitted.
(2) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(3) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.—(Alan Mak.)
Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 View all Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Appointment of Joint First Ministers—
‘(1) The Northern Ireland Act 1998 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection 16A (appointment of Ministers following Assembly election), leave out subsections (4) to (7) and subsection (9), and insert after subsection (3)—
“(3ZA) Each candidate for the office of Joint First Ministers must stand for election jointly with a candidate for the other office.
(3ZB) Two candidates standing jointly shall not be elected to the two offices without support of two thirds of members present and voting.
(3ZC) The Joint First Ministers—
(a) shall not take up office until each of them has affirmed the terms of the pledge of office; and
(b) subject to the provisions of this Part, shall hold office until the conclusion of the next election for First Ministers.”
(3) In subsection (3)(a) the reference to “subsections (4) to (7)” is replaced by a reference to “subsections (3ZA) to (3ZC)”.
(4) Any reference in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to the First Minister or deputy First Minister is to be taken as a reference to the Joint First Ministers.’
This new clause provides for the joint election of First Ministers, and further prescribes a weighted majority vote in the Assembly, without the use of designations, for this purpose.
New clause 3—First Minister and deputy First Minister to be referred to as Joint First Ministers—
‘The First Minister and deputy First Minister elected under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 are to be referred to as Joint First Ministers, and all references in that Act (other than to their election) to the First Minister and deputy First Minister are to be read as references to the Joint First Ministers.’
This new clause provides that First Minister and deputy First Minister be referred to as Joint First Ministers reflecting their identical status, powers and responsibilities.
New clause 4—Appointment of First Ministers—
‘(1) The Northern Ireland Act 1998 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection 16A (appointment of Ministers following Assembly election), leave out subsections (4) to (7) and subsection (9), and insert after subsection (3)—
“(3ZA) Each candidate for the office of joint First Ministers, must stand for election jointly with a candidate for the other office.
(3ZB) Two candidates standing jointly shall not be elected to the two offices without one or more of the following measures of representational support—
(a) the support of a majority of members, a majority of designated Nationalists and a majority of Unionists; or
(b) the support of 60 per cent of members, 40 per cent of designated Nationalists and 40 per cent of designated Unionists; or
(c) the support of two thirds of members.
(3ZC) The First Minister and the deputy First Minister—
(a) shall not take up office until each of them has affirmed the terms of the pledge of office; and
(b) subject to the provisions of this Part, shall hold office until the conclusion of the next election for First Ministers.
(3) In subsection (3)(a) the reference to “subsections (4) to (7)” shall be replaced by a reference to “subsections (3ZA) to (3ZC)”.’
This new clause would restore the Good Friday Agreement provision for joint election by the Assembly of the joint First Ministers.
Amendment 8, in clause 4, page 5, line 22, after “Assembly” insert “users of services,”
This amendment would ensure that Ministers and Departments are accountable and responsible to users of services, as well as to the Assembly and the public.
Amendment 6, page 5, line 25, at end insert—
“(ba) actively support the adoption and implementation of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland that is faithful to the stated intention of the 1998 Agreement”
This amendment requires Northern Ireland Ministers to support actively the adoption of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland as envisaged in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement 1998 and in paragraphs 5.26 to 5.29 of Annex E (Rights, language and identity) to The New Decade, New Approach Deal 2020.
Amendment 9, page 5, line 25, at end insert—
“(ba) ensure all reasonable requests for information from the Assembly, users of services and individual citizens are complied with; and that Departments and their staff conduct their dealings with the public in an open and responsible way;”
This amendment would ensure that the principles of transparency and openness, as well as a duty to comply with requests for information, as outlined in Strand One, Annex A of the Good Friday Agreement, are maintained within the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
Amendment 10, page 5, line 25, at end insert—
“(ba) seek in utmost good faith and by using their best endeavours to implement in full the Programme for Government in “The New Decade, New Approach Deal” as regards the transparency, accountability and the functioning of the Executive;”
This amendment requires Ministers to implement the Programme for Government agreed in January 2020, as it relates to transparency, accountability and functioning of the Executive.
Amendment 11, page 5, line 25, at end insert—
“(bb) seek in utmost good faith and by using their best endeavours to implement in full any future deal between the parties to “The New Decade, New Approach Deal” which may be approved by the Assembly;”
This amendment requires Ministers to implement the any future deal on the operation of devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Amendment 12, page 5, line 2, at end insert—
“(ca) abide by and implement in every respect Annex A to Part 2 of “The New Decade, New Approach Deal” as regards the transparency, accountability and the functioning of the Executive;”
This amendment requires Ministers to strengthen and enforce the Ministerial Code and other codes including the Special Adviser Code of Conduct.
Amendment 2, page 5, line 28, at end insert—
“(da) comply with paragraph 2.11 of the Northern Ireland Executive Ministerial Code in relation to the inclusion of ministerial proposals on the agenda for the Northern Ireland Executive, with areas for resolution to be recorded in the list of “Executive papers in circulation” against those papers still outstanding after the third meeting, in accordance with paragraph 62(c) of section F of the Fresh Start Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan;”
This amendment moves from guidance to statute a commitment in the Fresh Start Agreement providing that an item may not be blocked for more than three meetings of the Executive through lack of agreement on the agenda.
Amendment 7, page 5, line 32, at end insert—
“and by supporting the establishment of the consultative Civic Forum established in pursuance of paragraph 34 of Strand One of the Belfast Agreement and by obtaining its views on social, economic and cultural matters;”
The intention of this amendment is to require Northern Ireland Ministers to support the reestablishment of a consultative Civic Forum for Northern Ireland to enable the Assembly to obtain views on social, economic and cultural matters as envisaged in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement 1998.
Amendment 13, in clause 5, page 7, line 12, at end insert—
“(5A) When a petition of concern is lodged against a measure, proposal or a decision by a Minister, Department or the Executive (“the matter”), the Assembly shall appoint a special committee to examine and report on whether the matter is in conformity with equality and human rights requirements, including the European Convention on Human Rights and any Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.
(5B) Consistent with paragraphs 11, 12 and 13 (Strand 1) of the Belfast Agreement, a committee as provided for under subsection (3) may also be appointed at the request of the Executive Committee, a Northern Ireland Minister or relevant Assembly Committee.
(5C) A committee appointed under this section—
(a) shall have the powers to call people and papers to assist in its consideration; and
(b) shall take evidence from the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission.
(5D) A committee appointed under this section shall—
(a) report in terms that reflect evidence regarding human rights and equality assessments relating to the matter; and
(b) identify relevant clarification, adjustments and amendments (in the case of legislation) and/or other assurances which would address the stated concerns.
(5E) The Assembly shall consider the report of any committee appointed under this section and determine the matter in accordance with the requirements for cross-community support.
(5F) In relation to any specific petition of concern or request under subsection (5B), the Assembly may decide, with cross-community support, that the procedure in subsections (5A) and (5C) shall not apply.”
This amendment provides for a petition of concern to lead to a special procedure, described in paragraphs 11-13 of Strand One of the Belfast Agreement, whereby a special committee shall consider the stated concern(s) relating to equality requirements and/or human rights. Such a special committee could also be appointed at the request of the Executive Committee, a Northern Ireland Minister or relevant Assembly Committee.
Amendment 3, page 7, line 19, at end insert—
“(aa) make provision for the minimum period under (a) to be reduced in prescribed circumstances to be determined by the Assembly;”
This amendment gives the Assembly the discretion via its Standing Orders to reduce the timescales in relation to Petitions of Concerns in circumstances to be determined by the Assembly.
Amendment 14, page 7, line 27, at end insert—
“(ca) specify the size, timescale and terms of reference for such a committee; and
(cb) specify procedure(s) to allow for subsection (5E).”
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 13 and would further clarify how standing orders should make due provision for the working terms for the sort of special committee/ procedure in respect of stated human rights or equality concerns as outlined in paragraphs 11-13 of Strand One of the Good Friday Agreement.
Amendment 4, page 7, line 31, at end insert—
“(e) make provision to allow petitioners to withdraw a petition of concern at any stage in the process.”
This amendment would allow for a Petition of Concern to be withdrawn and to enable the affected matter of business to proceed without waiting for any statutory timetable to be concluded.
Amendment 5, page 7, line 37, at end insert—
“unless prescribed circumstances to be determined by the Assembly to reduce this period, apply”
Amendment 1, in clause 8, page 8, line 8,a leave out—
“at the end of the period of two months beginning with”
and insert “on”.”
This amendment enables the Bill to be commenced with Royal Assent.
Stephen Farry
At the outset, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to Sir David Amess and pass on my condolences to his family. I also reference his personal connection to the Bill, in that he was one of the Chairs in Committee. True to his character, he handled proceedings professionally, efficiently and with huge impartiality. May I also say, for those MPs who are still new to this place and are still swotting up on procedure, that he was very generous and understanding in that regard? I also thank the House of Commons staff, and the Bill Clerks in particular, for the rapid turnaround of amendments in the past week.
The amendments in my name fall into four broad categories: the election or nomination of First Minister and Deputy First Minister; reforms to petitions of concern; the operation of the Executive; and the commencement date. On the nomination and election of the First Ministers, frankly the current system does not work. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister are identical in terms of status, powers, responsibilities and duties. That one small distinction in wording takes on disproportionate importance—indeed it is only symbolic—and turns our elections into the politics of fear. That risks crowding out consideration of important economic, social and environmental issues during election campaigns. They are often about keeping the other side out, and yet, in the past, the so-called victorious party has gone on to share power in the same joint office with the largest party from the other designation.
There is speculation that Sinn Féin could emerge as the largest party after the next Assembly election and we have two Unionist parties unwilling to make clear whether in such circumstances they would serve as Deputy First Minister. That is hugely destabilising and a selective application of the rules of democracy as they stand. That could lead us into a difficult situation after the next election. People should clearly adhere to the rules, but that does not preclude us from seeking support for reforms to make the system work more effectively.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
It is important to note that there will be issues on which we can find agreement. There will also be issues and amendments before us today on which we cannot find agreement. However, importantly for these proceedings, does the hon. Member agree that, as we discussed in Committee, the Bill fairly reflects what was agreed in New Decade, New Approach and that, unless and until we get joint agreement on a range of issues through another forum, we should not be tinkering around with too many amendments?
Stephen Farry
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his comments. I agree partially. The Bill does accurately reflect the New Decade, New Approach agreement, but it is worth referencing that that was made back in January 2020. I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), for his endeavours in that regard. However, we have had many political developments since then. One of my great frustrations as a Member of this place and previously as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly is that we often respond to the last crisis and fix the rules to address what has already happened rather than trying to look ahead, anticipate where crises are likely to happen and put measures in place that will make the world operate more easily.
That brings me to new clause 1, in my name, which seeks to address anomalies in the current system. At present, the largest party regardless of designation is entitled to the position of First Minister. However, the Deputy First Minister must come from the largest party from the largest remaining designation. I do not want to get too far ahead of myself as a member of the Alliance party, but it is conceivable that, one day—perhaps after the next election or at some time in the future—a party that is not Unionist or nationalist may be the second-largest party in Northern Ireland and yet it would not be automatically entitled to that position. That would create a certain crisis of legitimacy in terms of the institutions and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister team. With that small measure, we could address that problem.
Secondly, I turn to new clause 4 in in the names of the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) of the Social Democratic and Labour party, which would essentially return to the Good Friday agreement model and the first iteration in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 by providing for an election of a joint team of FM and DFM. That would have two advantages: Assembly endorsement of the team; and reinforcement of the point of collective responsibility from being part of a joint office, not two individuals pursuing separate agendas.
My one reservation is that that relies on the current cross-community voting system, which is fundamentally linked to the designation system. As hon. Members will know, MLAs are required to sign in as Unionist, nationalist or other. I used to be an “other”, which is a wonderful way to describe one’s identity. The system perpetuates the two communities model in Northern Ireland rather than reflecting the diversity that existed in 1998 and that which exists today. There are people with open, mixed and multiple identities, and there are people from different backgrounds who have come to live in Northern Ireland and are not properly reflected in how we frame the operation of the Assembly. That needs reform.
Thirdly, new clause 2, in my name, would return to the Good Friday agreement model but with the distinction that we end up with a purely weighted majority vote—set at two thirds—without reference to any designations whatsoever. That is the fairest and most ideal way to address the issue. It would avoid some anomalous outcomes and inflexibility. Both new clauses on the second and third options would take the opportunity to acknowledge in law and change terminology to confirm and reinforce that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister are identical in status, powers, responsibilities and duties.
New clause 3—my final amendment in the group—would reinforce that point about the equality of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in all those respects but outside the context of the nomination or election process. We may not be able to find consensus on that during the Bill’s remaining stages. However, we should take the opportunity outwith that to reflect in law that the FM and DFM are entirely equal, to try to take the heat out of the fairly stupid, meaningless contrast that is made and creates huge tension in our election campaigns. Unfortunately, we would need to make one exception and say that that would not apply to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister election process, because, until we change the system, someone must be put in place first, and someone else second.
I turn to petitions of concern, which have been a source of huge controversy in the past 20 years in Northern Ireland. Petitions of concern have been used and abused well beyond their original intention. They have brought huge discredit, and indeed tension, to the Assembly. It is worth noting that virtually no human rights or equality legislation has been passed by the Assembly. Instead, it has been done either through various periods of direct rule or through the direct intervention of Westminster, notably through the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 in recent times. I welcome the reforms in New Decade, New Approach, but the Alliance party is sceptical about whether they go far enough. People may say that there have not been any petitions of concern since the Assembly’s restoration. That is true, but we have also not had much legislation or any equality or human rights pieces before the Assembly. We must therefore remain vigilant.
I want to test two points with the Government. The first lies in the 14-day timeframe for a petition of concern to be considered, which may turn out to be a straitjacket. There may well be situations in which a matter must be considered urgently, such as a legal responsibility or some other deadline that must be met in response to a legislative consent motion. I therefore think it is worth clarifying that the Assembly has the ability within its Standing Orders to vary that 14-day timeframe if the circumstances warrant it. In a similar light, a petitioner or set of petitioners could withdraw their support for a petition if they feel that the issues they were concerned about have been addressed otherwise, rather than having the clock continue. In Committee, the Minister of State’s predecessor did give such reassurances, and I hope that the incumbent will be happy to do the same today.
I turn briefly to the operation of the Executive. Amendment 2 would move the “three meetings rule” from guidance to statute. At present, we have much concern in relation to the petitions of concern issue in the Assembly, but it is not as commonly understood that there are mutual vetoes in the context of the Executive. They must also be addressed. One such veto relates to the formation of the agenda. At times, Ministers have sought to put papers on the agenda but been blocked persistently. The three meetings rule is therefore of particular importance.
I appreciate that others are waiting to speak so, finally, I want to talk about the commencement timeframe. Comments about such timeframes may be unusual on Report, but this is an important point in this particular context. It is unusual to have a Northern Ireland Bill moving through Parliament at the normal pace of a Bill—most tend to be matters of urgency.
The ethos of the New Decade, New Approach agreement was to ensure that the institutions worked together, that we have sustainability and that we try to avoid crises, whether that is collapse of the Assembly or difficulty in forming a new Executive after an Assembly election. It is two years since New Decade, New Approach was agreed, but we are only now putting this into legislation, and we meet in the midst of a potential crisis of non-delivery of other aspects of New Decade, New Approach, with tensions emerging around the protocol and the unrealistic demands made in that regard—the Democratic Unionist party of colleagues sitting in front of me has made threats that it may withdraw its Ministers from the Executive in the near future—as well as speculation about what might happen after the next Assembly election. It would therefore be seen as absurd if we had a crisis when the measures in the Bill could to some extent have been helpful in managing that crisis. However, the Bill might still be in the process of going through Parliament or, even worse, it might have received Royal Assent but, because of the two-month commencement period, we would not be in a position to deploy the measures that might have helped the situation.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the next speaker, I should just say that this debate must finish at 2.18 pm. We then go on to Third Reading. Obviously, the Front Benchers and Ministers will want some time to wind up, so this part of the debate is limited, depending on how many people wish to speak. I ask Members to bear that in mind.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I commend the debate and the discussion about the First Minister’s titles and many of the other issues raised by the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry). I am particularly sympathetic about the commencement date. However, I do not believe that this is the right place or the right Bill for many of the other amendments. Even more importantly, they risk the House losing focus on the important issue at hand: the need to implement the clauses in the Bill that assert the continuation of the Executive, with Ministers in caretaker roles, should a First or Deputy First Minister exit power sharing. A number of witnesses in Committee raised the importance of those clauses.
The sustainability clauses were a key part of last year’s New Decade, New Approach agreement and they have not yet been implemented. On Second Reading, in July, my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) highlighted the fact that the Government were already looking tardy. The sustainability clauses were agreed in order to avoid what happened in 2017, which led to three years of no Government in Northern Ireland. Even when the Bill progresses to the other place, I fear that there will be timetabling delays. As we heard, the Bill also has a two-month commencement date, so it will not be implemented for several months.
That is important because, should a First or Deputy First Minister leave office, only two weeks are provided to fill the slots. There is then a duty on the Secretary of State to call an election, but history shows that the election is often not called immediately and Northern Ireland is left ungoverned. The Bill will stop the political parties from thinking that there is an emergency escape hatch when things become politically difficult and will provide for up to 24 weeks to resolve things.
Currently, a number of issues could tempt political parties to use that escape hatch: the protocol, the cultural package, the UK Government’s putative changes to the Human Rights Act 1998, and the legacy proposals. A cocktail of issues are being injected, sometimes recklessly, into the fragile ecosystem of Northern Ireland. In that context, there is a clear and present danger of one Northern Ireland party or more diving for the emergency escape hatch. The Bill will slam shut that cop-out option.
The first clauses of the Bill are designed to put the ball back in the court of any party that seeks to exit the Executive and to shine the spotlight on each political party in Northern Ireland to restore government. Otherwise, the ball comes back into the UK Government’s court. The vast majority of NI citizens want continued devolved government. Yes, there are arguments for change and reforms at the right time, such as new clause 3, but the big issue today is why the Bill has not yet been implemented. More importantly, this House must be clear that the Bill needs to be implemented now.
The practical measures that will allow continued government—now 18 months late—will ensure that Northern Ireland business and citizens get the stability they crave. I therefore urge the Government to get the Bill to the Lords quickly, to remove the two-month commencement date and to ensure that they get behind keeping the pressure on all parties to maintain devolved government and maintaining the Good Friday agreement in all its parts.
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)
First, I welcome many of the provisions in the Bill. As the previous speaker, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), knows well, we had many long hours in the three-year hiatus of the Northern Ireland Assembly discussing a lot of this stuff, but it is deeply depressing that 23 years after the Good Friday agreement we are meeting today to find ways to stop political parties pulling the whole show apart.
The political context is that, a few years ago, Sinn Féin pulled the Assembly down for three full years—waiting lists got longer, schools began to crumble, the economy was not dealt with. Even as we stand here today, the DUP is threatening to bring down the very edifice of government in Northern Ireland. If it does not gets its way, it will pull down the Assembly. It has already withdrawn from a key tenet of the Good Friday agreement, which is north-south co-operation. What does that say to the people out there who are languishing on waiting lists? Is it that the DUP’s little niche issues are more important than dealing with the day-to-day, bread-and-butter problems that people face? It is a terrible indictment of our politics that we are even here discussing this.
I will speak to some of the amendments, in particular those on how the First and Deputy First Ministers are elected and appointed, what those offices do and what they are called. My view is that they have always been joint offices: the Deputy First Minister cannot send a letter without the First Minister saying it is okay; the First Minister cannot answer a question without the Deputy First Minister saying it is okay; and many decisions cannot be made without agreement between the two. Decisions are very infrequently made, it seems, because they do not seem to agree on an awful lot.
What is really concerning, all these years after the Good Friday agreement, is that as of today, none of the Unionist parties has told us what they would do if a nationalist gets enough votes to occupy the First Minister’s position. They are refusing to tell us whether they would even serve in that Government. Well, it is not 1968 anymore, and nationalists will no longer be treated as second-class citizens. People have marched in the streets and been beaten off the streets so that our votes could count just as much as anyone else’s. If Unionist politicians want to come along and lecture anybody about the sustainability of institutions and working together, they must seriously consider their answer the next time they are asked whether they would serve as Deputy First Minister if a nationalist becomes First Minister.
In reality—we have seen this before with the Justice Minister—because of a cosy agreement between a big nationalist party and the DUP, a nationalist is still not allowed to serve in the Department of Justice. In fact it is a joint office, which is why new clause 3 has been tabled, and it is about time we looked at that reality. From listening to some of the big radio shows in Northern Ireland and watching the television news, it is clear that over the next six months in the run-up to this election—if we are allowed to have an election—we will be faced with constant arguing: “Who will be First Minister and who will be Deputy First Minister? You have to come out to vote to stop these people becoming First Minister.” Even though we have had that for 20 years, the DUP still go into government with them. DUP Members used to say, “We can’t have Martin McGuinness as First Minister. He was a terrorist”, but then they went into government with him, occupied that very same office, and worked with him every day.
Let us, please, get rid of the constant division and debate about who is First Minister and who is Deputy First Minister. I sense we will not get there today, but there is an opportunity, which I ask the Government to consider, to look at new clause 3 and think seriously about how we resolve this issue. The job of the British and Irish Governments in our peace process is to see problems before they arise, and a blind man on a galloping horse can see what is coming round the corner if we do not resolve this issue now.
It suits the DUP and Sinn Féin to have constant debate about what they call each other, because then we are not dealing with the real issues. Our health service is on the point of collapse, 100 times more people are on out-patient waiting lists in Northern Ireland than they are in England, 29% of our children are living in poverty, but there is still no antipoverty strategy because they could not agree it. My constituency has the highest level of unemployment and economic inactivity anywhere across these islands, and we still do not have the 10,000 students on the Magee university campus who were promised and negotiated by me and the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during those NDNA discussions.
The legacy of the DUP and Sinn Féin’s 15 years in government has been failure, failure and more failure, and they want this argument. Everybody knows that. The Government know it, we know it, the Irish Government know it, and everybody in the House knows it: they want this argument so that they can get away in the smoke for not actually delivering for people. I implore the Government to think seriously about the best way to address this issue. There are a number of good ideas in the new clause, and the best way would be to get rid of the nonsense and pretence that the First Minister is more important than the Deputy First Minister. They are joint First Ministers, so let us begin properly to call them that.
In conclusion, it is a bit rich for the Government to be telling anybody about sustainability in Northern Ireland, when everything they do in Northern Ireland undermines sustainability and the stability of our institutions. That includes how they dealt with the European Union and the DUP, and what they told them about the protocol—apparently there was never going to be a border anywhere. Well, there is one now, and if we were more honest with people we would be in a much better situation.
The NDNA agreement also mentioned 90 days for implementing legacy legislation, but where has that gone? The five parties in Northern Ireland, and every victims’ group, opposes the Government’s proposals on legacy, yet they seem determined to push that forward. We are still waiting—perhaps today is the opportunity—for the Government to tell us when Irish language and culture legislation will be brought to the House, as agreed at NDNA. There is an opportunity to stop the crisis that we are looking at down the barrel—it is clear it is coming—and for the Government to step in and do something, before we end up with another three years of collapse, when more people will be languishing on waiting lists.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Let me echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) said about the need for speed to get this legislation through, which I urge on my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, and hopefully on business managers in the other place. This Bill has dawdled for too long. I agree very much with the vast majority of what the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) had to say, and I shall come back to that point in a moment. [Interruption.] It is not “surprise, surprise”, and I say to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) that when somebody speaks sense, one should usually notice and acknowledge it.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The hon. Gentleman is making a sensible point about the extension of a crisis period. We currently have a situation where a crisis could last for days, and we are now potentially extending that by up to six months. Irrespective of what side of the debate they are on, I ask Members across the House to contemplate whether they would tolerate in their part of the United Kingdom a crisis in statute that is allowed to perpetuate itself for up to six months before it ultimately comes to the buffer zone, or to the point at which it has to be delivered. That point needs to be considered by all hon. Members when they vote on this measure.
Simon Hoare
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, who serves with me on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Thank heavens this is not being dealt with as emergency legislation and rushed through in a 12-hour sitting, but once again it speaks of dealing with Northern Ireland as something other, or as something different, and with a set of circumstances and rules that none of us would find tolerable in England and my constituency of North Dorset, or in Wales or Scotland. The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point that we should all be conscious of.
Colum Eastwood
I remember going through these negotiations with some of the people who are now in the Chamber. In reality—perhaps the hon. Gentleman will agree with this—it was DUP Members who pushed hardest for long periods to try to resolve some of these issues. They were responding to the issue that Sinn Féin had collapsed the institutions last time around. Of course, this time they are the ones threatening to do that, but that was largely the DUP position, and it is strange to hear the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) now opposing it.
Simon Hoare
All I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that I was not privy to those discussions, but we are where we are. We must realise that things have clearly moved on. The operation and reform of the protocol is sitting here like an elephant in the Chamber, but it speaks to my point that the workable delivery of devolution should not be used as a plaything for other issues.
That takes me to the point that the hon. Member for North Down made about democracy. We cannot have a functioning democracy in these islands that is effectively based on the Henry Ford model of selling a car. Henry Ford used to say, “You can have any colour as long as it’s black.” We cannot say, “You can have as many elections as you like as long as I turn out as the winner. If I don’t—if the public have spoken and I haven’t been successful—I won’t accept the result. I will tear the edifice down,” in some sort of democratic political toddler’s temper tantrum. That is not how we do it. Democracy only works when all of us who win take up the weight of winning with responsibility and those who lose accept that they have lost and somebody else has won. If people do not abide by that simple equation, that is not democracy, and that should cause us all considerable concern.
My final point, echoing what the hon. Member for North Down said, is that in the system that we have for sorting these things out, the language that is used—“Unionist”, “nationalist” and “other”—may be past its sell-by date. It hard-bakes into the language and the systems a previous age. It does not reflect Northern Ireland as it is today. This is not the time for it, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that at some point in the not-too-distant future, serious, considered, sober thought needs to be given to how these issues are addressed in order to present Northern Ireland to the rest of the world, and to the rest of the United Kingdom, as it is today and not as it was 20 years ago, or 40 or 50 years ago. We need a contemporary review of that in order to ensure that it is fit for purpose.
My cri de coeur is for all parties to understand that devolution, and its delivery of public service and improvement of life for those who live in Northern Ireland, is not something to be taken lightly. It is not a plaything to be kicked around for cheap party political points.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to speak on any issue in this House, but particularly on issues to do with Northern Ireland. I welcome the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to his new role and wish him well. He rightly came to see the No. 1 constituency in Northern Ireland, Strangford, before he had seen anywhere else. We are very pleased to have had the opportunity to have him there, and we wish him well in his role.
As always, the debate has been clear, and my party’s reasoning has been clearer. I am not enamoured with the form of government in Northern Ireland, and I do not believe that it can or does work, as has been demonstrated very clearly over the last couple of years. I absolutely believe in the right of this place to govern and legislate. However, as my colleagues have said, this is a matter that should be debated in the appropriate forum and not tagged on to this Bill. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee at Stormont is the mechanism to do that.
It grieves me that decisions were made in this place when they should have been made through the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I want to put that on the record. That leads me to an issue that I feel must be highlighted again: this Bill aims to secure a working Assembly with the best mechanism possible, yet it seems that this House interferes at will when public opinion calls for it. That must come to an end. It is time that this place gave the Northern Ireland Assembly the authority to make decisions.
During covid, despite discussion of an abortion Bill, this Government determined that they would bring in abortion in Northern Ireland in the most open way not just in the UK but in all of Europe. Along with colleagues, I strongly resented that, and I still resent it. We now face this Government acting on the NDNA deal, but only when it comes to the Irish language. With great respect to the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), for me this issue is as clear as a bell. The rest of the important provisions, such as health and education, on which there were goals and aims, have been left to trickle through, yet the Irish language is to be given priority by this place.
As my party’s health spokesperson, it concerns me greatly that across Northern Ireland, in a post-covid world, the waiting time for an urgent hip replacement is upwards of five years, for cataract surgery it is upwards of four years, and breast reconstruction for breast cancer survivors is years down the line, with no date whatsoever. I have talked to some of my constituents back home who are fluent and interested Irish language speakers, and they tell me that they want to see priority given to issues such as health and education, to ensure that they are addressed first. I am not sure that the people of the Province believe that the Government should step in and fund these measures.
There are children out of education. There are many schools in my area that are awaiting refurbishment or rebuilding, and that cannot get the support they need in the form of classroom assistants. There is a big issue, too, with assessment for those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. We get referrals every day of the week for those things. There is a generation of children who have had the option to learn music stripped from them, as budget slashing has meant a choice between culture or a teacher.
Those are real issues that impact every one of my constituents, whether they are Unionist or nationalist, whether they are in favour of the Irish language or against it. Those are the issues that people tell me clearly that they want to see addressed. I resent that priority has been given to one aspect of the NDNA over the life-changing aspects, and I urge the Minister to allow the Assembly to carry out its duties according to priority and not political machinations.
I understand the need to support the measures before us today, but I must put on the record my concerns about the prioritisation of some of the spending that the Government have looked towards. Clearly, we should be spending more on policing, because we need more police officers on the streets across Northern Ireland. We have a dearth of them at the moment. The training college is turning out as many as it can as quickly as it can, but the places of those who retire are still not being filled. Improvements need to be made in health, education and policing, and that is where I would like to see the focus.
At the same time, I urge the Government to do the right thing and allow the Assembly to prioritise need over wish and people over politics, and to make our own determination on Northern Ireland issues. I believe in devolution; I always have. I want the devolution that we have in Northern Ireland to achieve something. History has shown that direct rule is not beneficial for the people of the Province. I will therefore support the Bill, hoping against hope that Lord Frost will achieve what he sets out to achieve and ensure that Northern Ireland stops being a third country to the UK and is accepted as an integral part of it.
The next step will be asking the Government not to treat the Assembly as a local council with minor responsibilities, but to allow it to take tough decisions in a democratic manner. I believe that is the foundation of the Bill, and that is why I will support it, but I say to the Minister—I hope that he will respond—that there are priorities that need to be addressed first. I think we all realise that, and my constituents tell me that. Health, education, the economy and policing are where spending should be prioritised—not the Irish language.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
May I take this opportunity to welcome the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to his place? I thank his predecessor, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). He and I enjoyed a very cordial relationship, and I hope that the right hon. Member and I can continue in that fashion for the people of Northern Ireland.
I rise to speak to amendments 6 and 7 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). The instability in recent months has been unsettling for all of us who cherish the Good Friday agreement and believe that its institutions and the principles that underpin it represent the best way forward for Northern Ireland.
As ever, however, that instability has been felt most keenly by the people of Northern Ireland. It is clear that they need a stable, functioning Executive to meet the enormous health and economic challenges facing Northern Ireland. Indeed, as we have heard, a third of the entire population are languishing on health waiting lists, nearly 300 children are without a post-primary place for next year, and of course recovery from covid remains ongoing.
For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, a stable, functioning Executive must be the priority in the coming days and weeks. We welcome attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive and the Assembly. The lessons of the past should offer a clear warning to all of us. Institutions are much easier to collapse than they are to get back up and running. Recent events could scarcely have provided a clearer example of why the provisions contained in the Bill are necessary. It is partly for that reason that the Labour party supports the measures contained in the Bill, although we are deeply concerned that the Secretary of State has stalled on the legislation for so long that it will not now be in a position to be a useful tool in the difficult weeks and months ahead.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I am sure the hon. Lady appreciates, as I do, that Wales now has two language Acts and one language measure, and that they have been great sources of pleasure and a celebration of our culture, bringing people together. I am sure, like me, she would ask the Minister when the Irish language Act will be brought forward, because the end of the month is very fast approaching.
Alex Davies-Jones
I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Lady. She is right that the Welsh Language Act 1993 massively strengthened our culture in Wales and us as a country. I press the Minister on when we can expect that legislation to be forthcoming.
Our amendment would help to push forward progress on two key areas: a Bill of Rights and the re-establishment of a civic forum. On a Bill of Rights, we on the Labour Benches are well aware that it is a reserved responsibility for the Secretary of State. The tightly drafted nature of the Bill meant it was difficult to put responsibility on the Secretary of State himself. Nevertheless, a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland was first promised in the 1998 Good Friday agreement, but progress towards its development has repeatedly stalled. The establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights at Stormont earlier this year represents a fresh attempt to move things forward. A Bill was an essential and fundamental safeguard of the Good Friday agreement, and it is simply wrong that it has not been developed. Action is needed now.
We believe the Secretary of State should take action by responding to the forthcoming report of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the House of Commons Committee on a Bill of Rights. The Secretary of State should request that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission provides advice on a Bill of Rights, further to its functions as set out in section 69(7) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The Secretary of State would subsequently lay before Parliament legislation giving effect to that advice. It is time to act.
On a civic forum, we believe that that was an important feature of decision making envisaged under the Good Friday agreement. Done well, it would give communities a strong say in decision making. It would give a voice in a deliberative forum to groups not often considered, and could vastly improve decision making in the process. The Good Friday agreement was about a new participative politics. The argument the Women’s Coalition put forward for a civic forum was as an advisory second chamber designed to give the trade union movement and businesses, as well as the community and the women’s movement, a place in political policy making. The prize of that expertise and knowledge is a durable solution that keeps communities on board, one that I hope will be considered going forward.
Finally, I will turn to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) and my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna). On new clause 1, on the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, it is clear that that was not envisaged by the Belfast-Good Friday agreement, but it is becoming an issue that must be dealt with through collective agreement. Polling shows, particularly among younger people, that identity is no longer binary. People identify as Irish, British and neither. It is far from inconceivable that the first and second-placed parties could come from neither Unionism nor nationalism. That raises important questions for the post-Belfast-Good Friday agreement and post-St Andrews power sharing mechanisms. I urge the Secretary of State not to put off serious consideration on this topic any longer. New clause 1, in the name of the hon. Member for North Down, raises questions that cannot be ignored and it is time for collective discussion.
On new clauses 2 and 4, we recognise the value and logic of a more consensual approach to electing the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, as envisaged by the Belfast-Good Friday agreement.
On new clause 3, in the name of the hon. Member for North Down and my hon. Friends the Members for Foyle and for Belfast South, the logic is again clear. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have exactly the same powers: each have an equal say in the affairs of Northern Ireland and each have a fundamental right for their position to be respected. Equality was the essence and the spirit of the Good Friday agreement, and that is reflected in the joint powers held by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. New clause 3 reflects that, and it is one the Secretary of State should take away and look at seriously. Whichever tradition is elected to the position of First Minister and Deputy First Minister should be respected. Failure to do so simply undermines the principles of the Good Friday agreement. We hope the Minister will seriously consider the proposals.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Conor Burns)
It is a pleasure to be back at the Dispatch Box. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I might briefly beg the indulgence of the House. I was in my office on Sunday afternoon, having had a very busy period in my first weeks in the Northern Ireland Office. There were some letters on my desk that were addressed as personal. I opened one to find it was a letter congratulating me on returning to Government from our late colleague Sir David Amess. I would just like to place on record my tribute to David. I knew him well. We served together on the all-party parliamentary group on the Holy See and had very many enjoyable trips to Rome. He had an irrepressible and irreverent sense of humour, and one was always cheered up by being in David’s company.
This has been a fascinating debate. It has been a debate, if I may say so, of two parts: the debate that makes reference to what is actually on the Order Paper and the amendments that have been tabled; and then there was the majority of the debate, which bore very little relationship to what is on the Order Paper or the amendments before the House. I will, in endeavouring to respond to various points, try to stick to the amendments and the Order Paper.
The Bill is deliberately limited in its scope. It is designed to implement the agreements reached under New Decade, New Approach. I make this point to all hon. Members who sit for Northern Ireland constituencies. Critically, those agreements were entered into by the parties in Northern Ireland. That is why we deliberately limited what we seek to do here. We are seeking to implement those commitments. We do not think it is the role of Her Majesty’s Government to innovate in this space when future changes, were they to be made, should be driven by the parties in Northern Ireland.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
I understand entirely the point the Minister makes, but there have been occasions when the Government—both Governments, in fact—have given commitments. One is on an Irish language Act, or legislating for Irish language provisions and the rest of the cultural package. The Government said that they would do that by the end of October if legislation or agreement was not reached in Stormont. A spokesman for the Government reiterated that commitment at the start of this month. Can the Minister tell us when he is going to bring that legislative package forward? If he cannot tell us that today, can he at least give an assurance that the Government will hold to their word, and are still committed to legislating for Irish language and other cultural provisions?
Conor Burns
What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the Government have no intention of introducing an Irish language Act. We will bring forward a cultural package in which Irish language will play a part, but he knows as well as I do that language in Northern Ireland is often analysed very carefully, so we are not proposing such an Act. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will have more to say on that in due course.
I read carefully the Committee stage and evidence sessions of the Bill to familiarise myself with the content before this debate. I place on record my appreciation for my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who had a very clear grasp of matters.
In essence, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) summed up the Bill in his intervention on the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry). This Bill implements the commitments in New Decade, New Approach; it does no more and no less. My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) of course oversaw the negotiations that gave rise to that document. This Bill delivers on our commitments and seeks to put the institutions into a more sustainable format, should we ever—as we hope we do not—reach a position where the institutions again become vulnerable.
The hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) hit the nail on the head: what the people in Northern Ireland want us to focus on is the national health service and deprivation. That was certainly the message I got when I visited the Caw/Nelson Drive Community Action Group in his constituency and the Greater Shantallow Area Partnership. They were talking to me not about the intricacies of governance in Northern Ireland, but about their lives in their community, and how the Executive and the UK Government could make their lives better. That should absolutely be our focus.
There was an outbreak of consensus between the hon. Member for Foyle and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I had a very enjoyable visit to the latter’s constituency. I met the Portavogie fishermen, who were powerful advocates for what needs to happen to support the fishing sector in Northern Ireland, and I enjoyed my visit to Castle Gardens primary school near the Bowtown estate. The hon. Gentleman, too, talked about health and education. Those are the priorities, and hopefully the stabilising measures we are bringing forward today will ensure that the Executive remains functioning and operational and can get on with those important matters within the devolved space—in particular, the national health service in Northern Ireland, which is under great stress indeed.
Another axis developed during the debate between my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). It is a rare thing that they find common ground and consensus. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset talked about the six months, and I would say to him that six months is a limit, not a target. We are trying to create maximum space, but we would hope that the Northern Irish parties would want to move quickly.
My hon. Friend suggested that perhaps the agreements were past their sell-by date. It is for the parties in Northern Ireland, if they want to innovate in that space, to get together and talk, but we are very clear that our job is to implement, to arbitrate and to oversee the agreements as they stand. Some of the amendments concerning the titles of First Minister and Deputy First Minister and some of the points made about the changing demographics within Northern Ireland may be things that the parties in Northern Ireland will want to come together to address, but we do not believe it is our role to be forcing that change on the parties in Northern Ireland within the devolved space without their consent.
Other parts of the Bill come, of course, from the requests of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, particularly the revisions around the ministerial code. We have taken what they have said and sought to put it into the Bill. We have also sought to return the petition of concern to the purpose for which it was originally intended and to make it more functional.
This is a straightforward and sensible set of proposals, aimed, as I said, at putting the governance system in Northern Ireland on to a more stable footing, to recognise some of the concerns that have been put to us, to honour the commitments that Her Majesty’s Government entered into in New Decade, New Approach. I commend the Bill to the House.
Stephen Farry
I will make some brief comments in closing the debate. First, I thank everyone who took part and presented their views. It was a largely good-natured debate. I thank in particular those on both Front Benches, including on the Government Front Bench, for their comments in that regard.
There is, shall we say, a certain tension between those who want to faithfully implement New Decade, New Approach—I include myself in that category—and those who acknowledge that we are almost two years on from that point, a lot of politics has happened and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. We must be mindful of the next set of crises that are coming; sadly, this is Northern Ireland, and there is always a crisis around the corner, so we must be mindful to anticipate that in a reasonable way and act ahead of time, for once, rather than having to do so after the crisis emerges.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Brandon Lewis)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
In doing so, I acknowledge the hard work that has got us to this point. I pay tribute to former Secretaries of State for their role in supporting institutions in Northern Ireland during the most recent collapse. As this is the first time I have been at the Dispatch Box since the sad news, I pay particular tribute to James Brokenshire. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Absolutely; I appreciate the comments from across the House. Both as a friend I have known for just over two decades, and in his role as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he showed truly admirable dedication to the people he represented, to colleagues and to friends, and dedication and commitment to the people of Northern Ireland.
I also want to thank hon. Members from all political parties who participated in debating the merits of the Bill. In particular, I thank the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), for their diligent scrutiny efforts and broad support for the measures set out in this Bill, and for their comments today.
I also express my thanks to colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Office of the Speaker of the Assembly, and to those who represent Northern Ireland constituencies in this House, all of whom have contributed to and been part of the work that has led to today, and the negotiations on New Decade, New Approach.
I acknowledge the hard-working civil servants, here in Whitehall and in Belfast. Not only did they support the successful negotiation of the New Decade, New Approach agreement, but they have since helped the progress of the Bill and continually help to deliver on the fundamental commitments made by this Government within that deal—including, I have no doubt, some very late nights supporting my colleague and right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), who would have put in those hours of effort in the lead-up to the final agreement of this Bill. I say a huge thank you to everyone who has been involved.
I reaffirm our view that our Union is strongest when its institutions work well, work together and deliver real change on the issues that matter, as colleagues have mentioned today. For Northern Ireland, that means properly functioning institutions, both in Stormont and Westminster, that allow Stormont to focus on the core issues that, as colleagues across parties have said today, must be focused on. To have one third of the population on a waiting list is not good enough for the Northern Ireland health service. Some 23 years since the Good Friday agreement, only to have approximately 7% of the population benefiting from integrated education is not good enough for the people of Northern Ireland, and we must move further on that together.
The Bill is a focused Bill. It will deliver necessary and well overdue reforms to strengthen the sustainability of institutions in Northern Ireland, update the ministerial code of conduct and reform the petition-of-concern mechanism. These measures, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has outlined, were all agreed by the main political parties in Northern Ireland when the Executive were restored, and it would be remiss of us to begin to tweak and change the details here in Westminster without further agreement from the parties. I am confident that those in the Executive and the Assembly will continue to work in the same good faith in which the measures were negotiated, as we in Parliament will; I will come back in a few moments to comments made on that point.
For those reasons, the House should support the Bill’s Third Reading. UK Governments of all colours and types have worked to maintain peace and encourage political stability in Northern Ireland over the decades. I am grateful to the Opposition for welcoming the Bill and the New Decade, New Approach agreement.
The Government accept, however, that this is just one piece of the jigsaw. The positive difference that a restored Executive have made to the people of Northern Ireland is clear to see, despite the great challenges that we have all had as a result of covid-19—particularly as the Executive were restored just days before the covid pressure came upon us all. The past 18 months have demonstrated that a power-sharing Executive can work together under the hardest of circumstances to find compromise and act in the shared interests of all communities in Northern Ireland. The Bill can only empower their capability in that respect.
The Government have listened to and are grateful for all contributions made by Members of this House. I appreciate that it is frustrating for some Members that we have been unable to accept non-Government amendments, despite the great intentions behind them, some of which have been outlined today. That is because many go beyond what was agreed in New Decade, New Approach, although I note the comment from the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) that we are now two years on and that there are some things in New Decade, New Approach that, as time moves on and we learn more, we need to look at.
But my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon is right: we need to focus on delivering what was agreed. As co-guarantors of New Decade, New Approach, we have a duty to ensure that, for all people in Northern Ireland, the measures are delivered as they were agreed upon by the main parties.
Members of this Chamber have expressed eagerness for the delivery of further commitments made under the New Decade, New Approach agreement and will be glad to hear that we have made good progress. For example, we have appointed the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner; introduced legislation to further enshrine the armed forces covenant in law; published reports on the use of the petition-of-concern mechanism in the Assembly; contributed to the creation of a new Northern Ireland graduate entry medical school in Derry/Londonderry, which I agree we want to see developed further; and supplemented the new deal for Northern Ireland’s £400 million fund to promote Northern Ireland as a cyber security hub, to name just a few things.
There is more to come. We have made commitments to ensure that areas that were committed to be delivered within the mandate for Stormont will be delivered; a cultural package is part of that, and we will do that. We are proud of the progress made thus far. The UK Government are committed to ensuring that New Decade, New Approach is delivered in full. I reassure hon. Members that further progress will be made in due course.
Both for the Executive and for us, covid has meant decisions being made, and pressure being put on legislative time, on decisions and on work done—we all understand that. As we move out of covid, we want to move quickly and get things done, and I hope that the Executive will be doing the same.
Simon Hoare
May I go back to the cultural package? I think the House’s understanding is very clear as to how my right hon. Friend envisages dealing with the matter. However, is he able to say a little more, not so much about what it might be called as about when we might actually see it, if indeed this place needs to see it—or is it his expectation that Stormont will deliver it?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee highlights an important point. It is still technically possible for the Executive to start a procedure that would allow the package to be delivered within the mandate, which has always been the intent, the focus and the desire for those involved in New Decade, New Approach. As I have said, we are very clear that, if it becomes clear that the Executive are unable to do that, or are not moving it forward, we will bring forward legislation to deliver the cultural package as set out in NDNA—no more, but no less. We will do that; I will not go further than that at the moment.
The purpose of the Bill is to implement what was agreed by all parties in the New Decade, New Approach deal. During the passage of the Bill, including this afternoon, there has been sensible, interesting and well-argued debate on the wider institutions and options in Northern Ireland. I look forward to seeing discussions continue among the Northern Ireland parties and to engaging on these matters with them and with colleagues here, as well as to following discussions in the other place, as the hon. Member for North Down rightly outlined.
Stephen Farry
Could the Secretary of State go slightly further and give an assurance that, if the House of Lords considers potential further reforms, and if soundings from the Northern Ireland political parties show consensus in relation to them, the Government will be open-minded about legislating—either in the Bill, which may be the most obvious opportunity, or in other legislation—to put them into effect, particularly ahead of the next Assembly election?
Brandon Lewis
I am always open-minded about listening to ideas and options, particularly for things that come together on which there is agreement between the parties. As others, including my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, have said, the important point is about New Decade, New Approach: the issues that we have dealt with in the Bill were agreed, negotiated and discussed among all the parties in Northern Ireland. We need to see those discussions continuing. If there are things on which all parties agree and on which Westminster is required to legislate, I am very open-minded about looking at them, but there needs to be a discussion that has support in Northern Ireland widely and across the Executive.
We will continue to work closely with the Opposition, the Executive and the parties in Northern Ireland to deliver on the wider promises of our New Decade, New Approach agreement and its commitments for the people of Northern Ireland, including ensuring that we are levelling up as we build back better across the whole United Kingdom. We are resolute—I will continue to be personally resolute and determined—in promoting Northern Ireland’s place in the world, its opportunity and its integral place in and importance to the United Kingdom. In doing so, we will ensure that, with New Decade, New Approach and its commitments, we deliver for all people in Northern Ireland, through New Decade, New Approach and beyond. I commend the Bill to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I remind hon. Members to stand if they want to catch my eye. I call the shadow Minister.
Alex Davies-Jones
Labour helped to secure the precious Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and it remains one of our proudest political legacies. We therefore welcome attempts to safeguard power sharing and improve the sustainability of the Executive, the Assembly and the institutions, which collapsed following a political crisis and took three years to restart.
In Committee and on Report, we outlined at length our concerns about some of the flaws that we saw in the Bill and sought to correct. It is disappointing that those concerns have not been taken on board, particularly as they are likely to be tested sooner or later.
The instability in recent months has been unsettling for all of us who cherish the Good Friday agreement and who believe that its institutions and the principles that underpin it represent the best way forward for Northern Ireland. As ever, that instability has been most keenly felt by the people of Northern Ireland.
Power sharing is the scaffolding of peace. Without it, the Good Friday agreement is fundamentally undermined. It is integral to the trust that communities have in the post-Good Friday agreement landscape, and it underpins the devolution of the powers contained in it. We should not forget the evidence given by Jon Tonge, who reminded us that devolution of power remains overwhelmingly popular: he said that when voters have been asked “What is your preferred mode of governance?”,
“direct rule has never come above 15% as a preferred option. Devolved power sharing is overwhelmingly a preferred option that comes back from…surveys”.––[Official Report, Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Public Bill Committee, 29 June 2021; c. 7, Q5.]
People in Northern Ireland are emerging from one of the most profound health crises that it has ever faced. A third of the entire population are languishing on health waiting lists, nearly 300 children are without a post-primary place for next year’s term and people are recovering from the deepest recession on record. In that scenario, it is unthinkable not to have a functioning Executive. For all political leaders in Northern Ireland, that must be the priority in the coming days and weeks.
It is partly for that reason that the Labour party supports the Bill, but our broader concern relates to the time it has taken to bring the Bill to this stage. We strongly urge the Government to look at how they can fast-track the remainder of its passage. It has now been 22 months since they agreed to implement this legislation to preserve power sharing, and we fear that they are sleepwalking towards a political crisis.
It is also disgraceful that the Secretary of State previously said that we would expect a cultural package and an Irish language Act by the end of October 2021—
Brandon Lewis
Just to be very clear—the hon. Lady should look back at the record—we have always said that we will deliver a cultural package. There has never been discussion of an Irish language Act; that is not what is in NDNA. It is a cultural package. It is important that the Opposition get their facts right.
Alex Davies-Jones
The House was promised the commissioning of an Irish language Act by the end of October 2021. That is where we are now, and it is nowhere to be seen. The Secretary of State’s refusal to give a date is a disgrace, and a betrayal of the people of Northern Ireland.
This legislation has simply come too late to address the current political instability in Northern Ireland. Given the political crisis there, and the ongoing warnings about the collapse of the Executive, Labour pushed for amendments to ensure that it was implemented without delay. As it stands, even if it were passed before Christmas there would still be a months-long commencement clause, leaving it highly unlikely to be in force to prevent instability in the coming months. We would like to hear a firm commitment from the Secretary of State to fast-tracking it through the House of Lords, and a clear timetable for it being enacted. We cannot wait months when we may have weeks. Will the Secretary of State address that? If so, we will work with him to ensure that the Bill is on the statute book within weeks.
The instability that the Bill in part attempts to address has not emerged out of thin air, and I fear that the delay in bringing it forward is symptomatic of the Government’s approach to Northern Ireland. Too often over the past decade, Northern Ireland has been an afterthought here. As the consequences of decisions taken by Ministers have played out in Northern Ireland, the Government have frequently behaved as though they had found themselves at the scene of an accident entirely beyond their control. Too often, Northern Ireland has been overlooked and the work to deliver on the promise of peace has been allowed to stall.
It would be foolish to assume that the provisions of the Bill alone can guarantee stability; they cannot. To do that, Ministers must address the effects of their own actions, which have shaken faith in Northern Ireland. Progress has stalled and instability has grown. The Belfast/Good Friday agreement has been treated as a crisis management tool, rather than as the vehicle through which lives and communities can be transformed.
Although Labour supports the Bill, we believe that there are several missed opportunities for the Government to refocus on delivering on the promise of peace, which they have allowed to stall. A Bill of Rights, integrated education and housing, women’s rights and giving communities a real say in decision making were the essence of the Good Friday agreement and the shared future that it imagined, but progress on them has been virtually non-existent over the past decade. We do not believe that the instability we see can be separated from the failure to deliver on such commitments. Above all, the way to guarantee stability is to demonstrate that commitments made will be honoured, and that Westminster is still prepared to step up and honour our side of the bargain.
I reiterate our support for the limited measures in the Bill and ask the Secretary of State to speed up the timetable as a matter of urgency, but I wish to make it clear that this is only a start: there is much, much more work to be done.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Richard Thomson.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
I welcome the Minister to his position, and look forward to working with him. Let me also add my thanks to all who have contributed to the Bill’s passage. Securing a prosperous, peaceful and well-governed Northern Ireland is obviously in the interests of everyone there, but it is also hugely in the interests of everyone throughout these islands, and I believe that the Bill contributes to that in its own small way.
I will try to keep my remarks comparatively brief. Let me say first that democratic politics, wherever it takes place, needs its participants and practitioners to have space in which to talk, discuss, reflect and consult, and, above all, freedom to take the risks involved in finding consensus, acknowledging common ground, and doing the heavy lifting of finding agreement. While deadlines and ultimatums obviously have their place in politics, I think the wider community is much better served when we see that heavy lifting going on, and the better, more secure and sustainable outcomes to which it leads. However, it is not just politics in the abstract that needs space; it is also the business of government.
Any decision taken through the institutions of Northern Ireland is almost certain to be better than any decision that can ever be taken on behalf of Northern Ireland in this place, simply because it will be rooted in those democratic institutions and moulded to the contours of public opinion through the politicians whom we elect, and because it makes local decision makers in Northern Ireland more accountable for the choices they have been elected to make; and the politics is all the more transparent and healthy for it. That is what happens when we give the politics the space in which to work.
To the extent that today’s proceedings help to remove some of the time pressures caused by the need to fill ministerial positions or to form an Administration, we support the Bill. Obviously having Ministers in office without their positions being confirmed by a current electoral mandate is not ideal, but it does provide continuity in caretaker form, and efficient governance in the absence of an Executive when it comes to dealing with everyday matters. I believe that the Bill has the potential to enhance transparency, accountability and at least the opportunities for good governance, and on that basis it has our support.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Like other Members on both sides of the House, I desire a stable Stormont and a Stormont that offers good government to the people of Northern Ireland. Indeed, I am sure everyone who is present today shares that desire.
When the institutions were torn down by Sinn Féin in early 2017, 1 was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The new Assembly had embarked on a fresh mandate with many promises to tackle the huge waiting lists, but unfortunately Sinn Féin, for the sake of its own selfish, narrow political agenda, shattered the hopes of that Assembly, and they were extinguished. Three years followed that have seen our public services degenerate. The legacy of Martin McGuiness’s resignation is seen to this day: longer waiting lists, a health service that is stretched beyond its limits, a social housing crisis, a roads infrastructure that is crumbling, missed investment opportunities for job creation, and other public services held back.
Of course, for those three years the Government did nothing to face down the petulant, self-serving actions of Sinn Féin, which is deeply regrettable. A kid-glove approach was adopted when it came to confronting Sinn Féin and its reckless actions, and sadly we remain under this threat, for we know that the Government have stated that if the cultural package contained in “New Decade, New Approach” is not delivered to Sinn Féin’s timetable, it will be brought through in this place.
Let me urge the Government to exercise extreme caution in this regard. If they are serious about letting elected representatives govern Northern Ireland, it simply cannot continue to be the case that when agreement cannot be reached or takes longer than one party may wish—and the established trend is that the party jumped to is Sinn Féin—the Government take the powers back to this place. That is the recipe for instability, and it is also the fuel that fires the growing disenchantment and disillusionment in the Unionist community with the whole Stormont edifice.
The Secretary of State knows of the deep hurt many people felt in Northern Ireland when the Government chose to intervene in the provision of abortion. A matter that was so profound to so many people, and on which agreement could well have been reached given time and space, was brought back to this place to placate the pro-abortion lobby and the pro-abortion parties for whom these services could not be delivered quickly enough.
This pick-and-choose devolution settlement only leads to discontent and disillusionment. It makes people ask what is the point of devolution if the Government intervene when the agenda of some must be satisfied. We can strengthen the legislative framework to make the institutions more stable through this Bill, but the greatest threat of instability to the institutions comes from a people that sees no point in them.
In this context, the necessity is for the Government to act to resolve the widespread community concern about the Northern Ireland protocol. Time is moving on, and the patience of this party and the people is not without limit; indeed, it is stretched to breaking point right now. Promises of progress, of conclusions in weeks, are just talk. Let us see the action that is needed to ensure that political stability is restored to Northern Ireland and the damaging impact of this disastrous protocol for all the people of Northern Ireland is consigned to the past.
Colum Eastwood
I entirely agree with what the hon. Lady said about the fact that Sinn Féin should never have pulled the Assembly down, and about the implications of that for our health service and our public sector in general. Now she has moved on to the threat from the Democratic Unionist party over the protocol. If she does not believe that any political party should threaten the institutions of the Good Friday agreement and the outworking of that, which is good government and good public services, will she speak to her party leader and ask him to withdraw his threat to those institutions?
Carla Lockhart
The hon. Gentleman will know that the protocol is damaging everyone within Northern Ireland, both economically and constitutionally, and I would ask him to go and speak to the businesses that are being impacted on a daily basis by the protocol. It certainly undermines the delicate balances of the agreement.
I have listened to the remarks from the hon. Members for North Down (Stephen Farry) and for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), and I am sure that I am not alone in finding it somewhat ironic that those parties that hold the Belfast agreement as some form of religious text have sought so hard to change some of its underpinning elements. We see this in the attempts to change the appointment of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and to change community designation, and in the quest to reform the petition of concern mechanisms, all of which were created and championed by those who now wish to do away with the old and bring in the new for their own political advantage. We in Northern Ireland are well used to the hypocrisy and double standards of the Alliance party and the SDLP, which are there for all to see in their amendments today.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Lady makes a valid point about the views of business being heard during this further stage of negotiation and consultation with regard to the protocol. She is right on that, but I am failing to understand why tearing down Stormont and removing the voices of elected local representatives to make their case would help those businesses.
Carla Lockhart
The hon. Member will know that we have not done that. We want this Government to act on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. Lord Frost and his colleagues have heard clearly about the need to act and the damage that this is doing economically and constitutionally, and the hon. Member would do well to listen to the people of Northern Ireland and not just take it for granted that he is aware of their views.
I reiterate that if this Government continue to placate Sinn Féin’s ransom demands by legislating in this place to satisfy them, devolution will fail. Furthermore, if the provisions of the Belfast agreement around cross-community consent and our constitutional position continue to be set aside in the context of the future relationship between the UK and the EU pertaining to Northern Ireland, devolution will fail. Regardless of this Bill, the next few weeks will test the Government on their commitment to stable devolution in Northern Ireland.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
When we last debated this Bill in June, the context was that Sinn Féin had just threatened the collapse of the institutions. Fast forward back to groundhog day, and we are here again with the DUP dangling the future of those same institutions before us. The context of both those threats is the same: the pandemic is still rampant, there are issues in the education service, we have the worst health waiting lists in these islands by a mile, and, without a climate change plan, Northern Ireland is a laggard with no binding targets at all. That seesaw of instability and stop-start governance is the last decade and a half in microcosm, with each of the two lead parties replicating the same tactics and threats, and criticising each other for doing the same, with each particular episode draining away the confidence and belief of the people of Northern Ireland in power sharing.
I fear that, with this Bill, we have missed some of the opportunities to improve governance, cohesion and the sense of possibility that the institutions were based on. For all that the letter and spirit of the Good Friday agreement have been invoked in recent years, either for or against Brexit and the protocol, that spirit of power sharing and genuinely working the common ground in the interests of people in Northern Ireland through mutual endeavour are quite absent from today’s Assembly. In our amendments in Committee and today, the SDLP brought forward practical suggestions to try to improve the atmosphere and improve governance. We have been very clear—this was echoed by a number of witnesses in Committee—that no amount of rules and regulations will force the parties to share power properly unless they truly believe that it is the right thing to do, but it is appropriate that we should try to improve the mechanisms involved. The Good Friday agreement always allowed for that level of evolution, and that is something the SDLP has supported before—for example, in the introduction of opposition provisions.
It is a fact that the Good Friday agreement was negotiated by the widest possible range of political voices, that it was put to the people and that the people in the north and south of Ireland endorsed it. The St Andrews changes, which include a lot of the flaws, were not endorsed in that way. They were negotiated by, and for, the two large parties and imposed without recourse to the people of the island, and that shows. The flaws in the election of the First Ministers are illustrative of the rot and the culture of mistrust in the Assembly. There has been much discussion in recent months about the concept of parallel consent, when in fact the election of joint First Ministers, as was, is the centrepiece of parallel consent and the most real example of it in strand 1.
In the early years of the Assembly, the First Ministers were elected from the Floor of the Assembly by a majority of all present and both designations. That allowed for cross-party consensus building and coalition building, which have disappeared in the last decade and a half. That was done to spare the blushes of the larger parties because they did not want to be seen to be endorsing each other in the voting Lobby, but that has had, and continues to have, a knock-on effect on the wider political discourse. We know that leadership in any organisation comes from the top, and it is the same in Northern Ireland. These changes, which we have tried to address through amendments, will allow each Assembly election to be reduced to a first-past-the-post race to become top dog, even though, as others have pointed out, one cannot even order paperclips without the say-so of the other. This will serve to suck all the oxygen out of the political discussion and allow every other issue to drain away.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
I completely agree with my hon. Friend that it is beneficial for the good people of Northern Ireland to have a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly rather than getting edicts from here in Westminster. Does she agree that it was even more destabilising for Northern Ireland when the UK Government, as part of the Brexit deal, signed a Northern Ireland protocol that they had no intention of honouring? Is that not even worse for the people of Northern Ireland?
Claire Hanna
I agree entirely. Among the many things that we discussed under the Good Friday agreement, the primacy of the rule of law and of trust are contained in that as well. They have gone out of the window in recent months, which is having a knock-on effect in Northern Ireland.
I regret that our amendments were not adopted, but the mechanisms that we tried to insert into the Bill were around that sense of joint purpose and common endeavour, as well as accountability. When the First Ministers were elected by the MLAs, they were accountable to the MLAs. The failures of the current process became very clear when Members of the Assembly tried to hold to account Ministers who had been responsible for terrible governance failures in the renewable heat incentive scheme. It became very clear that the First Minister did not feel that she was accountable to the Assembly, and indeed, due to those changes, she was not.
It is also worth saying that the mechanisms that we proposed would have been compatible with an overdue review of designation. I very much agree with the point raised by, among others, the Chair of the Northern Ireland Committee that, as currently operated, the designation structures for people opting to be nationalist, Unionist or other are locking in sectarianism. They were very well-intentioned; they were designed to manage a traditional conflict between two traditional communities, but Northern Ireland has evolved and it is appropriate that we should look to evolve those structures as well.
The Minister referred to the Bill being New Decade, New Approach, no more and no less. It is a missed opportunity, but it is worth saying that it includes some things that I do not remember from New Decade, New Approach, including the removal of key phrases and mechanisms from the ministerial code of conduct. It is still not clear who had problems with the language on transparency and accountability as it stood in the original agreement and in the 1998 Act, but I use that as an illustrative example that it is not a faithful transcription of the New Decade, New Approach all-party agreement and therefore other mechanisms could have been advanced.
Although we agree with the thrust of the Bill, we are beset and bedevilled by a culture of veto and stand-off, and this would have been an appropriate opportunity to try to fix some of those things. For example, to the best of my knowledge, the Assembly has not delivered a single piece of equality legislation. I listened to hon. Members speaking about why we could not pass equality legislation, in this case in the form of language legislation, because there is so much to do on health and education. There is no doubt about that, but those same parties have been running the show for a decade and a half, and in many cases they hold the specific ministerial briefs about which they speak. Every other region of these islands is able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Equality provisions can be advanced while meaningfully delivering for the people of Northern Ireland.
Stephen Farry
Does the hon. Lady agree that if a certain party has a huge issue with the UK Parliament legislating in relation to the language and culture package of New Decade, New Approach, it has the opportunity to expedite the package through the Northern Ireland Assembly?
Claire Hanna
I agree entirely, as the Assembly is supposed to be local power in local hands. The culture of telling people that sharing is losing is a big part of the problem that we have today. That opportunity is still on the table, and my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) tried in Committee to introduce such legislation through an amendment that faithfully transcribes what was agreed by all parties, including the Democratic Unionist party.
Sustainability and stability will not come from rules and regulations; they will come from people understanding and believing that power sharing is the right thing to do, and not just doing it because the law makes them do it. It will come from London and Dublin operating together again as friends and equals on the basis of transparency and trust, and it will come when the powers of devolution are used meaningfully to change people’s lives and not just as a way of moving from actual conflict to a culture war, as we have had. There are opportunities to improve that governance, and we have not taken them today, but my hon. Friend and I will be ready to have that conversation.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
This Bill had its genesis in New Decade, New Approach, and we are here today to try to make progress. As its name implies, we are trying to build for the remainder of this decade.
We are less likely to repeat the mistakes of the past if we can learn from that past, and the problem is twofold. First, it is repeated ad nauseam in this House and elsewhere that peace broke out in Northern Ireland in 1998, but the reality and the lesson we should learn is that for the preceding four years the terrorists slowly and gradually learned that terrorism was not the way to proceed. In 1994, four years before the agreement was signed, the terrorists decided that the game was up and that terror was no longer how they would proceed. That was good and long overdue, but people should not misinterpret 1998 as the beginning of peace. The terrorists decided to depart from terrorism gradually and slowly in the preceding years.
Unfortunately, more mistakes were made in 1998. Agreement was necessary and required, and we had all strived for many years to achieve agreement, but in 1998 the terrorists were allowed to be at the table without giving up their guns—some of us said that should not be the case. I can well understand the reasons for their entering the process, but I disagree with them none the less.
We entered into a system that has plagued politics in Northern Ireland from then until now, in which there can be no move forward unless everyone buys into the process. We had the years up to St Andrews and beyond to try to inch people beyond only moving at the pace of the slowest learner in the room. That was the problem, and thankfully we made some progress at St Andrews. Hopefully we will now make further progress as a result of New Decade, New Approach, but how do we embed that in Northern Ireland’s society? How do we depart from the issues that have plagued us for so long when a single party can up sticks and leave, as Sinn Féin did, and bring down the whole system for three years?
We now have a prolonged period. There may be a difference of opinion on how long that period should be, but at least it should help to concentrate minds for longer than seven days whenever Sinn Féin engineers a crisis. The then Deputy First Minister was clearly unwell, and everyone could see the degree of his illness, and the ensuing crisis that had been engineered lasted for three years. Hopefully we have a bit more time and good will now. We have bought a bit of extra time with New Decade, New Approach, but unless there is good will we will still face the same problem.
Single parties must realise that, for the greater good, we have to try to move together with some form of consensus. No one is going to get everything they want, which is why many of us said about NDNA, “There are things in this that we don’t particularly like, but for the greater good we will buy into the process.” The Government should not take that and say, “We will implement part of NDNA and leave other parts of it on the shelf.” That cannot and will not work. We have to bring matters to a head, as we said we would. It is not a matter of bringing down the system, as has been inaccurately reported in the Chamber today. We are bringing matters to a head, not bringing them down, to try to force an election rather than to destroy the institutions.
My party will support the Bill with whatever reservations we have, and I hope that we can build a future in Northern Ireland that is better than our past.
Ian Paisley
Like the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone, we keep coming back to the phrases and mantras mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart): “We must support the Belfast agreement, provided it is our interpretation of the Belfast agreement.” The two-faced approach from some hon. Members, who say we must support the Belfast agreement and never change it while tabling amendments to change it, is not lost on anyone back home.
I do not often quote the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), but I agreed with her wholeheartedly when she said that she wishes to support the locked-in sectarianism of the Belfast agreement. Think of it, we are discussing measures that a Member of this Parliament—
Ian Paisley
No, I will not. The hon. Lady had a good opportunity to make a speech. It may not have been her finest moment, but she has made a speech and I think I am entitled to take that speech apart, which she has made very easy for me. She wishes to support the locked-in sectarianism of the Belfast agreement, and it is incredible that she is asking this House to do that. That follows closely on the heels of the previous Member for Foyle—
Claire Hanna
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. If Members are referring to content, they should quote me accurately. I said that the current designation structures, as operated, were locking in sectarianism. Is it appropriate for Members to misquote other Members?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Could the hon. Lady repeat that point of order? I could not hear it properly.
Claire Hanna
Is it in order, Madam Deputy Speaker, for Members to misquote other Members? I said in my speech that the current designation mechanisms, as operated, were locking in sectarianism. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) has accused me of attempting to lock in sectarianism.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order. It is important that Members do not misquote other Members; that is very important indeed. The hon. Lady has made her point. I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman feels that he has misinterpreted her words, he will respond, or he may feel that the clarification that she has just given has put what she said on the record.
Ian Paisley
Of course, this is not the first time that Social Democratic and Labour party Members have opposed the Belfast agreement and called for changes when it suits them. The previous Member for Foyle talked about the “ugly scaffolding” that surrounded the Belfast agreement—
Ian Paisley
I am never frightened to give way, while others are, and the Member knows that, so he should not worry about that. I will give way in a moment. The SDLP Members are getting particularly ratty now, because some of the points that have been made are being put back to them—that they are supporting an inherently flawed agreement. Many in Northern Ireland want to get to normal, democratic politics. One reason why we have the problems that have been highlighted today and why we have the problems that necessitate the Bill is that we do not have fundamentally democratic institutions in operation in Northern Ireland. I would love to see those institutions come into place.
Some of the amendments that have been tabled are about keeping in place and reinforcing the sectarian nature of the agreements. For example, we are told that the petition of concern is there to protect minorities, and that provided that that minority is a nationalist minority, that petition of concern should be retained, but whenever some people believe that at some point in future it may be a Unionist minority, the petition of concern better be done away with pretty quickly, because we would not want that Unionist minority on the island of Ireland having protections and rights. That is not lost on many people outside this House.
Does the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) still want to intervene?
Colum Eastwood
I would love to—if I can remember the hon. Member’s point. I thank him for giving way. On his point about the former Member for Foyle, of course, he negotiated the Good Friday agreement when the hon. Gentleman and his party were standing outside with placards, shouting and cheering. By the way, they were shouted down by the people of Ireland and the people of Northern Ireland, who voted massively in favour of the Good Friday agreement. Of course, the hon. Gentleman’s party has been implementing the Good Friday agreement ever since it did the thing at St Andrews. You talked about the petition of concern—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I did not talk about anything. Has the hon. Gentleman finished?
Ian Paisley
I think the point is not lost on anyone watching that the Member has lost.
Let me turn to some of the issues that have been raised. People have talked today about threats to the institutions—threats that they might be brought down by the Democratic Unionist party. Of course, when the Justice Minister made it clear on Radio Ulster that she did not find it comfortable being in the Northern Ireland Executive and might leave it, that was not characterised as a threat to the institution. It is amazing that when one does one thing, it is characterised in one way, but if anyone else from a different tradition indicates their concerns about the institutions, it is suddenly characterised as a threat to democracy and to the process, when it is no such thing. The fact of the matter is that the Unionist people of Northern Ireland have rights and expect their Unionist politicians to defend those rights, and we will defend their rights. No matter what the cost and no matter what the price, those rights will be defended, come what may.
The current hon. Member for Foyle made the point that the Justice Minister could not be someone from the nationalist tradition. I would make the point, which is not lost on anyone, that the last time there was a Unionist Justice Minister was in 1971—
Ian Paisley
Unionists are not allowed—[Interruption.] Well, David Ford, I do not think he was—
Ian Paisley
She is an independent. There was no one brought from the main Unionist party into the Justice Department, because the nationalist parties would object to that and not allow it to take place. It is very clear to all those who see that what suits one party at one time will only be used provided that it does not encourage or support the Unionist tradition. That is why there are many objections.
People from Northern Ireland will look on at this—I will use the phrase fiddling while Rome burns. Some people may think that more attractive than others do, but I certainly do not. Many people know that a torpedo has been fired at the Northern Ireland institutions and it is outside the control of the Unionist parties and nationalist parties operating in the Assembly, and that torpedo is, of course, the Northern Ireland protocol. Until and unless the Government in this place resolve themselves to do what they said in their Command Paper in July this year, that torpedo will eventually hole those institutions below the line. When that happens, no amount of hand-wringing in this place and no amount of declaring one’s dying loyalty to whatever interpretation of the Belfast agreement people feel they wish to support will salvage those institutions.
I urge the Government to move immediately—now—and to do what they should have done by invoking article 16 of the protocol and resolving that issue once and for all. Otherwise, we will continue to have the cherry-picking that we have seen in this place, with one party wanting the language provisions, another party wanting to address the issues to do with abortions and another party then wanting something else. That will go on in an infernal circle for all to see. I encourage the Government to move on that protocol, and to move immediately.
Brandon Lewis
With the leave of the House, I shall briefly sum up. I again thank all colleagues in the House. We have seen throughout today’s discussions, both on Report and on Third Reading, a good, wide range of subjects covered. To build on the point made by the Minister of State, some of those points were about the Bill, which relates to the New Decade, New Approach deal, and I want to touch on them.
As was welcomed when we started deliberations on the Bill, it is the first Bill relating to Northern Ireland that the House has had a chance to consider without operating under emergency processes for some time. As we have seen, we have had a chance to have a good, wide discussion about the issues in the Bill. That is a good thing and has allowed people the opportunity to air and talk about issues that go beyond what was agreed in New Decade, New Approach. As I said earlier, I look forward to continuing those discussions and seeing whether we can find some agreement across all the parties in the Executive to move things forward together.
I say gently to those colleagues who have raised issues as things to be amended today—I make this point to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones)—that when we talk about making sure that we work through consensus and move things forward together in Northern Ireland, that means having all the parties come to an agreement, not just rushing into doing things today. It is right that we have these discussions.
On the package and questions raised by the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), and others, it is disappointing to see the Opposition, in a well-informed debate that has been good and well-mannered in large part, looking to play politics around these issues. Let us be clear that the cultural package will include a new office for identity and cultural expression, to promote cultural pluralism and inclusion across all identities and cultures, alongside commissioners to protect and enhance the Irish language and develop the language, arts and literature with the Ulster Scots and Ulster British tradition in Northern Ireland. We have already been making progress on those things. When the hon. Member for Pontypridd speaks at the Dispatch Box, she may want to make sure that she has done some research. To help her out, I suggest that she looks back to the written ministerial statement from 21 June, because our position is still as per that statement and we will still be seeking to deliver that, as we promised we would, if the Executive themselves cannot take it forward.
Brandon Lewis
No—the hon. Lady spoke earlier.
We have already delivered £2 million-worth of a funding package announced earlier this year, including for Northern Ireland Screen’s Irish language broadcast fund and the Ulster-Scots broadcast fund. We will continue to deliver on that, stand by our word and make sure that the cultural package is delivered within the mandate, but this Bill relates to the New Decade, New Approach deal and I look forward to seeing its progress continue in the weeks and months ahead.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Judicial Review and Courts Bill
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 View all Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:03 - The House divided: - Ayes: 321 / Noes: 220 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill makes good on our Government’s manifesto pledge to ensure that judicial review is not subject to abuse and to deliver more effective, more efficient justice for the citizens of our country. I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland) for all of his work in preparing the Bill and for his outstanding tenure as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary.
I first want to address the so-called Cart reviews. That is the means by which the High Court reviews decisions of the upper tribunal to refuse permission to appeal a first-tier tribunal decision.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Dominic Raab
May I make a bit of progress?
Let me take one immigration case by way of illustration. A claimant whose leave to remain was revoked because of his dishonesty challenged that decision in the High Court. He was granted permission to bring his judicial review despite exhausting the appeal process at the immigration tribunal. The challenge was eventually dismissed, but not before it was sent back to the upper tribunal. At that point, the judges, Messrs Lane and Ockleton, noted that
“it appears that permission was granted on grounds which had no merit, ought to have been withdrawn by their proponent, and do not seem to have been regarded as giving a reasonable prospect of success even in the granting of permission.”
That is just one illustration. To give a sense of scale, on average, there are 750 judicial reviews against the upper tribunal alone each year, the vast majority of which are immigration cases. The success rate is just 3.4%. For completeness as well as appeals on immigration, the upper tribunal also hears cases on administrative and regulatory matters—things such as social security tax and property cases.
Joanna Cherry
I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for giving way. I would like to intervene later on the specifics of this matter, but may I start by asking him this: the right to judicial review in Scotland is protected by article 19 of the Treaty of Union and it is a devolved matter under the Scotland Act 2016. His predecessor gave me a written assurance that the focus of this Bill would be on UK powers and procedures relevant only to the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Will he tell my why that promise has been broken?
Dominic Raab
It has not been broken, but I shall come on to address that when I deal with the devolution dimension in a little while.
Of course there must be accountability, but allowing such a large volume of flawed challenges just skews the system. Allowing a legal war of attrition—not just against the Government, but, as in this case, against the judiciary themselves—undermines the integrity of the two-tier tribunal process, which was set up precisely to deal both fairly and efficiently with immigration cases. That wastes court time and taxpayers’ money, which should be focused on reviewing more serious and credible cases. The Supreme Court Justice Lord Brown foresaw that this very problem would arise in his judgment in the original Cart case back in 2011 and he said then that
“the rule of law is weakened, not strengthened, if a disproportionate part of the courts’ resources is devoted to finding a very occasional grain of wheat on a threshing floor full of chaff.”
Regrettably, he was proved right. It is also worth noting the more recent commentary by Lord Hope of Craighead, another of the presiding judges in the Cart case, who said in the other place earlier this year that these types of reviews have not worked and that it is time “to end them.”
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I am very grateful to the Justice Secretary for giving way.
Over the past few years, the law has been the only way that any justice has been allowed for social security claimants. Three different judicial reviews were upheld and they said that what the social security Secretary had undertaken was unlawful—both on universal credit for disabled people and for single mothers. Which of these judicial reviews would have been allowed under this Bill?
Dominic Raab
Of course I cannot second guess the judicial decisions made in individual cases, but what I can say is that of course we want to protect the integrity not just of judicial accountability, but of the tribunal process, which we have established precisely to deal with those cases as well as others that I have discussed. The Bill will address the problem in a sensible and proportionate way, preventing Cart appeals except in the most exceptional circumstances, such as the upper tribunal deciding a type of case outside its jurisdiction, in bad faith or with some fundamental procedural error, such as not hearing one side of the case, which would clearly be wrong. Our approach will ensure that the 180 judge-days spent on Cart reviews, every year, are no longer wasted. In that way, taxpayers’ money is saved and the immigration system can function more effectively.
I would be interested to know whether Labour will support us in this matter. I have done my homework—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) is laughing, but if Labour plans to vote against this Bill on the basis of Cart, I would point out that the shadow Justice Secretary personally proposed a much broader so-called ouster clause back in 2003 in Labour’s Asylum and Immigration Bill—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman said that he was young and naive. I am not sure what that makes him now. Forgive me if I am reminding him of a stressful moment in his career, but it was the Asylum and Immigration Bill back in 2003. It did not have any of the exceptions and it was not as constrained as the Bill before the House today. He did not just support the measure; he proposed the measure. He was a Minister in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I am not sure whether he has forgotten about that, but I am afraid that the Opposition have zero credibility in opposing a more targeted measure that they proposed before.
The Bill will remove Cart for the whole of the UK, but only in respect of reserved matters. I hope that all hon. Members will agree that we must have consistency in routes of appeal to preserve a coherent and efficient immigration policy and indeed the integrity of the UK’s borders.
Joanna Cherry
The Lord Chancellor will be aware—I am sure that this will be covered in other speeches—that the evidential basis for this law change in England has been questioned, but the Law Society of Scotland has said that there is no evidence of any such problem in Scotland. On the contrary, there is good recent evidence of a Cart—or Eba judicial review as we call them in Scotland—in which the first tier tribunal and the upper tier judge misunderstood the petitioners’ evidence, and the Appeal Court intervened to reduce the upper tribunal’s decision, refusing it permission to appeal. Does he accept that there is absolutely no evidential basis, north or south of the border, for the need for these kind of procedures to be withdrawn, and can he tell me why he is forcing a restriction on the Scottish legal system for which there is no evidential basis?
Dominic Raab
In fairness, I think have presented the evidential basis: 750 cases each year and barely a 3% success rate. Of course, the integrity of the tribunal needs to be protected. There are safeguards and exceptions. The Bill is not nearly as broad as the Bill tabled by the right hon. Member for Tottenham back in 2003. This is the right way for the House to proceed.
Dominic Raab
I will make some progress; I have given way to the hon. and learned Lady twice.
The Bill will reform quashing orders so that we can strike a better balance between the essential judicial accountability over the Executive and the ability of an elected Government to deliver their mandate in a lawful but orderly way. Let me give one example: the case of Her Majesty’s Treasury v. Ahmed back in 2010. In that case, the then Government acted on best information, including intelligence, and froze the funds of three brothers suspected of being al-Qaeda terrorists. They did so under the auspices of two Orders in Council, which were made in 2006 under the powers of the United Nations Act 1946. The Supreme Court considered whether the orders were ultra vires of that Act and therefore invalid.
The 1946 Act gave the Government the power to give effect to UN Security Council resolutions on threats posed by international terrorism. However, the Supreme Court decided that the orders went beyond what was necessary and expedient for implementing the relevant resolution, because the orders provided that a person’s assets could be frozen on the basis of a “reasonable suspicion” of involvement in terrorism, rather than a higher standard of evidential proof that the court deemed that the law required. The court quashed the orders immediately, irrespective of the ability of the Government to reassess or revise the order, because it concluded that it did not have the power to suspend the effect of the quashing order. That required Parliament to rush through new legislation to protect the public by preventing suspected terrorists from accessing those funds, because Ministers no longer had the powers that they believed they could exercise under the relevant legislation.
This Bill simply remedies that measure of inflexibility by giving the judiciary the power to issue a suspended—or, indeed, a prospective—quashing order, allowing the Government a reasonable period of time to review the orders and/or the legislation itself. If that had been available in the Ahmed case, it could have prevented considerable disruption and potential risk, while safe- guarding the judiciary’s vital scrutiny of the Executive in such an important area of national security.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, as originally passed, included provision for the courts to be able to quash Acts of Parliament. That is rather a serious matter, to say the very least. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is very unwise—particularly having regard to the Factortame case, when we voluntarily agreed that we would allow the courts to do that—and that now that we are out, we certainly would not want that to happen again?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend makes a powerful argument. I have not heard the Factortame case cited in this House for some time—to the relief of some.
Of course, there are many other contexts beyond counter-terrorism—from infrastructure projects to health and safety regulation—where the use of a suspended or prospective quashing order would lead to a better outcome, allowing both essential judicial accountability and good governance at the same time; those two aspects can and should go hand in hand. Dare I say it, these reforms may have the welcome effect of making our system just a little less adversarial by giving the Government and this House the opportunity to respond swiftly but in a considered manner, rather than effectively being tripped up—sometimes at great cost to the taxpayer and at other times at potential risk to the public.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Perhaps the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor could help me on two matters. When these matters of suspended quashing orders are being worked out, will he ensure that no litigant who has succeeded and has suffered tangible loss is left without an effective remedy? That will be important, outwith any other considerations that might very properly be taken into account. I also gently say to him that he has clearly been absent from justice debates for a little while—and we welcome him back—or he would surely have known that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) never misses an opportunity to raise Factortame when we talk about topics of this kind; he has managed to do so in this debate as well.
Dominic Raab
I can give my hon. Friend, who chairs the Justice Committee, the reassurance that he is looking for. If he looks at clause 1(8)(c) and (d), he will see that
“the interests or expectations of persons who would benefit from the quashing of the impugned act”
and those
“who have relied on the impugned act”
are material considerations for the court to consider.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
What would the Secretary of State say to victims of rape, some of whom have been waiting up to four years to get justice, when they rightly ask why the Government are prioritising judicial review reforms in the midst of a pandemic, rather than dealing with those abhorrent crimes?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair challenge. However, he should ignore the pleadings from those on his Front Bench and support this Bill, because, overall, as well as dealing with judicial review, with the reform agenda that we are putting through the criminal courts we will free up a substantial number of Crown court days a year—I think it is 400. That will mean, on top of the other efforts such as the Nightingale courts, the super-court in Manchester and the virtual courtrooms, that we will be able to free up further court time and space. He raised a very good point but it is a reason—an argument—for supporting the Bill.
I turn next to courts and tribunals, which, as the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) fairly says, have been severely impacted by the covid-19 pandemic. Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the judges, coroners, clerks, barristers and solicitors who have worked so hard to keep the wheels of justice turning. We should take pride in the fact that, looking right around the world, our jurisdiction was the first to restart jury trials after the pandemic began.
On the point that the hon. Gentleman made, we also recognise the backlog created by the pandemic. Let me reassure him, and the House, that we are taking every measure and straining every sinew to bear down on it as swiftly as possible. As well as the super-court and the Nightingale courts, we have the new technology that will help us to reduce the backlog and pioneer other innovative procedural reforms. We are using technology to deliver better services for victims, and indeed for users and citizens, allowing vulnerable victims to pre-record their cross-examination evidence rather than have to go through the distress of giving it in court in front of an assailant. Likewise, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, once it is commenced, will mean that all complainants of domestic abuse can give evidence during a trial from outside the court through a virtual link.
This is not confined to the criminal courts. In the civil courts, our reforms to probate mean that grieving relatives can make their applications from their own home, while the digitisation of the divorce service has reduced the time for users to complete the process by almost three months compared with the paper track. Now, as a result of this Bill, we will ensure that we are using technology to build the system around the people who actually use it, who invariably want to see justice done more swiftly and more conveniently for them, given their busy schedules, whether in work or life.
The Bill makes provision for a completely new online procedure rules committee for civil and family proceedings and tribunals. That committee will create new rules for online services consistent across all the jurisdictions. Let me give just one illustration of how the average citizen will benefit. For a self-employed person, say a plumber or a carpenter, chasing an unpaid invoice, the rules will enable these online services to be straightforward and easy to follow, dispensing swifter justice more convenient for the average working citizen as a user of the justice system. I think we should be pushing and pressing in that direction. The Bill will transfer responsibility for employment tribunal rules from the Business Secretary to the tribunal procedure committee. It will also make the committee responsible for rules in the employment appeals tribunal. While this is a rather technical change, transferring these powers to an independent judge-led committee will align the employment tribunals more closely with the wider tribunal system and promote broader consistency and efficiency.
In the criminal courts, the Bill will introduce measures that use new technology to streamline procedures to strip out unnecessary in-person hearings and create more efficient processes for allocation of cases in the Crown court and the magistrates court. That will enable swifter resolution of low-level offences such as travelling on a train without a ticket or fishing without a licensed rod without the need for the time and expense of attending court, allowing people to do it online instead, delivering a common-sense approach to our justice system.
The Bill will streamline procedures in the use of remote hearings in coroners’ courts, which will speed up and simplify the inquest process and reduce the distress for bereaved families.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
When my constituents Andy and Amanda lost their daughter Colette, who was in the care of the state, they had an awful experience with the coroner service and had to crowdfund money for their legal representation. They just wanted lessons to be learned after their daughter’s awful death. Surely they should have the right to the same legal representation as the state, and providing publicly funded legal representation would improve this. What would the Minister say to that?
Dominic Raab
We have addressed that issue in response to the report that the Select Committee put out. Our position has not changed. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that I am mindful of the ordeal her constituents went through. One reason we are taking forward these procedures is to reduce that anguish and stress and to ensure that the coroners’ courts in the process deliver a better outcome for the bereaved and others relying on that service.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is making this speech, and we support so much of the Bill. On principle, does he accept that DNA sampling for people buried at sea would speed things up and save time for police and coroners when body parts wash up anywhere on the UK coastline, because they could quickly identify where those body parts come from?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend has raised that point with me privately, and he has now raised it on the Floor of the House. I am committed to looking at it and getting back to him. I understand the point, which he has raised in his usual tenacious but clear way.
Finally, the Bill will pave the way for a new state-of-the-art combined courthouse in the City of London. That court will provide an additional 10 courtrooms, predominantly to hear economic crime cases, including white-collar crime, such as fraud, and high-value business and property cases. That will be a real boost to the capital and to our vision of global Britain as a centre for investment, dispute resolution and doing business with integrity around the world. Court users will benefit directly by having access to more modern facilities, including lifts, wide corridors and a range of other measures, making it more accessible for the disabled. The City courtroom will have enhanced custodial facilities, increasing its ability to hear more cases with the most serious type of defendants.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
It is great that the Justice Secretary is talking about ensuring that this new court building will be fully accessible and inclusive, but going back to the point about digitisation, how will he ensure that everybody who needs online access will be able to access things online and that no communities will be left behind as a result of this Bill?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady is right to raise that concern. All of this work to modernise court and tribunal proceedings, which is necessary in its own right, will help to bring down the backlog of cases created by the pandemic. Physical hearings will always be available for those who need and want to use them, so that those who are uncomfortable or cannot access the digital and online applications will not be prejudiced. I hope that gives her the reassurance she needs to support this Bill on Second Reading.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I agree with the comments the Secretary of State made earlier about the work of the judiciary in bringing down delays. In particular, I put on record my thanks to the magistrates who work in our courts around the UK. Does he agree that one route we could choose to reduce the number of delays in magistrates courts is to increase the sentencing powers for magistrates? Perhaps he can say a little more on that point.
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for the work he and the magistrates have done. They hear 85% of criminal cases. The backlog in the magistrates court is already coming down. We thank the magistrates for the incredible work they are doing. He has lobbied me on this point, and in the context of the backlog, it is something I am looking at very carefully.
In sum, the Bill will reform the immigration appeals system, protecting it from litigation attrition. It gives judges greater flexibility in judicial review to hold the Executive to account without unnecessary disruption to the essential business of Government. Above all, the Bill will drive innovation across our courts to deliver a better service for the average citizen in this country. I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) on his promotion to the office of Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. I look forward very much to working with him and going toe to toe on the important issues of the day. I put on record how grateful I was for the manner in which his predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland), pursued his role. We were able to have very good Privy Council discussions on important issues relating to the justice system during the pandemic. I wanted to put that on record.
Hon. Members may have seen that I am joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who returns to the Front Bench to assist the Opposition in all matters legal. I pay tribute to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who does so much to advance the case for legal aid.
To govern is to choose, and all Governments must choose what they will prioritise. No Government can do everything at once—not even this Government—and the Bill could not be a clearer indication of what they have chosen to prioritise and what they choose to ignore. As we come to debate the Bill, the justice system is at breaking point with more than 60,000 Crown court cases delayed, victims dropping out of the process due to waiting years for their case to go to court, and women up and down the country rapidly losing confidence in the criminal justice system. Yet here we are debating judicial review. Government Members might say that this is a manifesto commitment. Then again, so was not clobbering ordinary people with tax rises. What the Bill says about the Government’s priorities is that they are more concerned with constitutional vandalism than with fixing the mess they have made of the justice system.
Joanna Cherry
On constitutional vandalism, the Law Society of Scotland has said that the abolition of Cart judicial reviews in Scotland by clause 2 of the Bill
“has the effect not of modifying a rule which is special to a reserved matter, but rather of creating such a rule, as it means that, in future, there will be a difference in the amenability of reserved and devolved tribunals to judicial review.”
Does the right hon. Member agree that, if it is right about that, there should be a legislative consent motion for the Bill?
Mr Lammy
According to the devolved settlement, that must be the case. Perhaps the Secretary of State or the Minister will address that.
“Judicial review is a cornerstone of British democracy. It empowers everyday people to challenge decisions made by public bodies. Whether it be central government or local authorities, rule makers are held accountable by ordinary people. This is a small, but important, check on the balance of powers in our democracy.”
Those are not my words but the words of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who I see in his place. He has described the reforms as “un-Conservative” and
“an obvious attempt to avoid accountability.”
I will let that hang in the air of the House of Commons.
There is no legitimate need to meddle with judicial review, least of all when there are so many other pressing issues to deal with. What message does it send to the victims of serious crime in a time of crisis that the Government’s first objective is to weaken quashing orders —one of the tools available when a court finds that a public body or the Government have acted unlawfully?
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the collapse of the Hillsborough trial identified flaws in our legal system and caused untold trauma to the families of the 97? Will he join me in urging the Government to bring the Bill back with amendments to include automatic non-means-tested public funding for bereaved families when public functions are involved?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend rightly raises the Hillsborough families, and she knows that, just like the Grenfell families, they have relied on judicial review. She raises that in relation to legal aid and will know that I have made such a commitment at the Dispatch Box. We will wait to see whether the Government will meet us with that important pledge on behalf of any individual facing tragedies of that sort.
The Bill seeks to make profound changes to how quashing orders work and, crucially, to what redress victims of unlawful decisions can receive from the courts. Clause 1 creates new powers for courts to remove or limit the retrospective effect of a quashing order. It will also create a presumption that a judge issuing a quashing order should make it suspended or prospective only. The effect of that would be for courts to have less power to provide redress or to compensate those affected by past uses of the unlawful decision.
On the face of it, that might seem to be quite a small change to judicial review, but the effects would be profound and chilling. The Government’s own consultation paper even conceded that a prospective-only quashing order would
“impose injustice and unfairness on those who have reasonably relied on its validity in the past.”
Let us look at how that would work in practice. When the Supreme Court quashed the employment tribunal fees in 2017, the effect of its declaration was that fees were identified as being unlawful from the start. Thousands of workers unlawfully denied access to justice therefore had their tribunal fees refunded. Had a prospective-only order been made, they would have been left out of pocket, despite the fees being ruled unlawful. How can that possibly be right? What would be the point of bringing a claim for judicial review, if people knew before they even started that they would be no better off? What is the purpose of judicial review if it cannot hold public bodies rightfully to account?
That is just the tip of the iceberg. As more people are left without the redress they deserve, many more will be put off bringing their own claim, even if those were perfectly valid. As a result, unlawful decisions made by the Government—by any Government, of any colour or stripe—or a public body will go unchallenged. Perhaps, however, that is what the Government want, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden certainly seems to think so, when he argues that the Bill is simply a way for them to dodge being held accountable. We all know that the ability of members of the public to challenge public bodies is vital to maintain a country built on good governance.
Joanna Cherry
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. Is the reason for the attack on judicial review that this Government have had a bloody nose repeatedly in the courts—on employment tribunal fees, asylum issues and benefits, and in the Prorogation case—and they do not like to be held to account?
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
Is the right hon. Gentleman familiar with and has he reflected on the words of a former Labour Home Secretary, who criticised
“unaccountable and unelected judges usurping the role of parliament, setting the wishes of the people at naught and pursuing a liberal politically correct agenda of their own”?
How have those words informed his remarks today?
Mr Lammy
I have not reflected on that statement very much.
I was reminded recently of the importance of judicial review by the infamous “Judge over your shoulder” leaflet, which has been published since 1987 to remind civil servants of the importance of sound decision making. The leaflet advises civil servants of the importance of good governance and of making decisions effectively and fairly to avoid those decisions being found unlawful. It recognises that administrative law and, in this case, judicial review played an important part in securing good administration by providing a powerful method of ensuring that the improper exercise of power can be checked.
Frankly, that is why having effective judicial remedies is so important to maintain good governance. The threat of judicial review is a powerful tool to encourage decision makers to make decisions well and fairly. If the power of quashing orders were to be neutered in the way clause 1 seeks, not only would that leave victims of unlawful decisions without the remedy they deserve, but it would reduce the motivation for public bodies to take care when making decisions. I agree with the Law Society of England and Wales when it says that that would have a truly chilling effect on justice in this country and we must question why the Government are even considering the changes in clause 1. Those changes go far beyond what was recommended by the Government’s own independent review of administrative law. The review made no recommendation that quashing orders should be prospective only. It specifically recommended against that type of presumption.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the sign of a mature democracy is that it protects the marginalised and vulnerable? Government Members completely misunderstand that point.
Mr Lammy
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That ought to be a principle across the House, not a party political issue.
To return to the review of administrative law that the Government set up, in their consultation response, the Government acknowledge that presumptions were not recommended by the review panel, and they were generally met with scepticism from respondents to the consultation. Indeed, it is not even certain whether prospective-only remedies would withstand a challenge before the European Court of Human Rights for failure to provide an effective remedy. Given the Government’s own panel of experts, and the sector, are opposed to that change, and given the harmful effect that it would have on victims of unlawful decisions, as well as on governmental decision making, we must ask why the Government are keen to make this change. Is it really, as they suggest, to provide courts with greater flexibility, or is it simply to insulate the Government from being held to account, and to weaken the power of claimants to seek compensation?
Clause 2 seeks to abolish Cart-type judicial reviews. For Members who may not be familiar with what those are, Cart judicial reviews allow individuals to ask the High Court to review decisions made by the upper tribunal to refuse a right of appeal. The vast majority of Cart reviews are sought by those who find themselves in horrendously desperate situations and they invoke some of our most fundamental human rights, including in some cases the difference between life and death. During the review of administrative law that the Government set up and the consultation stage, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association provided the panel with 57 case studies of when Cart judicial review has been used to put right an incorrect decision made by the upper tribunal. Those case studies included parents’ applications to be reunited with their children, a child’s application to remain in the UK to receive lifesaving treatment, the asylum claim of a victim of human trafficking and female genital mutilation, and many other deportation and asylum decisions where, if deported, individuals faced persecution or their lives would be at risk.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am pleased I have provided half his speech for him. I have an important point in support of his argument. Much of the Government’s argument on Cart appears to be that there are very few successful cases. First, I think they got that wrong—they thought it was less than 1%, but it is probably 6%. Secondly, the point the right hon. Gentleman is making is that, when they get it wrong, the consequences for the individual are dramatically bad. We must always think that through. When dealing with law, we must protect the weakest from the worst consequences.
Mr Lammy
The right hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. He is absolutely right. In each of the cases that I mentioned, judicial review was able to correct a wrong decision by the upper tribunal and enable fundamental injustices to be prevented, as he indicates. If the Government were successful in abolishing Cart, that crucial safeguard would be lost. That would not affect anyone in this Chamber, but it would affect very vulnerable people. Again, one must ask why the Government are attempting to make this change, and why they are using legislative time now to do it.
When the panel that the Government set up to look at these issues first recommended abolishing Cart judicial reviews, it did so on the basis that only 0.22% of them were successful and that public money could be better spent elsewhere. We know now that that figure was based on wholly inaccurate data. Even the Government now accept that the success rate is likely to be at least 15 times as high as previously thought. It is indefensible for the Government to base decisions that could make the difference between life and death on evidence that is so hopelessly flawed.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about Cart judicial reviews, but can he explain why Lord Hope, the retired Supreme Court Justice who sat in the Cart case at the Supreme Court, spoke in the House of Lords on 22 March in favour of abolishing Cart-type judicial reviews? He said:
“We set the bar as high as we could when we were defining the test that should be applied, but experience has shown that our decision has not worked”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2021; Vol. 811, c. 710.]
Mr Lammy
That is one reflection among many who sit on the other side of the debate, including those who have looked into this matter in great detail.
Why are the Government still pushing ahead with this reform? If we accept the Secretary of State’s reasoning, it comes down to cost and
“a disproportionate use of valuable judicial resource”.
In reality, however, the cost of Cart reviews is no more than £400,000 a year. That is a drop in the ocean compared with the Ministry of Justice’s overall budget. It is less than the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spent on its art collection last year. Put another way, the Government Legal Department’s total administrative costs for the last year were £226.7 million, more than 500 times the upper estimate for yearly Cart judicial review costs.
As with clause 1, there could be another, murkier reason that the Government are so keen to abolish Cart judicial reviews. In its press release, the Ministry of Justice said that
“it is expected that the legal text that removes the Cart judgment will serve as a framework that can be replicated in other legislation.”
With those words, the Government let their mask slip. If that is indeed their intention—I look forward to the Lord Chancellor confirming that it is not—that would allow them to insulate whole sections of Government decision making from challenge by members of the public. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House would agree that that would be a truly chilling development. Governments have to be challenged. Governments suffer defeats in the courts. Why would we start to oust Government decisions in other areas, beyond this small but important area of immigration law?
Beyond judicial review, there are several provisions dealing with a shift towards greater use of online procedures and technology. While Labour supports measures that would make the justice system more efficient, we must ensure that no one is left behind and that adequate safeguards are in place to prevent serious injustices. As the Bill currently stands, there is only a vague duty for the Lord Chancellor to provide digital support
“for those who require it”.
Labour feels that a specific commitment to assist digitally excluded individuals would offer better protection. While the creation of an online procedure rule committee is a positive step, the Bill currently puts too much power in the hands of the Lord Chancellor. As it stands, the Lord Chancellor could amend, repeal or revoke any law he feels necessary to create the online procedure rules, and he would only have to consult the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals before making amendments to them.
The last area I want to address is the coroners court. As with provisions on criminal procedure, any efforts to reduce “unnecessary procedures” or allow for greater online participation must be accompanied with robust protections for those who could be excluded. More fundamentally, there is nothing in the Bill to address the inequality in the inquest system that sees bereaved families denied the legal aid that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) mentioned earlier, while the state has the benefit of the finest Government lawyers that taxpayers’ money can buy.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that hospital authorities can hire Queen’s Counsel and spend millions of pounds on defending themselves, yet lone individuals cannot even get legal aid following the death of their immediate family? How disgusting is that?
Vicky Foxcroft
Just to reiterate the point about Colette, Andy and Amanda, and the pain they are going through after losing their daughter, they then have to crowdfund money to try to make sure that lessons are learnt. We must ensure we have a legal aid system in place that protects them. On the Labour Benches, I believe the shadow Secretary of State will be saying just that.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend’s championing of these issues is so important. The cupboard has been stripped bare and a real crisis is emerging, with vast legal aid deserts across the country. You cannot level up the country if people cannot get access to advice. That is the point and she is right to make it.
The Secretary of State made much of my youthful endeavours at the Dispatch Box 17 years ago. I said to him from a sedentary position that, on reflection, I was young and naïve. I say very gently to the Secretary of State that he is a younger man than I am. He needs to reflect on that. I did table an ouster clause to the asylum Bill at that time, but I listened, reflected and removed it before it could be enacted. The question today is this: will he do the same? Will he be the big man we know he is capable of being and remove this clause from the Bill, as he is being encouraged to do by such a senior colleague as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden?
The Bill is unnecessary and unwanted at a time of crisis in the justice system: it robs citizens of effective remedies when they have been wronged by the state; it would leave some of the most vulnerable people in society without a last defence against unlawful Government action; and it could act as a prelude to a wider assault on the rights and protections of individuals. I ask the Lord Chancellor, when the Government should be tackling the backlogs in the Crown courts, the magistrates and the employment tribunals, when they should be trying to repair their appalling record on prosecutions and convictions for rape and serious sexual assault, when they should be fixing the staffing crisis in prisons and probation, why have they chosen to protect themselves? Labour will be voting against the Bill today. I ask Members on both sides of the House to do the same.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
It is a pleasure to participate in the debate and to follow the two Front Benchers. I welcome the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State to the Treasury Bench, and thank him for the very generous and accurate tribute he paid to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland), whose conduct in office was of the very highest. I also welcome the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) to the Opposition Front Bench. He is a great loss to the Justice Committee, but very much the Opposition Front Bench’s gain. I look forward to seeing him in his reincarnated capacity. This is proof, I am glad to see, that the Labour party believes in recycling, and doing it in a good way, in this instance. If it is any help, I was recycled by David Cameron once—it happens to all the best, I promise. I am delighted to see the hon. Gentleman there.
This is an important Bill and, in fairness, a measured and tightly focused one. One might not have thought that from some of the things we have heard, but that is the reality. Again, that is in no little measure due to the focus of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon, the principal author of the Bill. I welcome the fact that he did that, and the fact that the Lord Chancellor has adopted the same approach to the Bill.
There were a great deal of noises off around what might or might not happen on judicial review, and I am glad that the course was sensibly adopted of having an independent review panel, chaired by an eminent Queen’s Counsel, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who is a distinguished Member of the other House and who, as I think everyone conceded, had approached his duties as a Justice Minister with exemplary fairness and impartiality, was respected by both sides, and had many years of practice in the field. He led a panel of experts who were also distinguished in the field, and they produced a measured report, for which the whole House should thank them.
That report was a great public service, and it is right that the Government have essentially built on the recommendations that the panel made, and the fact that the panel did not regard the judicial review as a major problem, but suggested sensible ways forward, is not something to be held against them. That seems to me exactly what one can expect if people follow the evidence, which is precisely what the panel did and what the Bill also does.
It is important to recognise that judicial review is an important factor in our constitutional arrangements. When I started as a law student in the mid-’70s, judicial review in its modern concept was in its very early stages of development. The late and lamented Professor de Smith was still alive and had produced the first of his two textbooks, but the subject was still largely taught in terms of the old prerogative writs of mandamus, prohibition and certiorari.
A lot has have moved on from then, and we have developed a much more sophisticated and wide-ranging corpus of administrative law. That is not of itself a bad thing, because it reflects the reality that, as I think the late Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone once observed, in the post-war years we have grown a regulatory state. Therefore, the actions of the state and of public bodies—state agencies, local authorities, hospital boards and a raft of others—impinge on many areas of citizens’ lives. That is not necessarily a criticism, but there are greater interactions between the state and its various agencies and the lives of its citizens.
There will be impacts there, and by the nature of the human condition, errors will be made by decision makers. It is perfectly reasonable that we have seen that, but, as has been observed, there has been an exponential growth—I think that was the phrase used—in judicial review. That is worth bearing in mind, because it has sometimes come at the cost of complexity in administrative law.
Lord Justice Haddon-Cave delivered a very useful lecture, the Gresham lecture, in June this year, which reflects wisely on the balances there: the fact that the growth of judicial review is not of itself a bad thing if it gives remedies to those who are wronged, versus the fact that in some areas of the law—the concept of Wednesbury unreasonableness and lawfulness being one—that has led to a degree of complexity. As Professor Richard Ekins of the University of Oxford has observed, that in turn can, in the fields of lawfulness, voidability of decisions and so on, lead to uncertainty. In so far as, according to the Bingham test of the rule of law, we want to see clarity and accessibility of law, we also want wherever possible to see certainty. Nothing can be an absolute in this world, but that is a reasonable objective, and I think the Bill seeks to strike a balance.
What the Bill is not, in fairness, is an assault on judicial review. It is unfair to characterise it as such in every respect; I would not support the Bill if it were, nor do I think that any Conservative would. The truth is that judicial review—the ability of the individual to seek redress against the actions of the state or its agents—is fundamental to the English concept of liberties. In his role as an author, the Secretary of State wrote about these matters before he came to the House, so he recognises that point, as do I and as does the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).
Judicial review—I say this to the wider public as well as to colleagues—is in the DNA not just of our British constitutional arrangements, but of the Conservative party. The ability to challenge the actions of the state and its agents when they get it wrong is fundamental to our concept of limited government. Supporting judicial review is an entirely Conservative thing for the Government to do and, dare I say it, an entirely British thing, across all the jurisdictions.
Joanna Cherry
As usual, the hon. Member is making a very learned and well-informed speech, but I want to challenge his assertion that the Bill is in line with Bingham rule-of-law principles. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law has produced a detailed briefing on the Bill, which says that clauses 1 and 2 are not in keeping with the Bingham principles on the rule of law and should be removed from the Bill. What is the hon. Member’s comment on that?
Sir Robert Neill
I have great respect for the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, but I think that it is wrong—it is as simple as that. I have come to the view, as I think the independent panel did, that the two clauses are not in conflict with the rule of law. That is precisely the sort of area in which there can be legitimate debate. I have worked with the Bingham Centre on many occasions, as the hon. and learned Lady knows, but I do not think that its conclusion is justified on the evidence. I think that that point is borne out by referring to the conclusions of the panel in relation to clauses 1 and 2, which I will come to in just a moment.
We all believe in the importance of judicial review. It is regrettable if any side in political debate sees tension between Parliament and the courts, or between the Executive and the courts, as a bad thing. There is always an element of tension in any constitutional relationship. Sometimes a decision may not go in our favour when we are councillors, members of health authorities or Ministers —it happened to me when I was a Minister. We may not like it, but equally we have to respect the decision. I do not see anything in the Bill that changes that fundamental point at all.
I will address the judicial review aspects of the Bill first, although I do not want to forget the other aspects. What we are dealing with is two very limited and specific proposals; that is a dangerous phrase to use under certain circumstances, but I think it works quite well in this regard. In relation to Cart reviews, I must say—with respect to those who seek to uphold Cart—that I understand the point that in a tiny number of instances there might be success, but overwhelmingly they have not proved successful.
I commend to the House the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), who quoted Lord Hope. Of course there are others who argue to the contrary, but with all respect, I think that the views of a senior Law Lord who sat on the case in the Supreme Court and has said “We got it wrong” might carry just a little more weight than those of some other commentators. Certainly the conclusion of Lord Faulks’s panel was
“that the continued expenditure of judicial resources on considering applications for a Cart JR cannot be defended, and that the practice of making and considering such applications should be discontinued”,
so the Government have acted in line with their independent review and in line with the evidence.
I will make an additional point, which has already been posited, but which is important. Many who practise law would say that in truth there is an inherent illogicality in giving one particular class of appeal, as opposed to others, a third bite of the cherry on the merits, when a decision on the merits both of fact and of law has already been taken by the Upper Tribunal, a tribunal of equivalent status and standards to the High Court. That is not an appeal to a superior tribunal; it undercuts the jurisdiction of an equivalent court. With respect, there is no logic to that at all, so it seems to me that it cannot be said that there is anything objectionable in a modest amendment that relates to removing Cart litigation.
In relation to joint enterprise manslaughter, as hon. Members will recall, the Supreme Court used a phrase about the Court of Appeal taking “a wrong turn”. I think that this is an instance in which we can say—and Parliament is entitled to say, with respect—that the Supreme Court in Cart took a wrong turn, and that we are entitled as a matter of public policy, as is conceded to be Parliament’s prerogative in these matters, to reverse it in this limited measure.
May I also deal with the issue in relation to quashing orders? It does not seem to me that it can be objectionable to increase the suite of remedies available to the courts. There can be difficulty when quashing arises, and I do not say that this is a complete solution to it—I shall return to that in a moment—but I think it is worth quoting, in full, the recommendation of the independent panel:
“Accordingly, we recommend that section 31 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 be amended to make it clear that the courts have the power to make suspended quashing orders in appropriate cases. This could be done through the insertion into section 31 of a new subsection (4A), which would read, ‘On an application for judicial review the High Court may suspend any quashing order that it makes, and provide that the order will not take effect if certain conditions specified by the High Court are satisfied within a certain time period.’”
That, broadly, is the scheme which the relevant provisions in the Act follow. They follow the recommendation of the independent review, and I therefore do not think that there are any significant grounds for criticism in that regard.
The one question that I would raise about this—and I posed it in my intervention earlier—relates to ensuring that when we consider the way in which the statutory presumption which underpins this is set out and is then put into force in practice, we do not allow the individual litigant who has suffered tangible loss as a consequence of an impugned decision to be left without a genuine and meaningful remedy. A future declaration of illegality will not of itself recompense a person who has lost a business, lost an opportunity or lost employment, or something of that kind. Provided that this is applied in a way that ensures that that person does not lose out, I do not think that there is anything objectionable here.
There will be some who are parties to litigation and wish to see a change of policy rather than the question of having suffered individual loss, but I should have thought in those cases, the suspended and future quashing orders are perfectly legitimate and proportionate. It is the need to deal with the individual who has lost out against the state that I think we need to safeguard, and I hope the Minister will confirm that that will be done. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for having done so in response to my intervention. That, I think, is the key test.
Another point might be worth bearing in mind. Again, I refer to the helpful paper published by Professor Ekins this morning. This is a path that the Government are not going down, but I should like to know whether there will be some scope for the deferring rather than the suspending of a quashing order. There are circumstances in which that might enable remedies to be applied without some of the difficulties that could arise from uncertainty. I do not say that that is right, but it is worth looking at the paper from Professor Ekins, because it posits some modest amendments that may be worth considering at a later stage in the Bill’s progress. I do no more than float the idea. As it is, however, I see nothing that can be regarded as in any way an assault on judicial review in the first part of the Bill. These are sensible and modest reforms—and reform is not the same as an attack; reform is exactly what we do to keep law up to date.
Let me now turn to the remaining parts of the Bill, starting with criminal procedure. It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with modernising procedure; technology changes, and we all learn. The shadow Secretary of State and I practised in criminal law for much of our careers—as, indeed, did the shadow Minister—and in our time we have all seen procedure change out of all recognition in some respects, often for the better. I think we all agree that serious sexual offences, for example, are handled much better now than they were when we started off in practice at the Bar. In particular, claimants get a far better deal. That is just one example, but I can think of other safeguards that have been built in—the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and a raft of other measures—and have acted to prevent abuses against defendants in the course of investigations.
Procedure can always be improved, and we ought always to be able to take advantage of technology, as we do with video-recorded evidence and so on. Again, there is nothing objectional about that in principle, and I do not think there is any harm in greater flexibility either. Easy movement between the courts can certainly save time. However, I ask the Government to bear in mind that that needs to come with appropriate safeguards.
My concerns about this have been well set out in the Bar Council’s briefing. For example, when moving from in-person proceedings—which at the moment are often remote proceedings—to a written procedure for certain types of offence, safeguards will be needed as to what precisely the specified offence is going to be. An example that the Justice Committee has highlighted in previous reports is that of a young person who has foolishly committed an act and who enters a guilty plea or accepts a caution, which is recordable. That plea is recorded and then, years down the track, because of the way our criminal records system currently works, they find that it is a serious obstacle to employment or educational opportunities that goes way beyond anything they had contemplated when they entered the guilty plea, perhaps to get it out of the way, at the time.
I am concerned that these categorised offences should not involve anything that is imprisonable, and I also suggest that we should not use the provision for anything that is recordable. I can see that in certain types of offence, such as the non-payment of the television licence fee, this could certainly speed things along, but there needs to be a safeguard for anything that is likely to have an effect on someone’s character, reputation or future life chances. The safeguard is surely that we ensure that an informed decision has been made, which must imply access to legal advice before the decision to enter an online guilty plea is made.
We all know that criminal proceedings are often dynamic and that things come to light as we go along. That can happen with the disclosure of material online as much as in person, and there must be a specific provision to withdraw a guilty plea at an appropriate time if it becomes apparent that an arguable defence could be raised. That seems to be a fair balance, and it needs to be specifically written in, either in the legislation or in regulations. I hope that the Ministers will undertake, at the very least, to reflect that in regulations; that is probably the most constructive way, rather than changing the primary legislation.
We also have to look at one or two anomalies. I note, for example, that in relation to the provision for online procedures, the trigger age relates to someone over the age of 18. However, in clause 4, which deals with
“Guilty plea in writing: extension to proceedings following police charge”,
subsection (3)(b) states that the provision shall apply where
“the accused had attained the age of 16 when charged”.
I do not see the logic in that, so perhaps the Minister can help me when he responds to the debate. What is the logic in using the age of 18 in one provision and 16 in a provision that covers broadly similar grounds? We need particular safeguards for dealing with young offenders, to ensure that they do not enter a plea that is not fully informed, either through immaturity or a lack of good advice, as that could have permanent consequences for their future. It is not the principle that I object to; I am just concerned that we get those safeguards in place.
While I am on the subject of criminal procedure, I must point out that modernisation is fine and has its place, but what happens tomorrow in the Budget is as important as anything else. I am all for making the best possible use of scant judicial resources and time, but none of the proposals compensates for the proper funding of the courts system. Sadly, we have a legacy of decades of underfunding—under Governments of all colours, let us be blunt. There is no party point to be made here. Under all Governments, the courts system has not been funded to the level it requires, and I hope that the Secretary of State will use his important position within the Government to take forward the ambitious spending bid that his predecessor talked about. If he does that, he will have my support and that of many others on both sides of the House. Investment in justice is investment in the fabric of society, and that is good for us all in the long term. That is a slight digression, but I hope I will be forgiven for raising it in the circumstances.
I now turn to the remaining provisions. Moving tribunals across makes sense. Many people who practise in the tribunals would say that it is about time that tribunals were not regarded as slightly out on a limb and as a bit of a poor relation. A closer alignment will be beneficial for their interoperability. For example I noted during the pandemic that some tribunals’ rule systems, not being the normal Supreme Court rules, lagged behind the courts in adapting to online hearings, so the change can only be beneficial.
I wish the Government had gone further and adopted the recommendations of the Justice Committee’s report on coroners. As far as it goes, the change is well and good but there is a missed opportunity to which we can perhaps return in due course. There is nothing in the Bill to which I object, and I see the good sense in greater flexibility on certain types of hearing, but that is no reason for not being more ambitious in relation to coroners either in this Bill or in future legislation. As the Bill proceeds, I hope we will be able to look at that again, because the coronial system is important to the country and particularly to victims and bereaved families, and it operates with variability, if I might put it that way, across the country. The Select Committee’s well-reasoned proposals deserve more consideration than they have perhaps had so far.
There is an argument to be made about equality of arms, which is again about funding. Massive sums are not required to give the families of victims in complex inquests equality of arms with state agencies that do not appear on the other side in technical terms, because of the nature of a coroner’s inquiry, but in reality are making assertions that the families would rightly wish to challenge and explore. I hope the Government will reflect on that as a measure of fairness and equity.
This Bill has proved to be less controversial than it was flagged up to be, and it is the better for that. It is a sensible, conservative set of incremental improvements and proposals that are welcome and should be supported. Parliament, the judiciary and the Executive have important and equal functions in our system. The rule of law does not mean that every public action has to be subject to judicial review, but it does mean that judicial review should be sufficient, strong and robust enough to ensure that victims of injustice are recompensed.
It is also important that we who sit in this House and who operate in the political sphere recognise the integrity of the judiciary in their sphere. As Lord Faulks’s review concluded, we can trust that the judiciary will act properly, accordingly and fully within the limits of their powers, and we should respect that, as we can also be confident that they will respect us.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role, and I pay tribute to his predecessor, who was courteous and respectful to me at all times.
This Bill is just one part of a broader programme of constitutional reform designed to allow the Government to restrict the rights of some of their most vulnerable people, whether it is the Elections Bill putting barriers in the way of ordinary people being able to vote; the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill restricting the right to protest publicly; the Nationality and Borders Bill potentially criminalising people for saving the lives of asylum seekers; or this Bill reducing access to justice for those who have been badly treated by a public body. As Liberty has said, there is
“a concerted attempt to shut down potential routes of accountability and exert the power of the executive over Parliament, the courts and the public.”
Since my first election in 2015 I have sought to ensure that my constituents understand what goes on in this place. I think we can all agree that there is much that perplexes people, and that there are many levers that we and they can use of which they are not aware. There is a huge learning curve for a new MP so, as I got to grips with things, I tried to pass on what I learnt.
As time has moved on, I have turned my attention to the complexity of the language which can create barriers for people who do not do parliamentary speak. Since I became my party’s justice spokesperson, I have become acutely aware of the sometimes even more exclusive nature of legalese, so I feel something of a duty to interpret what is going on so that it can be readily understood by the average person in the street. To be clear, I am not questioning the average person’s ability to understand, but if someone does not use legal or parliamentary language regularly—and how many people out there do?—it will not come naturally. When we speak, we should remember that we are speaking not just to each other in here but to our constituents and to each other’s constituents. When they are losing their right to justice, we have an absolute duty to make sure that they know that that is what is happening. That is what I hope to do today. I am also happy to confirm that we are opposed to much of the Bill and will vote against its Second Reading.
Clause 2 seeks to oust Cart judicial reviews and, in Scotland, Eba judicial reviews. If an individual feels that a public body—such as the NHS, their local council or the Department for Work and Pensions, to name but a few—has failed to follow the law correctly in its decision-making process, that individual can appeal to the first-tier tribunal. If the first tier finds against them and that individual believes it has made an error of law, perhaps by overlooking vital evidence or misinterpreting the rules, that individual can appeal to the upper tribunal. Currently, if the upper tribunal refuses an appeal on the decision of the first-tier tribunal, the individual can ask to have the decision judicially reviewed. All sorts of criteria have to be met—one cannot simply ask for and get a judicial review—but currently people can at least apply. The legislation before us will remove that right. One might say, “Well, they’ve already had two bites of the cherry,” but the independent oversight of judicial review is being removed only for the tribunal system; currently, all other judicial reviews will continue. I say currently, because I share the fears expressed today by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) in his article: we do not know where this will lead. We do know that it is so often the tribunal system that deals with the least powerful in our society, from whom the Bill removes the right to justice.
As the Law Society of Scotland has pointed out, the decisions of the upper tribunal are often taken by a single judge, based on the paperwork alone, so the person bringing the appeal has no opportunity to make their case in person, or to answer any questions that the judge may have. The opportunity to judicially review the decision of the upper tribunal is a vital last line of defence in cases in which the most fundamental of human rights are engaged.
We have heard much talk about the Government’s justification for taking away those rights, which appears to be the high volume of applications versus the low number of successful outcomes, but let us look at that. The evidence to support the Government’s position was so flawed that the Office for Statistics Regulation decided to investigate and found that the real success rate was at least 15 times higher than the Government figures showed. When the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned that, I saw the Secretary of State laughing, as if that was a derisory amount, but if we use the figures calculated by the Public Law Project, we see that that would amount to 40 people every year being incorrectly denied their right to appeal in cases where, as we have heard, the stakes can be incredibly high.
The Government seem to class an appeal as successful only if it first overturns the decision of the upper tribunal, is given permission to appeal and that appeal is then won further up the chain. They completely miss the point that Cart reviews serve to correct errors of law even if the appeal is ultimately unsuccessful. I cannot for the life of me see how all this can happen without a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) has argued and will no doubt argue further in her speech.
Throughout my speech, I feel like I should be saying, “As the right hon. Member for Tottenham said,” because it feels like we have swapped speeches. I am trying to find different examples. We have heard that even the Government’s own figures say that the change will save only around £400,000 per year. Never mind the spending on the art collection: £2.6 million was spent on refurbishing No. 9 Downing Street as a media centre, and the saving represents less than one sixth of that. What is more important?
Let me return to why this type of judicial review is so important. I want to give an example of when it saved somebody’s life. This case concerns a Venezuelan man and his family who had fled to the UK after witnessing the violent murder of his friend by state actors. He arrived in Edinburgh and was refused asylum claimed on the grounds that if he was sent back to Venezuela, the perpetrators, who clearly had scant regard for human life, would seek to silence him. The first-tier tribunal and the upper tribunal surmised that, because he had suggested in evidence that he would not be able to recognise the killers, he had nothing to fear. Thankfully, he had that vital last line of defence and was able to judicially review the decision.
During the proceedings, the court found that both tribunals had made an error of law in misunderstanding this traumatised man’s evidence. He could testify to the time and location of the murder and he could be a credible witness in an investigation—perhaps his memory would be jogged by viewing photographs or creating photofits. It was obvious that the perpetrators would surely know that and would do anything within their power to prevent him from speaking up on his return.
The upshot was that the man was allowed to appeal. He won his appeal and was saved from deportation and almost certain persecution and death. How can the Government justify even to themselves taking away those rights?
The reversal of Cart-type judicial reviews could, as Liberty and others have pointed out, affect cases of access to vital benefits, leaving people with disabilities and those facing destitution and homelessness without a last line of defence. Nobody can guarantee that they will not one day have a disability, and very few people can guarantee—perhaps a few in here can—that they will not be absolutely dependent on disability benefits to survive financially. If, for some reason, they were to be denied those benefits, as happens far too regularly, and appealed against it, they would deserve the right to question that decision-making process.
I want to focus now on the suspended quashing orders and the prospective-only remedies in clause 1. They will not apply in Scottish courts, but because they can and will affect UK-wide laws, they will affect people living in Scotland—until, of course, we are independent, which I hope will not be too long from now. These changes could have a big impact on the Scottish courts for other reasons that I will come onto a little later—it is something known as forum shopping. Whether or not these orders are primarily for England and Wales, they are just plain wrong.
Let us look at quashing orders. The right hon. Member for Tottenham talked about the case of the employment tribunal fees. Basically, in a landmark judicial review in 2017, the Supreme Court found in favour of the applicant. I will not repeat everything that he said, but given that people were being charged up to £1,200 to access justice, this was a great outcome that will have made a big difference to many. If clause 1 had been in place then, those extortionate fees could have stayed in place until a date determined by the court. That would have given the Government time to rectify the unlawful policy. In other words, they would have been able to change the law so that the thing that had just been judged to be unlawful was suddenly lawful. Is that not incredible?
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
Specifically on the important point about tribunal fees, this Government could have listened carefully to comments from across this House before introducing them. However, judicial review served as the primary purpose and vehicle for an individual to take action against this Government. How does my hon. Friend think this Government will be able to have that action taken against them in the future if they have their way with this Bill?
Anne McLaughlin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but she is wrong to think that I can suggest anything, because I cannot do so. I would love to know what the Secretary of State is saying about this. We really cannot underestimate the chilling effect that this will have. It will put people off attempting to access justice in the first place. Who would put themselves through all this for no tangible outcome? Clause 1 creates a perfect storm of claimants having no incentive to challenge the Government or other public bodies, whereas the said public bodies and Government can proceed safe in the knowledge that they can do what they like. It is the risk of being held to account and the potential for challenge that drives good decisions and policy making.
As I said earlier, despite clause 1 being restricted to the courts of England and Wales, there will be an impact on the Scottish courts. If the Scottish courts are not directly subjected to clause 1, which they are not, what is to stop people from using the courts in Scotland to bring judicial review challenges on UK-wide legal matters? After all, it makes sense to take a case to a court where judges have more discretion and a wider set of legal remedies. So, while on the one hand, I am always happy to showcase anything that we do well in Scotland and certainly very happy to link that to reasons why Scotland should be independent. If such a practice became widespread, the Scottish courts could face pressure on valuable resources, which could result in delays.
In conclusion, as Liberty reminds us in its evidence, the independent review of administrative law considered prospective-only remedies, but chose not to recommend them. It chose not to recommend a presumption for suspended quashing orders, nor did it recommend restricting judicial discretion to use alternative remedies. It did not recommend the use of ouster clauses. It based its recommendation to reverse Cart on later-to-be-discovered flawed Government statistics. However, the Government continue to push a Bill that blurs the separation of powers, restrains judicial discretion and, most importantly, discourages the public from challenging the decisions of the Government and public bodies. The SNP will be voting against Second Reading tonight, but I very much hope that some of the many concerns shared in here today by many Members will be considered before we proceed to scrutinise the Bill in Committee.
I am now going to end in a way that I never, ever envisaged I would do, which is by quoting a Conservative MP—the aforementioned right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, who has said:
“Be warned: this government is robbing you of your right to challenge the state”.
We should heed that warning seriously.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), although, unlike her, I find much to welcome in this Bill, particularly the parts of it that deal with sensible reforms to court processes, subject, of course, to the safeguards to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Select Committee, quite sensibly referred.
I want to concentrate my remarks on part 1 of the Bill, which focuses on judicial review. It is worth stressing at the outset, as others have done, just how important judicial review is to our constitutional balance. Judicial review is not, of course, there to be used as a route by which judges can run the country, and its limitations are not widely understood. Its focus in on the way a decision is made, not on the wisdom of the decision itself, which means that those whose decisions are ruled to be unlawful in the exercise of judicial review are, in fact, seldom precluded from reaching the same conclusion subsequently via a revised process.
Judicial review has practical, as well as constitutional, benefits. It can improve decision making retrospectively, as it obliges badly made decisions to be made again, but also prospectively, as the shadow of judicial scrutiny tends to encourage Government Departments to give more thought to the rationale for decisions before they are made. The lawfulness of Government decisions is not just important for its own sake, but because it enhances their effectiveness by making it more likely that those subject to them will accept them. Surely that has rarely been more important than when the Government have sought to curtail our liberties during a pandemic for the sake of public health.
Fundamentally, as a matter of constitutional principle, judicial review demonstrates that no one—not even Governments—is above the law. For me, nothing summed that up more clearly than when the Government of which I was part contested a judicial review case in the Supreme Court, on the hugely significant political question of whether the Government could initiate our departure from the European Union without further parliamentary sanction. When the Government lost that case, I—the Government’s Attorney General—could walk out of Court and confirm without hesitation or reservation that the Government accepted the Court’s judgment and would act accordingly. That is this country’s commitment to the rule of law in action.
The fact that judicial review can be irritating to Governments is not only no reason to erode it; it may, in fact, be a positive reason not to. Changes to judicial review should be approached with caution and this Bill seeks to change it in two specific ways. Let me say just a little about each of them. I will start with judicial reviews against the class of decisions identified in the case of Cart. In those cases, clause 2 seeks to exclude what are, in effect, further appeals by another name. I have sympathy with the Government’s objective, although I do not find the argument of cost and inconvenience to the legal system persuasive. I am much more persuaded by the argument that the current situation undermines another fundamental principle of our constitutional settlement—that of parliamentary sovereignty.
It is clear that Parliament intended there to be no appeal against the upper tribunal’s decision itself to refuse an appeal from the lower-tier tribunal. Constructing what is, in effect, a back-door route to such an appeal is a clear challenge to Parliament’s intent. I would therefore support a proportionate measure to exclude such replacement appeals as a matter of routine, but it is important for Parliament to reach a considered view on what it really wants to exclude. Having another go at the same argument is what Parliament has said it does not want, but I am not convinced that it said with clarity that it also wishes to exclude challenge to an upper tribunal acting in excess of its powers. I am not convinced, either, that Parliament should say that, but I fear that it may be what the current wording of the clause would achieve.
This is no time for the fascinating arguments about the merits and demerits of ouster clauses, you will be relieved to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do think that if the Government seek to use the mechanism set out in clause 2 they must be rigorous in excluding only what is necessary to give effect to Parliament’s direct will and not to prevent a check on acts beyond the upper tribunal’s mandate or powers as given to it by Parliament. Such acts would be rare, but, if they happened, would constitute a challenge to what Government legislated for and therefore to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, too. The wording of clause 2 will therefore need further discussion.
I now come to the additional provisions on judicial review in clause 1. Although it may well be arguable that the court already has power to suspend the effect of a quashing order, I can understand the Government’s wish to make that clear, as I can see that a suspended quashing order is, at the very least, a more elegant option than making a declaration of illegality but stopping short of quashing a decision because of the potential administrative chaos it would likely cause. I have more concerns, though, about removing or limiting the retrospective effect of quashing an unlawful decision—not, in itself, a recommendation of the independent review of administrative law. In particular, I am concerned about the suggestion that this would be routine and not exceptional. Finding a decision to be unlawful but then saying that that unlawfulness applies only to those affected by it in the future and not in the past puts the court in a strange position.
The general premise of judicial review has, for some time, been that if a court finds a decision to have been made in such a flawed way that it was made unlawfully, it is saying that, in effect, the decision was not made at all. Those adversely affected by its making, from the point of its making, are then entitled to rely on the court’s ruling to pursue redress for the effect on them of a decision that has been made void. Removing the opportunity for those individuals or organisations to do so may constitute a significant detriment to their interests and should not be done without consideration for those interests. In passing, I observe that others have said that it also gives considerable power to judges to keep unlawful decisions alive for some, which one might think jars with the apparent premise that some use for judicial review reform, justified or otherwise—that judicial review judges have too much power.
Removing retrospective effect also presents a logical conundrum. A quashing order will be made only if the court believes that the decision was taken in such a defective way as to require it to be deemed unlawful and therefore of no effect. But removing retrospective effect requires the same court, at the same time, to determine that the decision was not so defective as to require all those subject to it up to the date of judgment to be protected from its impact. There may be circumstances where it is appropriate for the court to decide to do those two conflicting things at once, but they must be rare.
The difficulty with the way in which clause 1(9), in particular, is constructed is that it suggests that in fact those circumstances should represent the norm. I do accept that clause 1(9) requires the court to regard such an order as offering adequate redress as well as giving the opportunity for the court to do otherwise if there is good reason to do so. However, the clause still creates a presumption in favour of limiting or removing retrospectivity. As I say, I am not convinced that that is the right approach, but, at the very least, Ministers will need to assure us that in the consideration of whether non-retrospective quashing orders offer adequate redress, the interests of those who would have relied on that retrospectivity, as well as those who may benefit from prospective effect, should be given particular weight in the balancing exercise the court must conduct before making the order.
I finish where I began, with the fundamental importance of judicial review in our constitutional settlement. It is that importance that should cause us to be very slow to tamper with it, unless we are convinced first that there is a real need to do so that goes well beyond irritation with Government losses and, secondly, that any changes we make are well judged, thought through and do not cause collateral damage. Although I have no wish to impede the Bill’s Second Reading, given the positive effect of other parts of it, I am not convinced that part 1 on judicial review is yet in the right place to meet those objectives.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright). As someone with no legal training, I always enjoy listening to people with legal training who make clear what the issues are. I hope the Government listen carefully to the concerns that he has raised about part 1 of the Bill. As always, the Government are putting forward perfectly reasonable proposals and mixing them up with something that is very controversial. On the Opposition side of the House, we are not at all convinced that this Bill is anything other than an attack on the most vulnerable and most marginalised in our society, and we want to protect them.
The Government claim that this Bill will hand additional tools to judges. What the Bill actually does is restrict judicial review. Judicial review is working well in this country. Although these proposals might not go as far as many feared, I remind colleagues of Lord Neuberger’s words that judicial review
“is what ensures that the executive arm of government keeps to the law and that individual rights are protected”.
Government accountability is fundamental to our democratic society. That is the principle on which Liberal Democrats oppose this Bill.
Taken against the Government’s broader programme of constitutional reform, it is difficult to see this Bill as anything other than part of a concerted effort to take power away from individuals and to stop them holding Governments to account. In the past year, we have seen: the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which restricts people’s rights to peaceful assembly and protest; voter ID proposals under the Elections Bill that stop people from vulnerable and marginalised backgrounds from exercising their democratic right to vote; and attempts to weaken the Human Rights Act 1998 and the UK’s commitment to the European convention on human rights. Now we have a Bill that limits people’s ability to hold Governments to account through the courts.
Key elements within the Bill are particularly concerning. Clause 2 permits the courts to abolish Cart judicial reviews and imposes de facto ouster clauses. That removes a vital safeguard in situations where tribunals make mistakes. We have heard about that several times already this afternoon. The vast majority—92%—of Cart judicial reviews are immigration and asylum cases. Many of the remaining cases concern access to benefits for disabled people and other people facing destitution. Those are all situations where the stakes are incredibly high for the people involved.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is making a fascinating speech and some very strong points. Does she agree that there is now an established body of judicial review going back a number of years that seems to demonstrate that this particular area of law has allowed the Executive to be held to account by the most vulnerable and weakest in our society? Does she also agree that an additional benefit, as mentioned by the former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), is that it focuses the minds of those working in Government—in particular those in the civil service and Ministers—to provide better quality decision making in the first place?
Wera Hobhouse
This issue absolutely is about that particular section of society who seem to be under attack in this case. Decisions have been made where those people should have been supported in the first place, and then they do not even have a comeback under the law, and that is just wrong.
What is more, the low success rate, which the Government are using to defend their plans, massively understates the number of Cart judicial reviews that secure a positive outcome for the claimant. Scrapping Cart judicial reviews goes against everything that a fair-minded liberal democracy stands for. We Liberal Democrats will never cease to stand up for such rights.
The Government state in their press release that
“it is expected that the legal text that removes the Cart judgment will serve as a framework that can be replicated in other legislation.”
In other words, they are admitting that the Bill is the thin end of the wedge and that it could open the door to more ouster clauses in the future, which would create whole areas of Government action that could not be judicially reviewed, making them immune from accountability through the courts.
Liberty has described the Bill as
“part of this Government’s bid to make itself…untouchable.”
The Law Society warns that the Bill
“should ring alarm bells for people who come up against the might of the state.”
There can be no justification for such a Bill in a democratic society. I urge colleagues across the House to vote against it.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). I rise in support of the Bill and am keen to see it make progress through the House. Before I go on, this is my first opportunity to say how delighted I am to see the Secretary of State in his post and the new Minister in his place. I echo the comments made by the Secretary of State about the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland).
The Government are committed to fulfilling their 2019 manifesto pledge, and I am pleased that we are committing to yet another pledge to protect our democracy. The Bill will—at last—streamline our judicial system in both England and Wales, making it much more efficient. It is a good example of justice machinery, and I am pleased that my constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire will experience the benefits of these improvements.
I am glad that the Government recognise the impact of the pandemic on our court system and, as well as managing those pressures, are learning some helpful lessons and continuing with the steps they took during the pandemic to bring some court proceedings online, saving valuable time and resources. I acknowledge that the Bill benefits both England and Wales and, as the representative of a constituency with roughly 60 miles of the border between our two nations, very much welcome provisions that will remove the statutory requirement that magistrates courts must be divided into separate local justice areas. My constituents will often travel across the border for employment, education and other things, and the judiciary is no exception. In that spirit, I will focus my remarks on the courts elements of the Bill.
I commend the Government for the work they have already done, particularly in the field of domestic abuse. I was proud last year to be a member of the Domestic Abuse Bill Committee and am even prouder that that Bill was prioritised by the Government during the height of the pandemic. The Government, conscious that coronavirus was not the biggest threat for those enduring lockdown with their abuser, made sure that the Committee could meet and that both sides of the House could scrutinise and improve that Bill.
One of the many strengths of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 is the improvements it has made to the family courts. On that, I would like to see this Bill go further. In family proceedings, the Domestic Abuse Act introduced an automatic ban on cross-examination in person when one party has been convicted of, given a caution for or charged with certain offences against the witness, or vice versa. The provisions also introduced an automatic ban on cross-examination in person when an on-notice protective injunction is in place between the party and witness or when there is other evidence of domestic abuse. That is a crucial step, and one that I am very proud of.
Having praised the Government, I will ask the Minister to go further—he will not be surprised by this—and consider further amendments for family court proceedings. I do so on behalf of my constituent, Natalie Davies, who came to see me and has given me permission to mention her and raise her case. She lives in my constituency with her partner, baby and two primary school-aged children from her previous relationship. In February, she came to ask for advice due to the complexity and sensitivity of a legal dispute between her and her ex-partner.
I will not go into too much detail about Natalie’s case. However, while the conclusion reached by the judge was in her favour, her experience in the family court was completely unacceptable. In her words, it was a “complete misery”. The way in which she was treated by the judge was simply wrong for a modern age. She claims that she was repeatedly undermined throughout her case, which caused her immense distress, and she felt as though a completely one-sided approach was taken. Her barrister later confirmed that the judge had to be persuaded to read both sides of the case. During her hearing, the judge referred to her as “young lady” and commented on the fact that she was “already”—his word—expecting a baby with her new partner. He also googled her home and searched for images of her new home on Rightmove.
Natalie complained to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, as is proper, but she had no response, until two days before a further hearing with the same judge. She was hastily told that her complaint had been rejected. She was told that no misconduct had taken place. Had the judge fallen asleep, that would constitute misconduct, but patronising—even misogynistic—remarks and apparent predetermination on the part of the individual somehow did not constitute misconduct. I find that deeply troubling.
All in the House would of course agree that the judiciary must be free from direction by Ministers. That is entirely appropriate. However, the existing system is not working. This might well be out of scope of the Bill, but it appears to me and the other individuals to whom Natalie has introduced me since coming to see me in my surgery that we have an imbalance here, which I wonder whether we may explore as the Bill travels through the House.
We must look at a situation in which individuals do not have access to a clear and transparent complaints system. Natalie’s complaint was backed up with a written statement by her highly trained barrister, and yet it was still dismissed out of hand.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes a compelling case along particular lines. She is right about access to legal recourse. I do not know whether she has had a chance to look at the important speech given last week by the Attorney General, which sets out how, in parallel, people are using the courts to perpetuate political debates. Ironically, some people do not have access to justice, and others are using the courts for political ends, which is why the Bill is so important.
Fay Jones
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I bow to his experience in these matters. That should be considered as the Bill travels through the House. I want to see it make progress and I commend the Government for their ambitions thus far, but I would like, and would be grateful for, a conversation with the Minister about what we can do to ensure that all those who have the inevitably difficult experience of going through the family court are treated with the utmost respect.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
Scotland’s justice system remains devolved and, as such, the powers to amend the judicial review process are, thankfully, protected. The UK Justice Secretary’s predecessor recognised that separate nature in March when he told the House:
“In respecting separate jurisdictions, as I always do, these proposals relate to England and Wales matters and have been carefully delineated in that way.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 510.]
The Minister must give similar guarantees that, if the Bill becomes law, the Government will not look to expand its scope to impact on Scotland’s independent, unique and distinct legal system. He must also acknowledge that he should not have the authority to attempt unilaterally to unpick such a fundamental part of the UK constitution. The Scottish judicial review process has evolved over many years and the result is a proper system of checks and balances that does not need interference from Westminster.
That separate and valued legal system means that most of the Bill will not impact on my constituents or on Scotland, but parts of it will, and that does not detract from my concern about the way in which the Government are operating towards the judiciary in England and Wales. It appears to me that the Bill is part of a broader drive to increase the power of the Executive, to limit oversight, and to reduce the ability to seek judicial remedy in the courts and to hold this Government and Governments after them to account.
I say a broader drive, because the Bill is moving through this place at the same time as the Nationality and Borders Bill, the Elections Bill, the review of the Human Rights Act and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
Each taken on their own merit should be cause for concern, but as a package they leave little doubt that the Government’s strategy is to roll back the rights of vulnerable groups, while simultaneously removing the checks and balances on the Government’s Executive power.
The Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament in 2019 was the first step on the road to an increasingly authoritarian style of government. Since the two high-profile defeats on article 50 and prorogation, and several High Court rulings on immigration and employment tribunal fees, the Government have been vocal in their criticism of the justice system. The Home Secretary herself referred to “lefty lawyers” and “do gooders” looking to hamstring the legal system. In reality, the Bill is a crackdown by the Government, who are unable to move past the frustration of high-profile defeats in the Supreme Court. Rather than asserting their Executive authority and removing checks and balances, the Government should be listening to calls from senior legal experts across these islands and their own review.
Lord Faulks, a former Conservative Justice Minister, wrote that Ministers should “think long and hard” before seeking to curtail the powers to the judiciary. He added: “Our view is that the government and Parliament can be confident that the courts will respect institutional boundaries in exercising their inherent powers to review the legality of government action. Politicians should, in turn, afford the judiciary the respect which it is undoubtedly due when it exercises these powers.”
With that in mind, I urge Members to vote against the Bill and maintain the vital checks and balances in this crucial area of law.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
I, too, will focus my comments on the first part of the Bill, which concerns judicial review. I support the exclusion of upper-tribunal permission decisions from the ambit of judicial review—the so-called Cart decisions. That is a merit-based argument. Briefing notes I received state that removing the option of recourse to judicial review in immigration risks injustice, and I hope Members will not mind if I set out briefly why I do not think that is the case.
It is important to note what clause 2 on Cart decisions does not do. It does not mean that difficult immigration or asylum cases will not end up in the appeal courts. It is the case now, and will remain the case, that the most difficult cases concerning article 3 rights on freedom from torture, and article 2 rights on the right to life, are nearly always adjudicated in the Court of Appeal. That is because they have made a natural progression from the first tier to the upper tier and the Court of Appeal. All the clause does is deal with permission to appeal. The clause gives the applicant first the opportunity to go to the first-tier tribunal and seek permission to appeal, with the threshold being whether the case is reasonably arguable. They fail that. They go to the upper-tier tribunal and again say that they have a case that is reasonably arguable. That is refused. They then go to the High Court and seek judicial review. It is only that upper layer that is being removed.
In no other area of law, in either the private or the public realm, does the applicant have three bites of the cherry—not in employment law, not in family law, not in education law, community care, or local government. You cannot leapfrog a decision of the upper court or tribunal to seek recourse through another means. I have listened carefully to the arguments made by those on the Opposition Benches, and no one has yet defined why immigration, and immigration alone, should belong in a special category where people have an extra bite of the cherry.
The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who is no longer in her place, suggested that it goes against every fair-minded decision of a Government to exclude Cart-type judicial reviews, but that overlooks the difficulty that the Supreme Court had when it determined this issue. Indeed, I say respectfully that it is rare to find such a nuanced decision in the Supreme Court. In the course of that judgment, at paragraph 91, Lord Phillips said:
“My initial inclination was to treat the new two tier tribunal system as wholly self-sufficient… Can it not be left to the Senior President…to ensure that the tribunal judiciary is so deployed as to ensure the appropriate degree of judicial scrutiny of decisions of the lower tier?”
Even Baroness Hale, who was the primary proponent, said:
“There must be a limit to the resources”
that we
“devote to the task of trying to get the decision right in any individual case.”
We on the Government Benches respectfully say that it must be right that, if the Supreme Court were faced with that decision again, it would answer in a different way. We know that because of Lord Hope’s remark in the Lords on 22 March that
“experience has shown that our decision has not worked”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 March 2021; Vol. 811, c. 710.]
The other reason I support clause 2 is to do with the overriding objective that lies at the heart of all civil procedure and the issue of proportionality. I know that there has been some disagreement among Members about how many Cart judicial reviews succeed. The independent review of administrative law report put it as low as less than 1%, the Government say it is 3%, and Liberty, which argues strongly in favour, says it may be nearer 5%. However, we have to be realistic. On any reading, we have a system where over 95% of these judicial review cases go nowhere, yet we know that that is the most common form of judicial review.
That is exactly what Lord Dyson warned against when permission was given in Cart. He said that “resources are limited” and that we do not want
“a return to the pre-2002 Act days in immigration and asylum cases when the courts were overwhelmed with unmeritorious judicial review claims.”
Anne McLaughlin
I am a bit confused. The hon. Lady said that taking away Cart judicial reviews would not stop somebody going to the Court of Appeal from the tribunal system, so I just wonder what the route is. Perhaps I have misunderstood.
Laura Farris
For an applicant to end up in the Court of Appeal, they would win or lose at first instance and either appeal or be appealed by the Home Office, the upper-tier tribunal would give permission for that appeal, and it would be heard in the upper-tier tribunal. The applicant would either win or lose again, and then they would find themselves appealed to the Court of Appeal. That will not change where difficult areas of human rights law are engaged.
The issue here is where the upper-tier tribunal says, “No, we won’t give permission to hear your appeal,” and then the applicant goes to the High Court and seeks a judicial review application. It is that narrow aspect that is excluded by the Bill. It is important to clarify that, because I think there is some uncertainty about whether human rights are being excluded, and I am glad that the hon. Lady asked me.
Laura Farris
I will make a little progress, because I know that time is limited.
The Opposition frequently push Government Members on the issue of backlog and delay. In the early days of the pandemic, they were right to do so, but I do not think that they can sustain an argument where they simultaneously criticise delays that have arisen because of the pandemic and advocate a disproportionality in an area of litigation where over 95% of claims are unsuccessful, clearly clogging up court time.
The second issue that I would like to address is the new flexibility in quashing orders, and particularly the issue of suspended quashing orders. I read the IRAL report very carefully. It reached its conclusion by reviewing the Court of Appeal’s decision in the case of Hurley and Moore. When it found that there had been a breach of the public sector equality duty, the Court made a declaration of illegality rather than a quashing order because it wanted to give the Secretary of State room to comply. As I see it, clause 1 is in keeping with that.
A number of organisations have written to me to say that, while they perhaps understand the basis of the decision, they are generally opposed to suspended quashing orders where the provisions of a clause will be void. Respectfully, I think that fails to properly engage with what is at stake. The public sector equality duty is a really helpful starting point here. Let us look at the way those cases were litigated through the appeal courts in the early days. We had the library closure cases, with Somerset County Council, Gloucestershire County Council and Surrey County Council all losing public sector equality duty cases. We then had the care home cases, such as South West Care Homes v. Devon County Council, and the mental health cases. All of them were in 2011, 2012 or 2013.
What is most striking about public sector equality duty cases now is that they almost never succeed; actually, I could not find an example of one that had succeeded since 2015. It occurred to me that it is at least possible that the reason the courts will not engage with those cases is that they think it is too onerous to quash. I think that the Bill provides more scope, not less, for some of the progressive principles that can be advanced for a judicial review to succeed if it is not immediately the subject of a quashing order.
I also listened to observations made on the Opposition Benches about retrospective decisions and retrospective effect; what that would have meant in the Unison case and whether the Supreme Court would or would not have ordered the Ministry of Justice to repay the fees paid by litigants who were bringing claims during that period. I just do not think it is possible to read Lord Reed’s comments in that judgment and not find it was absolutely guaranteed that the Supreme Court would order the fees to be repaid. Let us look at clause 1(8) and (9), which set the criteria. The Supreme Court effectively applied them all and found that the repayment of fees was necessary, so I do not think it is a good example.
It is, however, worth recalling the case of HM Treasury v. Ahmed, which the Secretary of State mentioned in his opening remarks. That was a critical case, one of the first cases the Supreme Court heard, because it dealt with important issues of constitutional consequence and public interest. The Labour Government had done what any right-minded member of the public would think was sensible. They found three people who they suspected, but were not convicted, of terrorism offences. As a precautionary measure, they froze their assets. They believed they were entitled to do so under the United Nations Act 1946. They were, in fact, not entitled to do so and the Supreme Court found them to have acted ultra vires and quashed. We know that at least one Supreme Court Justice was nervous about that. Lord Hope said:
“I would however suspend the operation of the orders that I would make for a period of one month from the date of the judgment to give the Treasury time to consider what steps, if any, they should now take.”
What if they had had the power to suspend the order? We know the judgment was handed down on 27 January 2010. By 5 February, Alistair Darling had introduced the Terrorist Asset-Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Act 2010. By 10 February, two weeks later, that had received Royal Assent. It was manifestly in the public interest for Parliament to have the opportunity to legislate on that. How much better if the Court had had the opportunity not to make a quashing order, but to suspend.
That brings me to my final point, which is something I do not think anyone on the Opposition Benches has engaged with at all: what the doctrine of nullity is really about. In private law, the Court has the opportunity to consider and to decide that something is unlawful, but in public law it does not just decide that; it quashes altogether. I am of the view that allowing some discretion, where the effect of a quashing order would potentially run contrary to the public interest or conflict with what might be the will of Parliament, offers a more constructive opportunity to resolve public law problems.
Anne McLaughlin
I thank the hon. Lady for again letting me in. Surely this is ordering judges to have a presumption in favour of prospective, rather than retrospective, quashing orders? We are not giving them the opportunity to use it—we are saying, “You will use it as a default position.” That is the problem.
Laura Farris
I am not sure I entirely agree with that. I do agree that clause 1 sets out the criteria they need to apply, but in reality they are common sense principles and I do not agree that the Court’s discretion is being fettered in the way the hon. Lady suggests.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure—although always slightly daunting to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris)— to speak in this debate. I must start by declaring an interest. I served as a magistrate for 12 years prior to my election and spent almost five years as a member of the Youth Justice Board. It is on the subject of the magistrates and youth courts that I wish to focus my remarks. The proposals for changes to procedures in the magistrates courts strike me as sensible and balanced measures that will, in many respects, simply bring them into the 21st century. The new processes and procedures herald a marked improvement to the way courts run, saving time, improving efficiency and therefore helping to ensure speedier justice.
It is appropriate to echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and mention the tremendous achievements in the magistrates courts over the past 18 months. Following the inevitable disruption caused at the start of the pandemic, the magistrates courts were incredibly quick to adapt to new methods to prevent delays to justice. With more than 85% of criminal cases falling entirely within the jurisdiction of the magistrates courts, they are absolutely vital to the overall smooth running of our judicial system. We should not forget that magistrates are volunteers. I pay tribute to them for all their efforts, alongside the staff of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, the legal representatives and other services, such as victim and witness support—the latter also volunteers.
The flexibility and adaptability of those working in the magistrates courts over the past 18 months is a clear demonstration of the capability, readiness and willingness of justices of the peace to embrace change.
I particularly welcome the digitising and streamlining of preliminary pretrial court proceedings via the common platform, the removal of unnecessary courtroom hearings, and the strengthening of links between Crown Court and magistrates courts. Creating the option for online written pleas will enable defendants to sit with their legal adviser at a time of their own choosing and submit the required information via the common platform. That must be preferable to waiting in a courthouse for hours on end for a hearing that will likely last just a few minutes.
Similarly, I believe that permitting an allocation decision to be made online or in the absence of the defendant, in the appropriate circumstances, will enable courts to progress cases and avoid unnecessary delays. This is especially welcome for indictable-only offences, where the appearance in the magistrates court is no more than a formality.
I am aware that there are concerns about ensuring that defendants will be properly equipped to make decisions about their cases if they are not physically in a courthouse. I share those concerns, so I am therefore very pleased that there will be safeguards to ensure that defendants have the right advice and support and, crucially, that a full court hearing will always be available when needed and considered to be in the interests of justice. I am grateful to Ministers in the Ministry of Justice for reassuring me already that especial care will be paid to particularly vulnerable defendants and to children.
The introduction of a new automatic online conviction and standard statutory penalty procedure is a further positive step. It has long struck me as disproportionate for someone to come to court if they have not paid for a rail ticket or have fished with an unlicensed rod. An online process that does not require the involvement of a magistrate seems a much more appropriate way of dealing with such cases. Of course, it will be necessary to ensure that only very low-level offences of such a type take place without direct judicial oversight, and I am pleased that the addition of any further offences to the mechanism would need to be explicitly agreed by Parliament.
The decision to abolish local justice areas makes further good sense. The current system can result in arbitrary borders that prevent a magistrate from sitting in a court just a few miles from their home if it happens to be in a different LJA. The proposals in this Bill will mean that work and people can be distributed according to need and availability. One consequence will be the ability for closer working between Crown Court and magistrates courts. That greater alignment of different branches of the judicial family is undoubtedly another positive step.
However, a few questions arise from the proposals to scrap LJAs. At present, each area has its own bench chairman, deputies, chair of youth court and so on—magistrates who volunteer to take on leadership and pastoral roles. It would be helpful to learn a little more from the Minister about how those functions will be carried out in future, and to have reassurance that magistrates will still have a degree of agency over decisions and practices affecting them directly. We also know that local areas can see different patterns of crime, distinct from one another. Until now, magistrates courts have been able to reflect that in their sentencing, so I am keen to hear from the Minister about how specific local factors will be reflected henceforth.
Of course, magistrates courts can only function well when there are enough magistrates to sit in them. The number of those on the bench has fallen dramatically in recent years. I am pleased the Government are now attempting to recruit more people to the magistracy, but it is important that magistrates represent all walks of life, all ages and all backgrounds, and I wonder whether the Minister might tell the House a little about how he hopes that might be achieved in the years ahead.
There are relatively few clauses in this Bill affecting the youth courts. There are provisions regarding the transfer of cases when a young person reaches the age of 18, but I will use this opportunity to repeat to the Minister and his colleagues in the Department my call for young people to be dealt with by the courts according to the age at which they committed their offence, rather than their age when they first appear in court, which is the current process.
I was pleased to introduce a ten-minute rule Bill on this subject last February that received support from across the House, including from some very learned and distinguished hon. Members. As I said then, it would be a relatively simple change to make in legislation, because in many respects, it does no more than correct an anomaly. For those affected, however, its effect would be profound because of the different sentencing options that are uniquely available in the youth jurisdiction. Such a change would enable young people to put their mistakes behind them and make a constructive contribution to our society. It would put more emphasis on preventing reoffending, which is key to reducing the number of victims of crime—something that we all wish to see.
The number of such cases may not be high, but they have a massive impact on the young people concerned. I heard only this week about the case of a boy who was arrested at 16 and is still waiting for his first court appearance three and a half years later, now he is nearly 20. That cannot be right, so I hope that as the Bill progresses through Parliament, Ministers will consider whether this could be the appropriate time and place to bring about a change that is supported throughout the justice system.
Much of our debate on the Bill has focused on measures that relate to judicial review. They are certainly very important, but we should not overlook the other positive steps that are being taken to improve our justice system. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to highlight the Government’s strong and sensible changes to magistrates courts’ proceedings, which I am confident will bring benefits to defendants, witnesses, lawyers, court staff and magistrates themselves, as well as to victims of crime. That is why I am pleased to support the Bill.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
I welcome the chance to speak in this debate as a new member of the Select Committee on Justice. We have not considered judicial review in any great detail, but we have considered court capacity, the use of virtual hearings and remote technology, and the work of coroners’ courts.
We are all aware by now of the challenges that the pandemic has caused for court capacity, but I think we can be proud of, and should recognise, the enormous efforts to ensure that our justice system across the country continued in a more robust way than in many similar jurisdictions. I thank and pay tribute to court staff for their work to enable that, and I echo the positive remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) about magistrates who give their time.
Of course that does not mean that we do not face a backlog, but I think we should remind the Opposition, or what is left of them—certainly their spokespeople—that the backlogs that we faced prior to the pandemic were lower than some backlogs that victims faced under the last Labour Government. Outstanding cases at the Crown court were at just over 40,000 before the pandemic; they hit 50,000 under Labour. A quick search of Hansard does not produce the outrage that we have heard today from the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) or that I suspect we will hear from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) when he winds up. They were not so bothered about it when they were in government, but they seem particularly frustrated now.
However, let us be in no doubt that backlogs are a problem and we need to bring them down. That is important, because delays in justice have an impact on victims and the innocent: importantly, we lose witnesses and victims, which ultimately means that people who should face justice do not. That is why it is right that we look at ways to innovate and do things differently if it can help with the backlog. Of course there is always risk when we do things differently, but we have to weigh it up against the injustice for those who are waiting for their day in court.
The Justice Committee heard a variety of evidence about the benefits and drawbacks of remote hearings, which are similar to the benefits and drawbacks that we have debated in relation to remote healthcare. Rightly, victims’ advocates have highlighted that for some people, remote hearings are a real challenge, so I ask the Minister to outline the steps that the Government will take to protect vulnerable groups from being inadvertently disadvantaged by remote hearings and by other changes in the Bill.
As hon. Members have said, reform cannot take place instead of investment; funding must be provided to help us to address the backlog with extra sitting days and Nightingale courts. We have seen some good progress in that regard.
Yes, the justice system has historically faced cuts, but I want to take the opportunity to remind people that those cuts did not happen in isolation. At the time, £1 in every £4 spent by the Government was borrowed; we were spending in an unsustainable way. It is easy now to criticise cuts that were made, and perhaps the balance of cuts across all the Government’s work has not been correct—that is why many of us welcome the extra spending for justice—but to make out that those were easy choices at the time and blame everything on the cuts, when we know that ultimately the Government were reacting to a situation not of their making, is not fair.
I thank the very many hard-working people who are struggling to deliver the important function of coroners’ courts and who did so over the pandemic, but I have to say that I feel concern. As we move away from full hearings, we will need some very clear routes available for decisions when people choose not to have a full hearing. The Government talk about cases being uncontroversial and simple, but I am afraid that the harsh reality we have heard from coroners’ courts is that although they are overwhelmingly conducted with care and attention to families and with open and transparent process, that is not always the case. Coroners’ courts still reflect the style and approach of individual coroners.
I would not want the measures that the Government are introducing through the Bill to have inadvertent consequences where coroners took decisions in cases that would objectively have benefited from a full hearing, or that families might feel would have benefited from one. It would be good if the Minister outlined what opportunities families might have to challenge decisions that coroners make under the new legislation.
I want to make some brief remarks about judicial review. I think we have to recognise that access to justice, in the broadest possible sense, is a public good, but too often some of those involved in the provision of this public good see it as sacrosanct, and seem to believe that there is some Utopia where demand for justice is perfectly met. They often strive for that without accepting that the provision of justice as a public good must compete for public resources alongside the provision of other public goods, such as education, healthcare and defence. It is perfectly legitimate for a Government to consider whether public money spent on judicial reviews funded by taxpayers is public money that might be better spent on other public goods—or whether it might be better spent in the judiciary on a more effective way of securing access to justice than the present system of judicial review. There might even be a simpler, better use of the courts’ time. I personally can see a vast public good in a certain fox killer having fewer opportunities to waste the courts’ time with repeated failed actions, especially given the stresses on the legal system that we have discussed.
Of course, controversies in this area of law are not new to the Chamber. We heard earlier from the Justice Secretary how the Labour Government pushed these ouster clauses and saw their merits at the time. The Refugee Council has said:
“this Bill threatens to deny asylum seekers a fair hearing of their…claim… We urge the Government to take these criticisms seriously and to act on them.”
The council was not talking about the Bill that is now before us; it was talking about the Bill that the shadow Justice Secretary attempted to steer through Parliament.
I think that we have to take a step back, and recognise that the public expect to see a balanced use of public resources in the courts across all the expenditure of public money. I am frequently appalled by the disproportionate amounts spent on legal aid for individuals to challenge decisions, including decisions made through judicial review. Does that serve the interests purely of justice? Perhaps yes, but does it represent a proportionate or justifiable allocation of public good in our society? Certainly not, and I think the British public understand that.
The hyperbole that has been expressed today about the narrow changes that are being made to judicial review undermines the credibility of the Members making those claims. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) and others how restricted and limited these measures are. To suggest that people who have had a couple of bites at the cherry are being denied justice because they do not have the opportunity to make one further attempt is an exaggeration that undermines those Members’ arguments.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Much of the Bill is eminently sensible, and there is much in it to support. Like most people, I am pretty fed up with politicised lawyers endlessly trying to game the system. We need the application of common sense, and to call this Bill authoritarian is an absolute misuse of the term.
I will not speak for more than four minutes or so. I want to talk about how we can improve the general principles of the Bill in respect of coroners’ time and police time spent dealing with cases in which bodies are washed up on the coastline, and in particular about the need for the mandatory taking of DNA samples from people who are to be buried at sea. I thank the Isle of Wight coroner, Caroline Sumeray, for her advice on this, and indeed for her work on behalf of Islanders.
There were three places in the UK where burial at sea was allowed: Tynemouth in the north-east, Newhaven in Sussex, and one and a half miles south-west of The Needles, on the Isle of Wight. Now, I understand, the area off The Needles is the only place where burial at sea is legal. At present there is no legal requirement for DNA samples to be taken from the bodies of the deceased.
The proposal for DNA sampling originated from an action at the UK Missing Persons Unit, which at the time was investigating about 60 unidentified bodies which had washed up over the previous year—not all at once, I hasten to add. The pathology unit at the Home Office undertook to progress that action, because every investigation involving a body washed up at sea requires a pathologist—and an awful lot of police time—to discover where the body might have come from. There is also the emotional distress of families who give DNA samples in the hope that it might be a relative of theirs; and if Aunt Madge has recently been buried at sea and, sadly, parts of her are washed up, the family do not necessarily want to give DNA samples because it is an unnecessary process.
There are about 10 burials at sea each year, and once or twice a year body parts are washed up on the coast of the Isle of Wight. At the end of 2016 a lower arm was found, and early in 2017 a matching skull was washed up. Later in the year, a man’s body was washed up near Brighstone, having come from Devon.
In October, a headless torso was found at Brook chine. In 2018, a skeleton was found on Barton beach and a skull was found in St Helens, with another being found later in the year in Seaview. The year after, a lady’s skeleton was washed up from Fishbourne, although that dated back to the bronze age. Clearly the tides had brought it up from a beach somewhere around Britain and it had been washed up on the Island. This is most likely to happen after storms, which either break up a coffin or force a body on to the land. They are often discovered by dog walkers on the beaches, and that is clearly not the sort of thing that they want to see first thing in the morning.
While this is a constituency issue for me, it could affect a coroner or police force anywhere in Britain that has a coastline. If we had a requirement for DNA sampling prior to burial at sea, it would be easy for the police or the coroner to check against the database and make a quick distinction about where the body part had come from. Clearly, if the database had no matching DNA sample, it could be a suicide, a murder or someone who had fallen off a liner somewhere in the world, but if a DNA sample could be matched, it would save police time, save the coroner’s time and save the emotional distress of the families involved.
The costs of the coastguards, helicopters, police spotter planes and inquests all add up. One of the principles of the Bill involves using the coroners and the police to achieve more efficiency and, frankly, to do their work in a more productive way. I therefore believe that, as good as the Bill is, it could be improved by the facilitation of mandatory DNA sampling on the UK DNA database so that the police and coroners can quickly identify where body parts washed up on the UK coastline have come from.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) to his place and wish him well on his first outing for the Ministry of Justice. He might be tempted to reciprocate when he speaks, but as this is my third time in the job, that would be unnecessary, just like significant parts of this Bill.
I am sorry to be leaving the Justice Committee after a number of years, not least because of the able and consensual chairing of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). I need not feel neglected, however, as so many members of the Committee have followed me to the Chamber today. This is almost like a meeting of the Justice Committee. With the hon. Members for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), for Newbury (Laura Farris), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) here, we almost have a full house. I commend all their contributions, and indeed the contributions of all other Members this evening. This has been an intelligent and considered debate that I hope will set a good precedent for the exchanges across the Dispatch Box.
Parts of the Bill are functional and unexceptional, and we will not make points for the sake of it. Indeed, much of part 2 has been revived from previous Bills that fell in the political mêlées of the past few years. The debate has shown, however, that there are serious concerns around part 1, as the shadow Lord Chancellor, the Scottish National party and Lib Dem spokespersons and others have indicated. I particularly want to mention the contribution from the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who, with his usual thoughtfulness, went through some of the problems in clauses 1 and 2 in forensic detail. Despite having had the benefit of some very learned briefings from organisations working in the field, I heard him make some points that had not occurred to me or to them. I hope that he will be joining us on the Public Bill Committee in order to pursue those matters further.
I thank all Members for their contributions, and even though the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) did not speak in the debate other than to intervene, we felt his presence in the room. His articles in The Guardian and elsewhere really have hit the nail on the head and shown that, despite what some Members have said, there are very real concerns about the Bill. It always needs to be said when talking about the Lord Chancellor that he was a protégé of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, which we do not see very often these days. I am reminded of King Lear, rather than Edward Lear:
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
Our primary concern with this Bill is that the proposals for judicial review are regressive and uncalled for, more especially when, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) set out, many aspects of the justice system are in a state of profound crisis—aspects that these measures do nothing to address and much to distract from.
The Ministry of Justice should be devoting all its efforts to tackling the record court backlog and working to restore women’s faith in the criminal justice system. We have heard several times today of the more than 60,000 outstanding Crown court cases, due in part to the shortage of practitioners, with proceedings delayed because barristers cannot be found to prosecute or defend, and the shortage of judges and recorders. The Lord Chancellor recently admitted that he cannot say when the backlog will get back to pre-pandemic levels, but last week’s National Audit Office report enlightened him by suggesting that the backlog could still be 25% above pre-pandemic levels three years from now.
That is an important point. We often had this debate on the Justice Committee, and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich said that backlogs have risen and fallen under different Governments. I concede that point, but the important point is that when the backlogs were high under a Labour Government they were quickly addressed and quickly fell back to low levels. There is little sign at the moment that the Crown court backlog is coming under control or is likely to reduce to acceptable levels.
Rape prosecutions and convictions are at record lows, even as reports to the police rise steadily. The Government’s own review said that Ministers are deeply ashamed of this dire situation and pledge to get prosecutions and convictions back up to 2016 levels by the end of the Parliament, but the Prime Minister said during his party conference speech that he cannot guarantee the target will be met.
We have recently seen two excellent reports on legal aid by the Justice Committee and the all-party parliamentary group on legal aid, and the Minister and I attended the launch of the latter last week. The reports document the collapse in access to justice since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. In the face of this unprecedented crisis, what is the Government’s legislative priority? Why are we here today? This is another political attack on the judiciary.
Weakening judicial review and attacks on human rights legislation have formed predictable purple passages in the last few Tory manifestos. The previous Lord Chancellor was a half-hearted cheerleader. To his credit he was half-hearted, so he had to go. The noble Lord Faulks proved to be too much of a lawyer and too little of a politician, so his review was set aside and a second consultation staged, and now we have this Bill.
Although it is correct to say that some of the threatened intrusions on the judicial role have not yet materialised, although we have yet to see the new Lord Chancellor at full stretch, there is plenty of mischief in this Bill, with the hobbling of judicial review by prospective-only orders, the fettering of judicial discretion by presumptions in favour of prospective and suspended orders and the ousting of judicial intervention in Cart and perhaps other cases.
The false dichotomy that the Government wish to argue, as in the recent speech by the Attorney General, is that democracy and the rule of law are two opposing forces that need to be brought more into balance by weakening the latter. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are two sides of the same coin, or rather one provides the tracks on which the other can smoothly run.
This Government’s true motive is to escape accountability for malpractice. It is one of the defining features of this Government that they simply do not believe the same rules should apply to them as apply to everyone else, and that starts with the Prime Minister and works its way down. An unbiased observer—I offer myself for this role—might say that the Government want to mute every avenue of accountability, from the BBC to the Freedom of Information Act and now the courts.
Specifically, the removal of the retrospective effect of a quashing order will have a chilling effect on judicial review. What is the point of the seeking of a remedy without redress? Victims of past unlawful state actions might not be compensated. Litigants who are similarly impacted before and after a judgment will be treated differently. Legal aid may be refused on the grounds that a remedy for past loss is not available. All in all, the Bill goes much further than the dry terminology of the statute suggests. It also goes further than the independent panel recommended: it saw no need for prospective-only orders and dismissed the idea of presumptions in favour of them.
As we have heard, the Bill will also abolish Cart judicial reviews, which are most often used in serious asylum and human rights cases but have also been used in welfare cases when someone was on the brink of being made destitute or homeless. That is the answer to the point about the fact that the success rate may not be among the highest—albeit it is still higher than the Government previously said it was—and the reason why there is a special reason for retaining such reviews. Those points have been made but they are, with respect, not good points, because Cart reviews are a last-gasp defence for some of the most vulnerable people in the most desperate situations. The Bill’s impact assessment concedes that, saying:
“The majority of Cart cases relate to Immigration and Asylum, therefore those who lose out…are more likely to have particular protected characteristics, for example in respect of race and/or religion or belief.”
Cart reviews are an important safeguard and there is already a high threshold for bringing them. Moreover, the original proposal was based on wrong data, as I have said. I agree that the estimate of the percentage varied from the clearly wrong 0.22%, to the 3% that the Government now maintain, to the nearly 6%—30 times the originally cited figure—on which a number of learned and informed sources have made submissions to us.
Let me give just one example—there will be time in Committee to give a lot more—of the type of case affected. G was trafficked into the UK from her home country of Nigeria. Traffickers in both countries had brutally mistreated her and subjected her to serious physical and sexual abuse. While she was in the UK, she gave birth to a child, whom she looked after alone. The Government did not dispute that G was a victim of trafficking, but a tribunal convened to decide what support and protection she ought to receive went beyond the statements of the parties and decided that she was not, in fact, a victim of any trafficking or exploitation. This meant that she could be removed from the UK and would have resulted in her falling back into her trafficker’s hands.
The Cart procedure was used to re-evaluate the decision before the High Court. The Court found that the tribunal had made a series of errors leading to
“elementary and serious breaches of the principles of procedural fairness”
and that, as such, its decision could not stand. The High Court ruled that G’s case was not only arguable and should have proceeded, but that it was “bound to succeed” based on the strength of her claim. Without that ruling, the tribunal’s original “fundamentally flawed” ruling would have been put into effect, putting G and her child in the greatest danger imaginable. It is difficult to see why such a case should be refused the opportunity of legal remedy. That is certainly the opinion that the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and others have impressed on us in briefings, right up to and including today.
The Government’s statements on matters going beyond Cart suggest that the use of an ouster cause will serve as a template to abolish other types of judicial review in future.
The press release announcing the Bill stated that
“the legal text that removes the Cart judgment will serve as a framework that can be replicated in other legislation.”
That is quite chilling in itself. The Government would do better to heed the words of Lord Neuberger, former president of the Supreme Court, who said last week:
“Ouster clauses…which are intended to ensure a particular class of decision cannot be judicially reviewed, carry with them the inevitable implication that whoever has the protection of the ouster clause has the right to break the law with impunity”.
Perhaps with an eye on this latest legislative attempt to rein in our independent judiciary, he added that judicial review
“is what ensures that the executive arm of government keeps to the law and that individual rights are protected.”
Perhaps also the Conservative party is no longer a party of individual rights.
Part 2 contains a number of measures to increase the use of technology and online justice procedures, some of which, as I have said, have been rehashed from earlier legislation. The justice system has to adapt to new technologies, just as the rest of us do—some with more success than others—but technological change does not affect everyone in society equally. We cannot have a justice system where people are locked out because they do not have the means or the knowhow to navigate the digital frontier. We must make sure that this drive to digitisation leaves no one behind. Justice must never be sacrificed for efficiency.
If there is sufficient opportunity, for example, for taking advice on pleas to be heard before a tribunal for open justice, are corners being cut in the interests of rapid and economical disposal of cases? All those questions arise in revisions currently in part 2 of the Bill. We also have concerns around plans to set up an online procedure rules Committee. The Committee itself makes sense, but why, given that it is supposed to be a practical aid to practitioners, is it a creature of the Lord Chancellor, who merely has a duty to consult the Lord Chief Justice and the senior president of tribunals before making amendments to the rules?
The last major area of concern we have is in the provisions relating to coroners’ courts. Again, there is a danger that, in a rush to reduce unnecessary procedures and facilitate greater online participation, people who are less capable of navigating the new system will be excluded. There is nothing to address existing problems with the coroners’ service and, on Thursday, we be will debating the Justice Committee’s excellent report—I was a member of the Committee at the time—which raises a number of serious issues, including, in particular, the inequality of arms, as we have heard from many Members today, faced by many bereaved families who are not entitled to legal aid at inquests where the state is representing. We can discuss that in Committee and we can discuss it on Thursday.
The peremptory response and dismissal of many of the Committee’s major recommendations is something that the Government should look at again. It is another example of why this Bill is not fit for purpose. There is too much focus on areas where the law works well, and too little where it is failing. Above all, it is an unforgiveable distraction at a time when all focus should be on getting the justice system back on an even keel. The Bill seeks to undermine the rights of the individual against the state and it looks like another attempt by this Government to stoke a political war with the judiciary—something that would be more recognisable in Hungary or Poland.
We can try to salvage the administrative good from the political bad as the Bill progresses through both Houses, but there is no way that any Member of this House who cares about the rule of law or the checks and balances of our constitution should be supporting this Bill on Second Reading tonight.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed today. It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). He asked if he should be welcoming me to my place; I am grateful to him for that. I also welcome him. I know that he performed his role for many years, from 2010 to 2016, but it is good to see him back in his place. I look forward to debating with him.
This is my first opportunity to speak in the role of Courts Minister, so I want to take a moment to put on record my enormous gratitude to all those on the frontline in our court system, including our judiciary, practitioners, all court staff and clerks. They have all put in one hell of a shift during the pandemic to keep justice going in this country. It makes me proud to be British.
The one thing that I would stress, having visited the courts and seen how they have had to adapt, is just how much social distancing rules disrupted the judiciary. The 2-metre social distancing particularly affected juries in the Crown court. It has been very difficult. For that reason, a significant backlog has accumulated and we have been open about that. The key thing is that we have been active in bringing forward positive measures to address that backlog. We provided £250 million of funding during the pandemic, which enabled us to lift the limit on sitting days in the Crown court, and rapidly to roll out technology to keep justice going online during lockdown, which was incredibly important. Of course, we also brought forward our famous Nightingale courts, which have done an amazing job in helping us, particularly with bail cases.
This Bill plays its part in those positive steps to address the backlog. The common thread is streamlining justice: digitising in-person processes where appropriate; removing Cart judicial reviews, which use disproportionate resource; and enabling more triable either-way cases to be sent from the Crown court to the magistrates so that Crown courts have more capacity for dealing with very serious criminal trials, potentially including rape and murder. The Bill will build on the lessons of the pandemic. It streamlines our justice system by digitising a range of procedures so that we bear down on the backlog and at the same time improve the day-to-day experience of our constituents in the court system.
We have had a wide-ranging debate. Inevitably, the focus has been on the measures on judicial review. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, made a wonderful speech, not least when he extolled the glories of English liberty. He said that the judicial review reforms are measured and focused, and I do not think that he would be described as an enemy of the judiciary or someone who supports revolutionary measures. These are sensible, proportionate measures.
The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), with whom I look forward to debating further, said that these measures weaken quashing orders. I take completely the opposite view. The measures strengthen quashing orders and thereby strengthen judicial review. The best way to prove that is to refer to an important and very real case study, which many hon. Members will remember, particularly those, like me, who served in the last Parliament and represent rural constituencies.
Members may recall the problems caused in 2019 when Natural England decided to revoke general licences for shotguns—shotguns that enabled farmers, landowners and gamekeepers to shoot pest birds. That happened in response to a threatened judicial review. The decision created immediate widespread chaos for licence holders, who were left without the necessary legal certainty as to how they could protect their livestock. I know this because I was on the receiving end of emails about the issue from my constituents, as many other hon. and right hon. Members will have been.
The uncertainty continued for a period of seven weeks, until Natural England was able to issue new licences. It is not for me to speculate about how the judicial review might have proceeded if it had gone right through the court. However, we can refer to the advice that might have been given to Natural England. Had the remedies included in clause 1 of this Bill been available at the time, we can suppose that Natural England might have been more willing to contest a judicial review in the knowledge that, even if the existing licence scheme were found by the court to be unlawful, the court had the ability to act prospectively—that is, to protect past reliance on old licences, which, after all, was made in good faith; farmers using those shotguns would have done so in the belief that they were acting lawfully.
In my view, we should always seek to avoid, where possible and without good reason, acting retrospectively when the person concerned could not possibly have known what the case would be in the future. A remedy of suspension could also have been used, because of course it took three months to bring forward the new licences. If the suspension had been for that sort of period of time, we could have avoided detriment. That is the point. Those who brought the case would still have got their “victory in court”, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst talked about earlier, but the key point is that we would have spared our constituents detriment. That is why these measures are positive. That is why they support a very important principle of judicial review that has not been mentioned, which is better public administration of the law in the best interests of our constituents. As the National Farmers Union said at the time, “People have been left without a legal means to control problem birds. Their inability to protect livestock, crops, wildlife and livelihoods in ways which the law has until now allowed has left them concerned and angry.” Now we would have a way to help them in practice.
Turning to Cart judicial reviews, again there was lots of passionate argument on this very important point of the Bill. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) made one of the most fundamental points about parliamentary sovereignty where we have to question whether it was the intention of this place to legislate so that appeals would go beyond what is effectively the superior court of appeal within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. We think that was not the case.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) made an absolutely brilliant, barnstorming speech. On Friday she took apart Labour’s case for fire and rehire and today she has taken apart its case on Cart JR. She asked the very important question of why immigration should be the exception when so many other jurisdictions of law do not have, with no offence to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), three bites at the cherry. This is a very important point. The idea of having a superior court like the upper tribunal is absolutely consistent with the principles of article 13 of the European convention of human rights, so three bites at the cherry should not be needed to be consistent with that article of human rights. That is a fundamental point and we respect it with our reforms to judicial review.
Turning to the right hon. Member for Tottenham, he said that he was young and naive when he supported remarkably similar measures back in 2004. I think it would be remiss of us not to have two bites at the cherry with regard to Labour’s Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc. ) Act 2004. He may have been young and naive but the Prime Minister was Tony Blair, and he was not young and naive. Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Government led by Tony Blair thought they should bring forward a Bill like that—because it was some radical assault on the judiciary?
Let us remind ourselves of what that Act did. It contained a provision to remove judicial review from immigration and asylum appeals. That probably sounds a bit familiar. What was the justification? I hope that the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) is listening. The justification, as revealed by the right hon. Gentleman in Committee at that time, because he was the Minister concerned, was that only 3.6% of cases were successful. That was the argument that Labour used in 2003 and 2004: does it ring any bells? What was the method? The method was an ouster clause, but not any ordinary ouster clause—not a tightly drawn ouster clause like the one in this Bill—but an ouster clause drafted so widely that in Committee the then Constitutional Affairs Minister admitted that it was the mother of all ouster clauses. Who was the Constitutional Affairs Minister? It was the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr Lammy
I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman in his oration, because he was getting into his groove, but I would just say to him that it was dropped—it was never enacted, so poor it was.
James Cartlidge
They pulled it because they were going to get hammered in the House of Lords.
On Cart JR, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) seemed to imply that somehow an ouster clause is fundamentally against the interests of holding Government to account. Every day that this place is sitting, hon. and right hon. Members will stand up and speak on behalf of their constituents on serious matters. I once spoke in a debate on the Adjournment—the one where our former colleague spoke many times. I spoke on a very serious case in my constituency of a very vulnerable man who had had a stroke and had, I felt, been let down by a company in my constituency. I was able to name that company in this House and hold it to account, as we all do. On what legal basis was I able to do that? It was article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689—effectively a very ancient ouster clause that ensures that proceedings in this place are not subject to the courts, as you well know, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We all benefit from an ouster clause, and it helps us to hold the Government to account.
Joanna Cherry
It was generously suggested earlier that the Minister might respond to my query about the impact of clause 2 on the treaty of Union and the Scotland Act 1998. It is a slightly complicated point, but if I write to him about it, will he get back to me, because it is a really important point? If the Law Society of Scotland is right, the Bill needs a legislative consent motion.
James Cartlidge
I have to be honest with the hon. and learned Lady: it is very kind of her to ask me to write to her, because that is what I would have suggested in my answer anyway. Speaking to her earlier question, we do not think a legislative consent motion is needed, because the Cart judicial review only covers reserved matters.
Coming quickly on to the online procedures, these are incredibly important. I know from my own business—we started doing mortgages online in 2005—that those procedures we are used to doing face-to-face can be conducted online, provided there is good software and safeguards and support in place. I refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). He is a brilliant MP. He is my parents’ MP, and they tell me he is a fantastic campaigner. He asked, as did the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who was here earlier, what help would be provided for vulnerable users. I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that we take that incredibly seriously. With all these procedures that will be taking place online, or at least where there is an option to go online, there will be strong support and safeguards in place, in particular to protect vulnerable users. In those key choices of, for example, entering an early plea online, there would always be the option for the person concerned to ask for their case to be heard in the flesh in the traditional way.
I have a few final points. We had a number of other excellent speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) served as a magistrate before coming to this place. We are all proud of the excellent work of our voluntary judiciary. A number of my hon. Friends, including my Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson), have been or are magistrates, as I assume have Opposition Members. I would love to meet them to talk about what more we can do to support magistrates. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury praised the very important measures in the Bill, not least the measure that will ensure we can remit cases from the Crown court to the magistrates court. That is so important because it frees up time in the Crown court to hear those important criminal cases that are backlogged—the rapes, the murders and so on.
It is a great honour to be asked to become a Minister in the Department responsible for the world’s greatest justice system. It is so great is because of its fundamental core of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. If we are to sustain that system not just beyond covid recovery, but for the long term, we need to keep modernising our courts and to digitise and use technology as much as possible, while balancing that out with safeguards for the vulnerable. It is quite simple: with this Bill we can build back better and beat the backlog. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
Electrification of the Hull to Selby railway line
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition from Hull North constituents and others signing online at change.org.
Hull is a city of ambition, aspiration and enterprise—we are the energy estuary, a freeport and a recent UK city of culture—but that has not been reflected in our worsening rail services. Tomorrow’s spending review, and the integrated rail plan expected in November, will show whether the Government are serious about levelling up the whole of the north and about green transport ahead of COP26. Hull’s MPs have also written to Ministers setting out seven tests on levelling up for transport.
The petition states:
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to prioritise the rail electrification of the Hull-Selby line and the upgrading of the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole by inclusion in the forthcoming Integrated Rail Plan.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that rail links to Hull are among the poorest in the north of England; further that the current train service reliability of 60 per cent or lower means it is quicker to travel to Leeds by road; further that the Humberside economy is increasingly supplying renewable energy but poor rail connections to Hull and the port do not encourage sustainable transport choices; further that electrifying the Leeds to Hull route via Selby, and significantly upgrading the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole, will permit cleaner, faster and more reliable trains to run in and out of Hull; further that this will provide an electrified railway from east to west and allow freight to cross coast to coast more efficiently; and notes that the Government has committed to a carbon neutral economy by 2050.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to prioritise the rail electrification of the Hull-Selby line and the upgrading of the railway line between Sheffield and Hull via Goole by inclusion in the forthcoming Integrated Rail Plan.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002694]
Child Sexual Exploitation: Bradford
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank you and Mr Speaker for granting this urgent debate on child sexual exploitation in Keighley and across the Bradford district.
Child sexual exploitation is abhorrent, but I am afraid that the issue is being swept under the carpet. Local government leaders and people in positions of influence have a duty of care to protect the most vulnerable in society—our young children, women and girls. People need to open their eyes to this issue. We know that young children remain at risk. It is about time that we tackled these horrific, vile and criminal activities once and for all.
In my mind, in order to move forward, it is vital that we call this issue out for what it is, hold those authorities that have failed our communities for far too long to account, grasp the scale of the problem, understand its complexities—the hierarchy, the methodology and the chain of command that sits behind these darkest and most vile acts—and get to grips with how and why communities such as the one that I proudly represent in Keighley have been allowed, under the watch of so many, to be haunted by gang-related child sexual exploitation for far too long. If we do not address these issues properly, openly and with a real willingness to deal with them, those at the centre of all this—our young children—will continue to be let down, to be targeted, and to be exploited and sexually abused by the worst individuals our society knows.
It has now been more than 20 years since the former Member of Parliament for Keighley, Ann Cryer, first very publicly raised her concerns about grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation in the Pakistani community in my constituency. Ann deserves enormous credit for her work talking about this very difficult subject, but I am afraid that in that time, nothing has really changed. No real progress has been made in dealing with this issue across Keighley and the wider Bradford district.
I am incredibly conscious of just how delicate this subject is, but we should not be frightened of talking about it. My view is that unless we talk openly, we are failing. So let us call this problem out for what it is: predominantly a small minority of largely Pakistani Muslim men in West Yorkshire—including, I am sad to say, in Keighley and across the Bradford district—who have been sexually exploiting young children for far too long. The Pakistani community are quite rightly outraged that the entire community is being branded with the same accusation. That is not fair and it is deeply offensive.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech and rightly shining a light on, frankly, an absolute abdication of responsibility by the authorities in his constituency. Does he agree that if the Government are serious about tackling male sexual violence against women and girls, it is absolutely imperative that we tackle cultural practices where we find them?
Robbie Moore
I absolutely agree with the points my hon. Friend makes so eloquently. Let us be absolutely clear: I have had to bring this debate to the Chamber because, as a representative of Keighley in the Bradford district, I am experiencing those points: failure by our local council and failure by our new West Yorkshire Mayor —who is lucky enough to be in a new position, in charge of West Yorkshire police—to tackle these issues head on.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
This issue was first brought to light in Rotherham. At that time, many organisations such as the police and the council felt that they were maybe being racist by tackling it because it involved one particular community. Is that still a problem, or has that been cleared up?
Robbie Moore
This is a very delicate subject and I am acutely conscious of that. I must admit that I am nervous talking about it, but we have to address these issues. Every community across the country is different, including mine, but we have to look at the common denominator. I want to be very clear that this is not about race or pitching communities against each other. It is about looking at the facts, so we can address them head on and move forward.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. I commend him for bringing forward this debate and for all the work he is doing locally to shine a light on this issue. Does he agree that this is about the victims and ensuring they get the justice they deserve, and ensuring there are no future victims of this terrible crime? Does he agree that if Bradford Council and the authorities there will not bring forward a much needed inquiry—partly because, presumably, it will expose huge amounts of wrongdoing on their part—the Government should make sure that we have an inquiry, so that we can get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and make sure it never, ever happens again?
Robbie Moore
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for making those points. We must never forget who is at the centre of this debate and who is experiencing these horrific, vile acts. I will come on to some of the alarming and horrific cases experienced by many young girls across my constituency and the wider Bradford district. We need to be absolutely clear that local leaders, Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor should be using their position to call this issue out for what it is; be clear about taking these issues forward; and be wanting to get behind resolving these issues. My view is very clear: we need a Rotherham-style inquiry to address these issues. Finally, on his point about influence from a national level going down to local leaders, I very much hope to use this opportunity to encourage the Government to use their weight to put pressure on Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor to do the right thing.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this subject to the Chamber. It is very, very important. Does he agree that the only way we will know the full scale of these vile crimes in Bradford is for a full Rotherham-type investigation? Does he also agree that certain local politicians on the council and the West Yorkshire Mayor should hang their heads in shame?
Robbie Moore
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. We need to understand the scale of the problem across the Bradford district, and I will come on to that later in my speech. Only this summer, in July, a light, limited, 50-page review was released, and Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor feel that that is acceptable. We need a full Rotherham-style inquiry to look at this, so that we can get real learnings and provide reassurance for victims.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on being brave enough to bring this matter forward with such passion and such force. May I suggest that he works closely with the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has been a huge support to me in tackling these issues? Local councils do not want to have inquiries. My local council vigorously opposed an inquiry, and when we eventually succeeded in getting one, with great help from the then Home Secretary, it ambushed the inquiry by deluging it with 1 million documents. Four years on, the victims in my constituency who came to me for a solution have not had their inquiry. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to go for a Rotherham-style inquiry, which was effective and delivered what it needed to—justice for victims.
Robbie Moore
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with the points she makes. She kindly made reference to my hon. Friend—if I may say so—the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). This is one of the most important debates that we must have in this House, but when I look at the Opposition Benches, I see that she is the only hon. Member who has turned up to the debate. That speaks volumes. I thank her for coming along; it is exceptionally kind. I agree that yes, we must have a full Rotherham-style inquiry to get to grips with the issue, because I certainly do not want it to continue to be swept under the carpet.
I want to make the point that this is not about race or pitting communities against each other; it is about looking at the facts so that we can address them and move forward. Of course it is about looking at that common denominator, but it is no different from identifying other common denominators when looking at child sexual exploitation, such as we have seen in inquiries on similar subjects—regarding the Catholic church, for example. The reality is that we must understand the complexities that relate to a community so that we can move forward.
The consequences of not acting are extremely serious. If we tiptoe around the edges or fail to talk openly about these challenges, we fail both the victims and the Pakistani community. Those victims, mainly young girls, are having their lives ruined at a young age by vile and disgusting sexual abuse, and it is all being done while authorities, including Bradford Council and West Yorkshire police, turn a blind eye and fail to take action year after year.
Mr Goodwill
Is it not the case that many of those girls will either be in the care of the local authorities, as looked-after children, or come from families that social workers are closely engaging with?
Robbie Moore
My right hon. Friend makes a worrying and accurate intervention, because that is absolutely the case. Most of the young girls we are talking about, as I will come on to later in my speech, are the very girls who are in protective care of the authorities that should be looking after them.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
A mark of a good society is how we protect our most vulnerable. I trained as a social worker in Liverpool in 2000, and anecdotally we knew that institutional cover-ups were going on because people were too afraid to do anything. I urge my hon. Friend to go forth and continue with this campaign; I know he will see personal repercussions for it, but I am fully behind him.
Robbie Moore
I thank my hon. Friend for her kind intervention. As representatives, we are all elected to do the very best for our community and call out the difference between what is right and what is wrong. This is not a political issue; it is about doing the right thing to stand up for our communities.
This summer, a limited review, which focused on just five children who had been sexually abused over the past 20 years in the Bradford district, was published. It makes horrifying reading. Let me tell the House about Anna—not her real name—who is mentioned in the review. She was repeatedly sexually abused by gangs of men while she was in care. The review says that when she was 15, she had an Islamic marriage with her abuser, and her social worker attended the ceremony.
Ruby—not her real name—had a disrupted childhood, which included the death of her mother when Ruby was a very young child. At the age of 13, Ruby was identified as being at risk of child sexual abuse. Throughout her childhood, she experienced 14 different placements in looked-after care. She was sexually abused, and the report identifies that childcare services in Bradford
“did not keep her safe.”
The limited review published in the summer is only a 50-page document. To my mind, it reflects only the tip of the iceberg of what has been going on across the Bradford district. In 2016, a group of 12 men who committed serious sexual offences against two young girls from Keighley and Bradford were jailed for a collective 132 years. One of those girls was raped by five men in succession. Live cases involving grooming gangs are still working their way through the courts. Only last October, 21 men from Keighley and Bradford were arrested after being linked to offences that allegedly occurred against a young girl between 2001 and 2009.
Decisive action is needed if we are to deal with the issue. That is why we need a full, independent Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Keighley and the wider Bradford district.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I commend him for everything he says. Is it not shocking that the leader of Bradford Council, Susan Hinchcliffe, has said that we should not have a Rotherham-style inquiry in Bradford because it “won’t find anything new”? Is that not shocking complacency on the part of the leader of Bradford Council? If the council has nothing to hide, it would have nothing to fear from such an inquiry; we could all know once and for all exactly what has happened, satisfy ourselves that there is nothing to hide, and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Is her attitude not terrible and complacent? Does it not show complete disregard for the victims?
Robbie Moore
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his kind intervention. He eloquently makes a crucial point: the leader of Bradford Council is in a unique position to trigger a Rotherham-style inquiry. I do not understand what the council, or others such as our new West Yorkshire Mayor, should have to fear from being more open and transparent or from wanting to move things forward in the best interests of victims across our constituencies and the wider Bradford district.
How do we get there? How do we instigate a full Rotherham-style inquiry? As happened in Rotherham, Bradford Council can and should appoint an independent chair such as Professor Alexis Jay to conduct an independent inquiry into its handling, and associated agencies’ handling, of child sexual exploitation over the past 20 years.
We need to learn lessons locally to find out what has been going wrong with institutions such as Bradford Council, West Yorkshire police and Bradford’s child protection services. Believe me, they need addressing. Bradford’s children’s services department is in a state of chaos. In 2018 it was rated by Ofsted as inadequate, needing severe improvement. Only this summer the Government had to step in and put a commissioner in charge of the department to look at it, and only this week a further Ofsted report was released: it was incredibly damning, stating that no improvement was taking place at a sufficient pace.
Philip Davies
Is it not telling, given all these failings of children’s services at Bradford Council, that council leaders never take responsibility for those failings? There is a merry-go-round of children’s services directors being fired and hired, while the people at the top of the council never accept responsibility for the failings that occur on their watch.
Robbie Moore
Leaders of any organisation have a responsibility to do the right thing. It is unfortunate that Bradford’s children’s services department has been on the watch of not only the current council leader, but the same chief executive who has presided over those children’s services since 2015—yet here we are in 2021 with the Government having to step in and do the right thing.
In August, as I have said, a damning report was produced, and that is why Bradford Council needs to stop sweeping this issue under the carpet and launch a full, independent, Rotherham-style inquiry. I will settle for nothing less. As Anna—one of the victims I talked about earlier—said:
“What victims need is a full inquiry, if Rotherham had one, why are we denying it to the thousands of children here in Bradford.”
I have received endless pieces of correspondence asking why so little has been done to tackle child sexual exploitation over the past 20-plus years across the Bradford district. Since I was elected, less than two years ago, I have raised this issue repeatedly, both locally and here in the House. I am raising it again today, and I will continue to raise it. I will not let this issue drop. I was even told that by continuing to raise it I was stoking racial tensions, but that is the nub of this issue. It is not being dealt with. This has nothing to do with stoking racial tensions. It is about the difference between right and wrong, and fundamentally it is about protecting young children.
Those in positions of responsibility need to have the guts to take action. Too many people in positions of responsibility have ducked this issue for decades. Take my predecessor, John Grogan, who said: that an inquiry would not
“be in the best interests of young people.”
Our new West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin, the former Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, is now in charge of policing in West Yorkshire. She is in a perfect position to show leadership and tackle this issue once and for all.
Lee Anderson
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again: he is being very generous with his time. Does he agree that once the inquiry takes place and we get to the bottom of this, and the grooming gangs are put away—in prison, where they rightly belong—the next call will be these lazy politicians? They need locking up too.
Robbie Moore
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I sincerely share his frustration that local leaders are not taking this seriously.
The person that our new West Yorkshire Mayor has put in charge of policing says that this is not a Bradford problem. Let us look across this House. Do most Members represent communities where the local council has missed “clear signs” of child sexual exploitation? Do most Members represent communities where the local children’s services department has just been taken over by the Government, who have stepped in and put a commissioner in charge, and has been the subject of two consecutive very damning Ofsted reports? Do most Members represent communities where children remain unprotected and continue to be sexually exploited? No, they do not. The Bradford district is haunted by these problems and we need to tackle them head on.
This issue has gone on for many years, and of course the administrations at Bradford Council have changed. MPs have changed. However, those who are now in positions of responsibility need to take action. In my view, it is shocking that in responding to calls for a full, independent Rotherham-style inquiry, the leader of Bradford Council, Susan Hinchcliffe, said that an inquiry
“would not be of additional value”
and that she had been “personally hurt” by my comments. This is not personal. This is about calling on those who are in a position of responsibility to do the right thing. If we continue in limbo and fail to take action, the very worst of humanity will exploit this issue for their own gain. Sadly, this happened in my constituency in 2005 when the British National party made Keighley its No. 1 target seat in the parliamentary election. It came into our town, bombarded it with leaflets, held rallies and inflamed racial tensions.
We need to think about the victims in all this: those who have been let down by the very organisations that should have been there to protect them. For Bradford Council, the police and our new West Yorkshire Mayor simply to hang their hat on a limited 50-page review that looked at only five children who had experienced these horrendous events is weak. We must never forget who is at the heart of these conversations. It is the children, the young victims, who have been let down for years by the very organisations that are there to protect them. All of us who are in positions of responsibility have a duty to do the right thing.
In conclusion, here are the facts. Child sexual exploitation is, sadly, a big problem in Keighley and the Bradford district. It has been for many years. It is an abhorrent, disgusting and vile issue, and it needs addressing, especially in the light of the limited review published earlier this year that leaves us with far more questions than answers. Local leaders must stop sweeping this issue under the carpet and tackle it head on. They must open their eyes. I will not let this drop. We need an independent, Rotherham-style inquiry so that we can look at what has gone wrong in the past and ensure that these vile abuses come to an end. We need to reinstall trust in these authorities by the victims, their families and the wider public who have been let down by them. So let us get this done and let us make our community much safer for our children.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) most sincerely for securing this debate and all other Members for their contributions this evening. I commend my hon. Friend for his perseverance and for his powerful speech, which cannot have been easy for him to stand up in the House and deliver. He has given a voice to people who have been voiceless for far too long. It was shocking, disgusting and appalling to hear the harrowing testimony that he set out for us this evening. None of us can listen to these accounts without being impacted and horrified. It is truly shocking to hear of the cases set out in the recent review in Bradford. These are instances of the most vulnerable in our society being preyed upon and abused by ruthless criminals, and the review makes for distressing reading. These children experienced multiple traumas, in most cases starting long before they were victims of sexual exploitation, at a time when they should have been nurtured and protected. Aged as young as 13, what they went through is almost too horrific to contemplate. I am sure all hon. Members will want to join me in paying tribute to them and to all victims of sexual abuse and exploitation who have bravely come forward to share their experiences, which cannot be easy, to drive change and ensure other children do not go through the same ordeal.
I thank my hon. Friends and hon. Members on both sides of the House who attended this debate and spoke about their experience in their constituency, their lived experience and the considerable expertise they gained in professional fields before coming to this place.
I reassure all victims and survivors that their voices are being heard. We are listening. Across central and local government, law enforcement, the wider criminal justice system and society as a whole, we have a clear responsibility to do everything in our power to protect children from harm, and we are determined to put victims and survivors at the heart of our approach while relentlessly pursuing the perpetrators of these awful crimes.
Since the early 2000s, when several of these horrific cases took place, there have been significant improvements in how local authorities and the police safeguard children in Bradford and across the country, but there is much further to go, as we have heard at first hand from my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend calls for an independent inquiry in Bradford, similar to the one in Rotherham. I acknowledge the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is in her place, and pay tribute to her for all the work she has done. She battled determinedly for many years to give voice to victims in Rotherham and elsewhere.
The independent inquiry in Rotherham was conducted by Alexis Jay and commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council. This Government are crystal clear that it is for local authorities in individual towns and cities such as Bradford, as they are responsible for delivering services, to commission local inquiries. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley has set out with great clarity the mechanisms that are available to local authorities, including in Bradford, to trigger an inquiry. The Government fully agree with his remarks. He is right in every word of what he says. The options are available to Bradford Council and other authorities. I say it again, in case there is any doubt: local authorities have a responsibility, a moral responsibility, to do the right thing. I underline that point, lest there be any doubt: they have a moral responsibility to protect these innocent children.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I have been listening intently to this debate, and I am grateful the subject has been raised in the House. An inquiry is not a silver bullet. We actually had two inquiries in Rotherham, and one was commissioned by the Government, so that is an option for this Government. Once the inquiry has happened, we need to see the support in place for survivors to rebuild their lives. We need to see prosecutions of the criminals and of anyone who colluded or did not act in their job. I hope the Minister will do all in her power to make sure that happens across the country.
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Lady for her point. She is entirely right that a whole-system response is required so that victims can rebuild their lives. I shall touch on that further later on in my speech.
I recognise the pain and trauma endured by those who have suffered at the hands of these vile criminals, and I understand their need for answers to the failures and for reassurance that the system that let them down so badly will not do so again. I welcome Bradford Council’s work to improve its response to child sexual abuse and exploitation by identifying poor practice through the recent review, but I also expect the council to listen close to the real concerns expressed by Members this evening and to take the most thoroughgoing approach to ensuring that all lessons have been learned and that local partners are doing everything possible to identify child sexual abuse and exploitation and protect children from harm, without letting political and cultural sensitivities deter them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley spoke about the groups committing these crimes in the Bradford area and the need to recognise their common characteristics. The Government are clear that child sexual exploitation happens in all areas of the country and can take many different forms. We know that it is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion, but community and cultural factors are very relevant to the understanding and tackling of offending in each local area, as my hon. Friend set out so eloquently. Let me repeat that political and cultural sensitivities must not deter agencies from uncovering and preventing such devastating crimes. Every local authority must ensure that children are safeguarded, and every police force has a duty to investigate effectively and thoroughly when children come to harm.
Lucy Allan
Does the Minister agree that child sex abuse and child sexual exploitation are different crimes and that the police should not include them jointly and make assumptions based on the outcomes of their doing so? If they put them together, they end up saying that it is a white crime. I had to battle hard against anybody saying that it is not about taking into account the cultural factors because it was all bunched together. They would then also say that it just happens at home, domestically. It is important to take on board the fact that grooming and street grooming are different from child sexual abuse in a domestic setting.
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend very much for making that point based on her considerable experience and incredible commitment in respect of the issues that she has been tackling in Telford. I shall talk about the collection of data and the analysis of types of crimes and of perpetrators and victims. She is right that that is at the heart of what we must do to improve our response, which is why the Home Office is committed to improving the collection and analysis of data. In March this year, the Home Secretary introduced a new requirement for police forces to collect ethnicity data for those arrested and held in custody as a result of their suspected involvement in group-based child sexual exploitation. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the complexity of these crimes and the need for us to fully understand them in order that we may root them out.
As a Government, we are further supporting local areas to understand and tackle the threat in their areas by funding the prevention programme delivered by the Children’s Society. Co-ordinators in each of the 10 policing regions are delivering tailored interventions based on police intelligence, to improve collaboration and help to identify specific threats in each region. The programme has led to the increased identification of victims. We are funding regional child sexual abuse and exploitation analysts in every policing region, as well as a pilot project on tackling organised exploitation, which is developing a system to bring together intelligence at local, regional and national level, thereby improving analysis and tasking so that police throughout the country can understand and respond more effectively.
Nationally, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is demanding accountability for past failings and making practical recommendations to ensure that children are given the protection that they need. A report on child sexual exploitation by organised networks is expected this autumn, with a final report due in 2022. We will continue to carefully consider all the inquiry’s recommendations to ensure that real and permanent change is delivered in how children are safeguarded.
Work is already under way to take action now. Earlier this year, we published a tackling child sexual abuse strategy, setting out how we are driving action across every part of Government, across all agencies and sectors and with charities, communities, technology companies and society more widely. In the beating crime plan, we have reaffirmed our strong commitment to delivering increased reporting of these crimes to the police, increased numbers of offenders brought to justice, improved victim care and support, which was raised rightly by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), and an overall fall in the prevalence of these offences.
Rachel Maclean
As I was saying, it is vital that more of these complex crimes end in prosecutions and convictions to secure justice for victims. To support this, we are ensuring that the complexity and sensitivities of child sexual abuse investigations are understood by policing leaders through the College of Policing’s training for senior officers on issues of safeguarding and public protection. We fund the police’s vulnerability knowledge and practice programme, which identifies and promotes best practice, ensuring that the most effective approaches to investigating these crimes and safeguarding victims are taken up by forces across the country.
Mr Goodwill
Does the Minister recognise that, where girls are over the age of 16 and can give consent, sadly, many of them are being gaslighted and forced into this activity? It is much more difficult for the police to get a prosecution and for the Crown Prosecution Service to take action because, sometimes, these girls do not see themselves as victims, despite the fact that their lives are being controlled by some of these people.
Rachel Maclean
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight how difficult these crimes are for us as a society to tackle, but it highlights that we desperately need to tackle them, which is why the Government have set out a number of priorities through the domestic abuse strategy and the violence against women and girls strategy, backed by considerable funding and resources to ensure that we can tackle them where they occur. It is vital that we have close collaboration between agencies, and that forms a key part of our strategy.
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced the most significant reforms in a generation, requiring local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police to form multi-agency safeguarding partnerships. All the new partnerships were in place by September 2019.
Our prevention work has already yielded improvements in Bradford. Through the £13.2 million trusted relationships fund, for example, Bradford Metropolitan District Council has received funding to deliver one-to-one, school-based community support for children aged 10 to 14 years who are at risk of exploitation.
Sarah Champion
In 2017, the Government agreed to bring in mandatory relationship education for every child from primary school onwards. That is teaching them about healthy and unhealthy relationships—what is in your pants is your business and no one else’s. That has still not been rolled out. By the time these children get to 10 to 14, it is too late for many of them. Can the Minister please urge her colleagues to make this mandatory in every school, as was committed to in 2017?
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Her concern has been heard by those Ministers in Government Departments who are responsible for delivering on this. But I can also tell her that, in part of the work that we are doing in the violence against women and girls strategy, we are recognising the vital issue of communicating to people, including men, about how they need to behave towards women and girls because surely we cannot expect this problem to be solved by women and girls. It has to be solved by all people.
Philip Davies
I thank the Minister for her strong words earlier in her speech, saying that Bradford Council should have a full, Rotherham-style inquiry. I hope that has been heard loud and clear. The Government already know the failings of children’s services across the Bradford district and have felt the need to step in, so, in the continuing failure of Bradford Council to hold such an inquiry, may I urge her to play her part in ensuring that this Rotherham-style inquiry for Bradford takes place, with or without the support of Bradford Council?
Rachel Maclean
I expect nothing less from my hon. Friend than for him to ask me to strengthen my commitment and do everything that I can as Safeguarding Minister and part of the Home Office—no doubt, with the support of the Home Secretary—to make sure that Bradford Council does what it should be doing, what is its moral responsibility and what is in its power to do. As I have said and I do not mind saying again before I wind up this debate, my hon. Friend can be sure that I will continue to follow this vital matter with a huge amount of close interest, because we all have a moral duty to safeguard the victims, who have been voiceless for too long.
I sincerely thank all Members who have contributed this evening. We have heard contributions from the hon. Member for Rotherham, my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies), for Telford (Lucy Allan), for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill). Forgive me if I have omitted anybody; I am sure the good people of Hansard will fill it in.
Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you very much indeed for allowing us the time for this vital debate on an utterly appalling crime that is taking place in our society. In my role as Minister for Safeguarding, I am determined to ensure that we confront these crimes wherever and whenever they occur, and whoever is perpetrating them. I once more put on record the thanks of the whole House to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, for his commitment, courage and determination. I very much hope that people in Bradford are watching tonight’s debate and will consider the next steps.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
That was a powerful debate. The whole House clearly wants action to occur now. It is not often that we are all in such agreement.
Question put and agreed to.
Subsidy Control Bill (First sitting)
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we go further and begin, I have some preliminary announcements to make. May I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking? That is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering or leaving the room. Hansard colleagues will be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. Date Time Witness Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 10.30 am Industrial Communities Alliance; Convention of Scottish Local Authorities Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 11.25 am Institute for Government; Professor Stephanie Rickard, London School of Economics Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 2.30 pm Institute of Directors Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 3.00 pm Monckton Chambers Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 3.40 pm DWF Group; UK Steel Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 4.00 pm Daniel Greenberg, House of Commons Counsel for Domestic Legislation Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 4.30 pm Competition and Markets Authority Tuesday 26 October Until no later than 5.00 pm Ivan McKee, Scottish Government Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise
Today, we will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions for the oral evidence session. In view of the time available, I hope that we can take those matters formally without debate.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 26 October) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 26 October;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 28 October;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 2 November;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 4 November;
(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 16 November;
(f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 18 November;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 9; Schedules 1 and 2; Clauses 10 to 78; Schedule 3; Clauses 79 to 92; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 18 November. —(Paul Scully.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Paul Scully.)
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Paul Scully.)
The Chair
Copies of the written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room and circulated to Members by email.
The Chair
Q
We will now hear oral evidence from Steve Fothergill, national director of the Industrial Communities Alliance, who is here in person, and Dr Serafin Pazos-Vidal, head of the Brussels office for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, who is appearing virtually. Before I call the first Member to ask a question, I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. For this panel, we have until 10.30 am. Will the witnesses please introduce themselves?
Professor Fothergill: Thank you and good morning. In this context, I have two roles. I am Professor Steve Fothergill, a professor of regional and economic development at Sheffield Hallam University. I am an economist by background. I have worked on these issues for many decades. My second role is national director—chief officer, not the political boss—of the Industrial Communities Alliance, which is the all-party association of local authorities in the older industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales.
Members might be wondering which hat I am wearing. Fortunately, from my point of view, my personal views as a long standing academic coincide with those of the organisation for which I work part time, the Industrial Communities Alliance, so I am wearing both hats simultaneously. If we get on to territory where I am expressing a personal view as an academic, I will try to flag that up.
Would it be helpful if I were to make an opening statement? Perhaps I could do that after the introduction of the other witness.
Dr Pazos-Vidal: I am very grateful to be able to contribute to this hearing. I am responsible for the international policy unit of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which is the local authority association of the 32 Scottish councils—the equivalent to the Local Government Association in England or Wales for instance. A lot of that work these days refers to repatriation of European Union powers. A lot of what we are going to say has been discussed and validated by our political structures and through the councils. I am also an academic researcher on this whole issue of multilevel governance, which is about how levels of government relate to each other—an issue that I believe is particularly true in this Bill. Where it is helpful for the discussion, I will speak from that international academic experience.
The Chair
Thank you. Professor Fothergill, you have one minute for a brief statement, because time is very limited.
Professor Fothergill: I will do my best. There are two points I want to make by way of introduction. First, we need subsidy control. Subsidies can be expensive and they can be distortive, but they can also deliver valuable objectives—things like regional development, the green agenda and so on—so we do need rules.
The second point I would like to make—this is the big concern I want to air in front of the Committee as we proceed—is about the relationship between the Bill and the levelling-up agenda. The Subsidy Control Bill is potentially a very useful tool in delivering the levelling-up agenda, but at the moment the details are very thin. In particular, there is an absence of an assisted area map, and no commitment to developing one. That would be extremely helpful in promoting growth in the less-prosperous local economies of the United Kingdom.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Secondly, do you think that the UK Government and the devolved Administrations will have a common way of delivering policy goals under the subsidy control principle—on market failure and equity rationales, for example? How might that be interpreted by different levels of government? Does more need to be done for a stronger relationship between Westminster and the devolved Administrations and local government on the implementation of the measures?
Professor Fothergill: Okay—there is quite a lot in that. Let me clarify the point I was trying to make about how an assisted area map would strengthen the levelling-up agenda, and how it might be incorporated into the legislation.
An assisted area map would define the areas where you could give additional subsidies to firms to promote investment, to bring in businesses from abroad, and to strengthen existing businesses in the locality, for example. We had an assisted area map under the old EU state aid rules, but let me be quite clear: the whole idea of an assisted area map was not something that was imposed on the UK from Brussels; we had an assisted area map in the UK long before Britain even joined the EU. There were maps back in the ’60s and early ’70s defining the areas where it was legitimate to give additional aid to businesses to promote new jobs or protect existing ones.
I do not think we need some after the event audit of how the geography of subsidies has worked out. What we need, in advance, are some clear criteria defining the places where enhanced subsidies can be given. That sends an important signal to businesses in particular that if they were interested in investing in one of the less-prosperous parts of the UK, they might be able to draw down significant financial assistance. At the moment, the legislation does not rule out an assisted area map, but equally, it does not rule one in. I have to say, with due respect to the Minister, that that leaves a huge amount of discretion in the hands of the ministerial team. In the absence of any commitment in the legislation to defining how an assisted area map should be drawn up, I think it is perhaps taking the whole issue away from the scrutiny of Parliament. That is how the legislation should be strengthened on that point.
On the question of the relationship between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, it is perhaps fair and reasonable that the whole of the UK operates under broadly the same rules, but there is then a subsidiary issue of whether the different tiers of government in the UK actually take advantage of those rules. That has always been the case. It was the case under the old EU state aid rules; we had rules about what you could and could not do, but the different parts of the United Kingdom put larger or smaller amounts of funding into different schemes to support businesses. As long as that was all within the rules, that was okay. In terms of the detailed implementation of the legislation, and I think a lot of the real operation of this legislation does depend on the details—the devil is in the details—then, clearly, it would be good to have that meaningful dialogue between Westminster and the devolved Administrations, even if we are, at the end of the day, working within a single set of rules for the whole United Kingdom.
The Chair
Q
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Yes. I could only agree, in general terms, with what has been said already. I will take the questions in order. Quite clearly, there is an expectation from local authorities that there is a specific targeting of given areas, because that will provide legal certainty for public authorities, but also for economic operators, about whether the subsidies can or cannot be applied. That makes sense, and it is clearly a message that comes from many councils across Scotland, particularly from those that have benefited from assisted area status. It is worth recalling, in the case of Scotland for instance, that the regional selective assistance scheme has been running for many years, awarding around £20 million through 60 or so awards a year. That is something that local authorities want to retain, but the same could be applied to colleagues from the rest of the UK.
Quite clearly, as has been mentioned, the Bill does not say one thing or the other. The supporting documents do say, more or less, that there might be some guidelines or guidance on the special targeting of assisted areas, which, as has been mentioned, has been a feature of the UK policy toolbox since the 1930s. The Bill could, for instance, define what an assisted area is. That would be encouraged, and there would be limited discretion on that for whoever the Minister might be in however many years’ time.
That would be helpful, but it is also important to distinguish that having assisted areas does not mean having European-style assisted areas. After all, the geographies that we have seen in the assisted area maps so far have been developed by Eurostat, according to —I would say—very technocratic approaches that did not fit the geographies of the UK. It created a certain degree of lineation by imposing certain geographies that are not recognisable in the UK, so we should not necessarily look at just having the old maps.
The good thing however, is that the UK, and Scotland, and different parts of the UK, are very privileged in the amount of data that is available at a very local level—sub-municipal level, sub-local level, ward and street level—which will allow the granularity that we perhaps did not have under the EU system. Now that we are moving to creating a home-grown system of assisted areas, that could be very much put to use, in a way that has perhaps not been used at the same level during the time of EU membership.
We should not underestimate the importance for this Bill of the participation of the devolved Administrations, and also local government. After all, we are talking about policy choices, not competition policies. It is about policy outcome and political rationale, and we have a very divided system of Governments, which is asymmetric in certain respects. If a decision is just taken by a Minister, or a Minister just issues guidance, as set out in clause 79, that will not work.
We should not underestimate the constitutional impact that the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 had on the territorial constitution and the governmental relations of the UK. That needs to be addressed—one issue with the Act is subsidy control—by taking a more inclusive approach in terms of how rules are made, even if the Minister has to say at the end, “We need to have a system of engagement and consultation.”
In my view, that should also be specifically incentivised, mentioned and encouraged in the Bill itself, so that it is not a question of the Government of the day just deciding to engage or not to engage. This is quite important—it is part of the role of intergovernmental relations. I should also say that, in a statement to this House in March 2018, the UK Government committed to engage with local government when designing the new rules. That is actually one of the ways of honouring the Government commitment.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Dr Pazos-Vidal: You are absolutely right. Ideally, the Bill should be the framework of how this engagement should be done. Under clause 79, the Secretary of State should consult anybody whom they consider it appropriate to consult before issuing statutory guidance. In our view, that is too general and not reflective of the territorial constitution of the UK as it stands. There should be a provision that the Secretary of State must consult the devolved Administrations in a dedicated system that should also involve local law. There should be a duty to make sure that different parts of the UK have full ownership of the final outcome—it is true that the Secretary of State will issue the guidance—but also the intelligence and the local know-how about these ideas. It is very easy to see things in a certain way in Westminster, but when you are in different parts of the UK, they do not look like that.
On the call-in powers, it is true that UK Ministers have responsibilities only for England on some issues, whereas other Ministers across the UK have responsibilities on the same issue in other parts of the UK. It makes sense that whenever the competent authority is in a devolved part of the UK, the same consultation mechanism should be provided, mutatis mutandis, before the Secretary of State decides to call in a subsidy. That seems to be quite inclusive. I have to say that the intergovernmental review, which was updated in March this year, tends to go in the other direction, but as the supporting document suggests, we cannot wait for the intergovernmental review to happen, because it will take its time.
Subsidy control is potentially a sensitive constitutional and political issue. We are already introducing provisions to make sure that the mechanism of consultation happens. It is quite consistent with the direction of travel in which we should be going. As I say, the intergovernmental review really goes in that direction, but that is a wider piece of work, and I think we should introduce those social provisions in the Bill.
Likewise, because the Government committed to a consultation mechanism with local government a couple of years ago, there should be some provisions for that. That is what we had when the European Commission used to draft the guidelines. The member states had a special legislative committee, and there were specific procedures for local government. There was even a statutory procedure through the European Committee of the Regions. There was a whole infrastructure to help the Commission design the rules. We do not have to replicate exactly the same things, but at the very least we should have the same level of ownership as we had during our EU membership—or more. That is only right and proper if we are to ensure that the system works in the long term.
Equally, the new subsidy control unit in the CMA could benefit from the work of the devolved state aid units, which are not mentioned in the Bill or the supporting documents, but naturally these teams have a lot of experience working with local authorities, sorting out the practicalities of how to assign a subsidy. It would be a shame if all this knowledge was not properly used to design the system and rules that will emerge from the Bill.
Professor Fothergill: May I amplify my remarks on the consultation and the involvement of the devolved Administrations? The crucial thing is to include a commitment to consultation and to their involvement in the drawing up of the detailed guidance, because the guidance really matters. Let me illustrate how this might work in the context of an assisted area map, if we are to have such a map; I know from personal involvement that an assisted area map has been drawn up the last three times round, and a full consultation process has been undertaken. Indeed, there was a two-stage consultation process, in which the principles underlining the map were out for consultation first, because the map was largely drawn here in the UK, though parts of it were set by Europe, and then the draft map went out to consultation.
I am also aware that the devolved Administrations largely drove the detailed drawing of that assisted area map within their own patch. There needs to be a commitment to undertake a similar sort of procedure.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Q
Professor Fothergill: I think that we can draw a map better this time if it is simply drawn here in the UK. Last time, the way that the system worked was that certain areas under EU rules automatically qualified for assistance, such as west Wales and the valleys, the highlands and islands, and Cornwall. There was also a particular deal over Northern Ireland, which meant that the whole of Northern Ireland automatically qualified. The rest of the map beyond those limited areas was drawn within the UK, but it was drawn within an overall population envelope, in terms of population coverage, that was set by Brussels, so it was a question of, “We have so much coverage to allocate. Where do we allocate it?”.
The Government went through a very difficult procedure to try to target the areas that were most in need, as well as places within or close to those areas where there were genuine opportunities to promote jobs and support businesses. In a sense, it is no good putting a line around a residential area and saying, “That is eligible for business support”, because there are not businesses in most residential areas; it is the big areas of trading estates and so on that need to be targeted.
Obviously, within a fixed population envelope, not everywhere that perhaps deserved coverage was able to get coverage. If we are drawing a map here in the United Kingdom under our own rules, we can increase the population coverage of that assisted area map to better reflect the true extent of economic disadvantage in the United Kingdom. Under the old EU rules, only about a quarter of the entire UK population was on the map. That really does not accurately reflect the extent of areas that need levelling up in the United Kingdom.
The Chair
Q
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Just briefly, as a complement. My earlier point about consultation at EU level was about all the guidance, not just the regional aid guidance for assisted areas, which is what has been mentioned. Of course we would like to replicate the system and improve on it. On this issue I think—
The Chair
Dr Pazos-Vidal, could you speak up a little bit?
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Yes, sorry. I withdrew from the mic. The general provisions are more state aid-like than just regional aid guidance received in the assisted areas, as my colleagued referred to previously. On the issue of assisted areas, it is important to highlight that assisted areas of regional aid guidance, as they used to be known, were done in complement to the so-called structural funds. Likewise, it is important that we develop the UK’s shared prosperity fund. It appears there will be an announcement on that in tomorrow’s statement by the Chancellor.
As we have seen so far from the pilots of the shared prosperity fund that are already running—the community renewal fund or the levelling-up fund more generally—they already do some special targeting. It makes sense that the assisted areas map that might be developed should complement the geographical prioritisation that we have seen, and probably want to see now in the shared prosperity fund. Sometimes to reinforce that, and sometimes because these things were not prioritised by the shared prosperity fund subsidies or grants, policy outcomes could be promoted by way of public subsidy. It is important to develop both the shared prosperity fund and the assisted areas map in parallel to make sure they are consistent.
As I said earlier, the UK has incredible advantages in terms of the amount of data that it has. For instance, I know from my experience of international work on EU legislation that it was very common for UK impact assessments of UK input of EU law to be taken as a reference for other countries, because they were very well done. We have a huge degree of knowledge that we can use in the UK to develop maps that deliver, and to learn from possible mistakes, or non-optimal allocation of subsidies in the past in the UK.
Perhaps connected to that is the ongoing work on better regulation by the UK Government, and the need for special and better input of the rules. That is something that the UK will be well equipped to provide, if the Government are allowed to be helped by different parts of the UK and the competent authorities there.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Q
Professor Fothergill: I would not deny that there are huge amounts of knowledge at local level, but local economies tend to operate beyond the boundaries of individual local authorities. Local economies do not operate at the level of standard statistical regions, but neither do they operate on the small geographical scale of most local authorities; they tend to span several neighbouring areas.
The problem is that if we do not have a map and some sort of discrimination in favour of less prosperous areas, you would be treating potential investment in Guildford, let us say, on the same basis as potential investment in Grimsby. You would not be attempting to incentivise the levelling up of the United Kingdom. In certain places, if we really are serious about levelling up, we have to put more resources into that effort, and we have to use state aid as one of the tools for delivering new jobs.
There is a lot of evidence, accumulated over many years, that state aid subsidies for investment do work and deliver extra jobs in the more disadvantaged areas. It is an effective policy tool, as long as we do it properly and do not squander public money by giving grants automatically; obviously, we would have to scrutinise each case individually, within a set of broad rules. In west Wales and the valleys, for example, it has been possible to give investment projects capital grants of up to 30%, whereas in the more prosperous parts of south-east England, it has not been possible to support investment at all. There has been that positive discrimination in favour of the less prosperous places.
There is a boundary problem; that is inherent in any drawing up of maps. Maps can be drawn sensitively, though, and in a hierarchical way. You do not have to have an area that is entitled to loads of money, and have the rest of the country entitled to no support. You can have a gradation of areas. Indeed, we had a gradation of areas under the old EU system, and under the old UK system before we joined the European Union.
Dr Pazos-Vidal: The Bill is, in a way, is an expression of the legal and cultural difference between continental, EU and UK law. In EU and continental law, everything that is not explicitly mentioned is forbidden, whereas in common law, and certainly in this Bill, it is almost the opposite principle: you can do everything that is not specifically forbidden. That works in theory; in practice, it does not, and that is why we need guidelines, block exemptions, and maps. You need commonly understood criteria across the UK to avoid subsidy rises and the opposite, which is doing less, because the UK public sector is much more risk-averse than the public sector in other European or western countries. We see that at the moment. The old EU rules are de facto being used by managers in local authorities across the UK because they are far more detailed, safe and understood than the provisional framework we have at the moment.
If you do not have a common understanding across the UK about how rules should be applied, what subsidies, even if you leave a lot of local latitude, which we support, of course, we might end up going down the track of, “Are these investments that are actually needed?” and that is why this has to be done. In the same way, there has to be a certain common framework across the UK, because if you leave the onus for doing checks on local authorities, some will not have the capacity or resources, and others would. A common understanding across the UK is helpful for everybody, and that also includes maps.
The Chair
A lot of Members have indicated that they want to speak now. I have the list and I will call those whose eye I have caught—I will try to call Members whom I have seen first. Seema Malhotra, do you have a question?
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Q
Professor Fothergill: Could I emphasise that the Bill settles remarkably little? It deals with the basic principles that will underpin the UK subsidy control regime. Those principles are very sound—they are not out of line with what we previously lived within and they do make sense. It settles the principles and some of the mechanisms legally, but it does not actually tell us what you can or cannot do. That is all going to come forward in the secondary legislation—the statutory instruments, is that the term? Ministers will be able to issue the secondary legislation within the framework of the Bill. From the point of the view of the devolved Administrations, for example, the passage of the Bill will still leave them pretty much in the dark as to what they can and cannot do. The important element in all of this is the guidance that will be issued subsequently. Quite what that guidance will say or is required to say is not specified in detail in the Bill.
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Absolutely, I completely agree. The Bill provides a good skeleton to start working on the guidance. In an ideal world, that would be enough—everybody would have the same understanding and there would be a very cohesive set of ideas on what needs to be done, what the priorities are and so on. Some countries in northern Europe are like that—they are very consensual democracies. I think the UK is a bit more complicated than that and therefore there should be a bit more detail. The UK is complicated and asymmetric, and therefore some of the provisions ideally need to be in the Bill. It is not about being too prescriptive—that is not the UK way —but about marking the direction of how the secondary legislation should be carried out.
In respect of the territorial constitution, it is just an academic expression. Quite clearly, the internal market Act could be considered part of the constitution because of the way it repatriates EU powers and the way it treats common frameworks. Irrespective of that, the Scotland Act always recognised that the UK level—Westminster Ministers—has powers over the internal market. That has always been the case, but in a way the internal market goes a step further. At the same time, public authorities, devolved Administrations and local government have competencies on local economic development, provision of public services and so on. Those powers also need to be recognised. Ideally, and this goes back to the point I made earlier, the Bill needs to be reflective of the powers of the UK Westminster Government and the internal market of the UK, and of the specific powers that local authorities and the devolved Administration Parliaments have in those policy areas. At the moment, the territorial element—the devolved and local element of the Bill—is limited, to put it politely. It would be helpful for the coherence of the system and to avoid problems of political interpretation in the future if some of that is put into the Bill. It does not have to be very detailed, but some improvements to the Bill would be helpful for the scheme in the long term.
The Chair
I am going to request that Members are brief, because many of you wish to ask questions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
Q
Professor Fothergill: The assisted area maps allow a higher rate of financial support for certain sorts of activities—subsidies, state aid or whatever you wish to call it—than is allowed outside the assisted area maps, so you can provide more intensive support. If you really want to attract inward investors to that locality, you can put more money on the table within an assisted area than you can outside an assisted area. One of the advantages of having a map in advance is that it is a clear signal to everyone concerned. Businesses know that those are areas where financial support can be made available, and local players know that in those areas it is possible to put money on the table if necessary to deliver an investment.
If everywhere is treated the same, everybody will be competing against one another on a level playing field, in terms of powers to give financial support or subsidy. If we are seriously interested in levelling up, we have to back that up with something beyond rhetoric. We have to back it up with some action.
Paul Scully
Q
Professor Fothergill: I disagree that it has not worked. There is plenty of evidence, as I was trying to say earlier, that support for businesses through the various programmes of regional investment aid over the years has delivered substantial numbers of new jobs in the less prosperous areas of the country. Often it has meant that we have been swimming against the tide in many of those places, with old industries disappearing at the same time as we have been doing our best to create new jobs. We have not solved the problem, but plenty of evidence shows that the use of what was state aid—we used to call it regional development grants, or regional selective assistance in England, many years ago—has positive benefits and delivers jobs in the places on the assisted area map.
Paul Scully
Q
Professor Fothergill: I am not an expert on some of the international systems, I have to say. I would hesitate to look across the Atlantic, from what I understand of the system there, because I do not think they have a simple system—a map—that applies in the United States, and therefore you get the horrible situation developing of a subsidy race between individual states. In many respects, that is what we want to avoid in the United Kingdom. We want a system where Guildford is not bidding against Grimsby. We want a system where places that really need the investment have the powers to deliver the investment. It is not just the places—the local place—of course; it is the Department for Business itself having the powers to mobilise its resources to give financial assistance in the Grimsbys rather than in the Guildfords.
Paul Scully
Q
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Yes. I could also say, if I quote some data from pre-pandemic, that in the regional selective assistance scheme in Scotland—I just checked that quickly when you raised that question—there were 69 awards worth in total £24 million, and the jobs created or safeguarded were around 2,500. That is evidence about where these schemes have worked, and we can look at that and evaluate that in terms of the development of the new system.
When it comes to international comparisons, I completely agree with Professor Fothergill. Clearly, the reason why this system exists across the Union—the state aid regime or the procurement framework legislation—is to provide the kind of chaotic system we have in the so-called competitive federalism model, such as in the US. Definitely, the UK would be much smaller and I would say more homogeneous in many ways. We should not actually have a system that is imitating that, because I think even the Americans sometimes would love to have a system that is more consistent than what we had in the EU and probably that we will have in the UK, so definitely no. A system that incentivises subsidy races and competitive federalism such as in the US will not perhaps be helpful.
In any case, it is a matter of choice. On this issue, I have been working with my Finnish and Norwegian colleagues, and one is from part of the EU and the other is not from part of the EU. One—Norway—uses special targeting so that certain remote areas will actually get additional subsidies, whereas Finland does the minimum in what it sets. In that more domestic context—a more European context, I mean, or closer to the UK—there is a variety of models, so it is just a question of finding the model that suits the UK, given the geographies, the mobility and the economy of the UK, specific area diversities that we have in the UK, and also the very specific asymmetric system that we have in the UK.
The Chair
Thank you. I am going to call Kirsty Blackman first, then Steve Kinnock, Kevin Hollinrake, Alexander Stafford and Mr Millar. As already indicated, and looking at the time, could we stick to brief questions and brief answers to carry on up to the allocated time?
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Q
“Subsidies should be designed to achieve their specific policy objective while minimising any negative effects on competition or investment within the United Kingdom.”
Can I ask you both if that sounds like it is meaningful, and if it is meaningful, what does it mean?
Dr Pazos-Vidal: I assume that the first question was addressed to me. We have had a number of discussions, it is true, in the preparation of the Green Paper and the consultation, and some of this work was facilitated by other organisations, such as ones you are going to speak to later today. I think when we are talking about consultation, we are talking about consultation as something that is structured, something that is predictable, something that has more accountability and something that approaches corporate action to a certain extent. That is something that in the UK is far more touch and go compared with other countries. I think this is an opportunity, on something as potentially economically and politically sensitive as this, to have a much more structured system of consultation, rather than the issue of a local approach. That sometimes works fine—no problem—and I have said to myself that perhaps we could possibly do that many times over the years. Here it is a rather serious matter that is also very political as well, and we should have a very predictable and pre-set system. I should have mentioned that there is a precedent in the UK with the Localism Act 2011. Part 2 deals with subsidies and passing down funds from the EU. At the time, we negotiated a system of proper consultation with local government, in this case from the UK Government, so perhaps that is an issue at present that we can look at in terms of implementing this Bill.
Professor Fothergill: Subsidies are something that you should only use sparingly and where they really deliver something that is beneficial. That is why we need the principles that are set out in the legislation. Indeed, it is hard to see how we can get away from those principles that are set out in the legislation, because all bar one are embodied in the trade and co-operation agreement that was signed with the EU last December. The additional point that the UK Government have added is basically to stop one area entering into a bidding game with another area within the UK, and that, in a sense, is a sensible addition. These are meaningful principles: you use subsidies sparingly, but you use them where they really can deliver something that you think is socially and economically valuable.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Q
Professor Fothergill: The detail is not there in the legislation. It is all to be determined; it will follow in the guidance, one presumes. Under the old EU rules, the aid intensity ceiling varies from scheme to scheme and from place to place, but if we were talking about regional investment aid, for example, the maximum aid you could give in the top tier of assisted area was 30% for a larger business. It actually rose to 50% for a very small business, but the problem that we had under the old EU rules was that in the lowest category of assisted area, which covered most of the assisted areas in England, the ceiling for regional investment aid was only 10%. Frankly, at 10%, that is very marginal and very unlikely to make much of a difference to business decisions. If a decision is that marginal, really, come on: is it going to tip the balance? Incidentally, the EU has recently raised that lower threshold to, I think, 15%.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Q
Professor Fothergill: The 10% to 15%?
Kevin Hollinrake
Of turnover?
Professor Fothergill: No, that is 10% of the cost of a capital investment. It has recently been raised to 15%. Certainly, if we are setting aid intensity ceilings in the UK under the detailed guidance, we need to set them at levels that really can make a difference; otherwise, you are probably ending up just giving money to projects that would have gone ahead anyway, which is not the objective and is actually contrary to the principles of the legislation.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Fothergill: I do not think I have a definitive answer on your first point. I was asked the same question a couple of days ago, and I was not actually sure where charitable and third-sector businesses stood in all this. On your third point, which is about a central register, I think there is a lot of merit and transparency in the whole system.
I hope I have understood your second point correctly. The intention behind the Bill is that there will be what is called, in technical terms, a de minimis threshold, below which you do not have to comply with the rules.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Fothergill: Yes, you can just get on and do things. Colleagues with whom I work in local government say that when they are involved in giving small amounts of financial support to businesses, or would like to do so—when we are talking about small amounts, it is unlikely to distort competition within the UK, or indeed international competition—there are too many hurdles if you have to go through lots and lots of paperwork.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Fothergill: We may be talking about slightly different things. I am talking about the de minimis threshold, which the Bill sets at £315,000 over three years or thereabouts.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Fothergill: I do not have a view on the £500,000 issue. Is that about reporting?
Kevin Hollinrake
Yes.
Professor Fothergill: I see no reason that things should be reported. This is a personal view, not the view of the alliance, but I know that the local authorities that I work with in the Industrial Communities Alliance have welcomed an increase in the de minimis threshold. Operationally, that makes sense and does not lead to big damage to competition across the country, or indeed to damage to international trade.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Professor Fothergill: No, I am not objecting to reporting. By the way, when I speak of reporting, I should clarify that the alliance has not taken a particular view on the issue. If I am speaking about reporting, I am expressing a personal opinion that it should not be too onerous. I would have to consult some of my local authority colleagues to clarify their precise views on that, but I know that their precise view on the de minimis threshold is that the increase is a good idea.
The Chair
Dr Serafin, do you wish to add anything, briefly?
Dr Pazos-Vidal: Some of the EU rules are there because one size fits all. Even the level of the threshold is low because the prices in some countries are much lower than you experience in the UK, so it makes complete sense to raise the threshold, which is welcome.
On the level of reporting, the feedback we got from councils in Scotland, and from colleagues across the UK as well, is that it should not be even more onerous than what we had in the EU. Perhaps the proposed system goes in a direction whereby it is less onerous, and that should definitely be the way forward.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Q
Professor Fothergill: First, I would remind you that the map is not simply an EU concept. If anything, an assisted area map was something that the UK sold to the European Union as being a good idea, because we had done it for lots of years. The point is that the map should not be set in stone for all time, of course. Indeed, over the years, the assisted area map in the UK has evolved and changed. Under the EU rules, it used to change on a seven-year cycle. I remember that even before we joined the European Union—I am getting long in the tooth—we changed and revised our assisted area map on several occasions. If an area gets more prosperous, it will come down a tier. If another area is hit by a closure of a major employer, we would have the flexibility to up its status on the map. The map is not for all time; it is a tool, and the details can be adjusted.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. I thank the witnesses on behalf of the Committee.
Examination of Witnesses
Thomas Pope and Professor Stephanie Rickard gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Thomas Pope, deputy chief economist at the Institute for Government, who is here in person, and Professor Stephanie Rickard, professor of political science at the London School of Economics, who is appearing virtually. For this session, we have until 11.25 am. Could the witnesses please introduce themselves?
Thomas Pope: I am Thomas Pope, deputy chief economist at the Institute for Government. I have been leading our work on subsidy control for the last couple of years.
Professor Rickard: Good morning. I am Stephanie Rickard, professor at the London School of Economics. I am a political economist, specialising in Government subsidies.
The Chair
Q
Thomas Pope: Great. We have been looking at this area for a couple of years, from back before the trade and co-operation agreement was agreed. The Bill, as a structure, certainly fits with lots of our recommendations and makes sense, taking advantage of the flexibility that the TCA affords. The decision has been made to move away from state aid and this broad structure makes sense—it fits.
A concern would be that, as it stands, the Bill creates a system that is very much a skeleton—there is more to come later. We need to think about the way in which that secondary legislation is going to be made, and how the guidance is going to be made and updated over time. On the enforcement side, one concern would be that there is a risk that damaging subsidies are going to slip through the net. I am sure we can get on to this in more detail later, but particularly on schemes, there is a bit of a risk that damaging schemes might slip through the net.
Professor Rickard: Subsidies can be a very important policy tool for Governments. We see more and more Governments using subsidies more and more often—last year alone, subsidies more than tripled in developed economies—so I really commend the efforts to design a subsidy control regime.
I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to one issue that I think is particularly important, which is transparency. The benefits of transparency, and more of it, outweigh the costs. One of the benefits I would flag is that transparency can potentially ensure that granting authorities comply with the principles that are laid out in the Bill. They are asked to self-certify their compliance with the principles—that is a bit like me asking my students to mark their own exams. They may do so very diligently and very carefully, but there may at times be some incentives to deviate from the principles and to give themselves a higher mark. Having greater transparency and requiring more subsidies to be notified and to be put into the database for public scrutiny will help to ensure that the granting authorities are very careful in complying with the principles. While I applaud the commitment to transparency that is very obvious is chapter 3, I would encourage Members to think carefully about the ways in which we could further increase the transparency to ensure that the UK was a world leader in transparency in subsidies and so as to help to provide consistency and certainty for business and accountability to taxpayers.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Could I also ask for your view on whether the six-month reporting deadline is necessary? In your view, could that threshold be reduced if decisions had already been made about the subsidy? Those questions are for both our witnesses. Finally, do you believe that the one-month challenge window is sufficient in the context of how the scheme is being designed and is likely to operate in order to make sure there can be an effective challenge to any subsidies?
Thomas Pope: On transparency, as most of you know, there is the £315,000 de minimis threshold. If the subsidy is below that level, we need not worry whether it is complying with the system. There is then a higher £500,000 threshold. If a subsidy complies with a scheme that has already been approved, it need not be put on the database if it is below £500,000.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Thomas Pope: Yes, that’s right. The purpose of having a de minimis threshold is that we are worried only about subsidies that are likely to distort competition or investment. The judgment has been made. It is quite hard to know exactly what the right level there is. I think a bit higher than the EU level, which was €200,000, seems about right, so £315,000 certainly seems reasonable.
My view is that there is a benefit to more transparency. Therefore, it is worth having a lower threshold for publishing to the database than for someone having to think about whether they are complying with the regime and all its principles. There are a couple of reasons for that.
First, I think we want to understand how the system is actually working and the impact of different decisions that we are making in the system. One of the big policy levers we are pulling in the system is the £315,000 de minimis threshold, and we want to understand how influential that is. Are lots of subsidies bunching at £300,000 or £310,000 so as not to comply with the system? That is not necessarily a problem, but we want to understand what impact the system is having on how subsidies are offered. If we censor everything so we see only the stuff above £315,000, we have a less good sense of how the system is operating.
Likewise, with the £500,000 threshold for subsidies that are approved under a scheme, we want to understand how often a scheme is being used and how much public authorities are going down that route. Again, we want to know whether a £400,000 subsidy is being approved under a scheme. I do not think that means we should pull the transparency limit down to £500 or £1,000.
Personally, I think a public authority also has to ask the question, “Is this a subsidy?” With quite big amounts of money, such as £100,000 or £200,000, they will be thinking about that. For £1,500 here or there, I imagine that would be quite a big additional burden. Realistically, we are never going to move the de minimis threshold down to £1,500 or £50,000. A level on the transparency database of around the EU level or a bit lower—about £175,000; I know that was in the original consultation as a possibility—would be a reasonable compromise between those two concerns. We could even have fewer things that needed to be put on the database if the subsidy was below £315,000, although we might want it on the database somewhere.
Professor Rickard: I will give a few examples of things that could be changed to help to improve transparency. The first would be to lower that threshold and report subsidies even if they were below £350,000 over three years. Report subsidies that were included in a scheme, even if they were less than £500,000. Report subsidies even if they were subsidies for the public economic interest.
I would shorten that time for reporting; I think six months is too long. If it is a tax break for 12 months, after 12 months a competitor might be out of business, so I certainly think that there would be scope to shorten the time to reporting. I would increase the time to challenge. One month is too short, particularly if someone is learning about a subsidy only through the public reporting and the database. Remember, for subsidies not publicly reported in the database, how will we know about them? Where will we learn information about them? I would increase the time that people had, or people with interest had, to challenge a subsidy.
I would maintain the information on the subsidy for longer than six years. Six years is mentioned in the Bill. I do not see a good justification for deleting information after six years, particularly if we want to analyse how the regime is working. We need this over-time data, this long-time thing, to ask, is the regime working? Are we achieving what we want to achieve with our subsidies? Are we getting good value for money? Are we helping disadvantaged areas? Are we helping to create economic activity? To assess that, we need to have this information and we should not delete it after a certain time.
I would ensure that certain types of information were reported. At the moment, the Secretary of State is given the discretion to ask for certain types of information, but I would want to see as much information as we could possibly get, while protecting commercially sensitive information.
Finally, I would look to make sure that all the information was self-contained in the database, without having links to local councils or other information. As we know, links break and information gets lost. I understand that there is this concern about putting a burden on granting authorities. One possibility may be to ask the recipients themselves to help to provide some of the information, so we could cross-reference and make sure that we had the correct information from the granting authority and the correct information from the recipients.
Those are just some ideas that would help to improve transparency. Through transparency, we can get better compliance and better value for money, and we can help to ensure that the subsidies that are being granted meet the goals that we are setting out to achieve.
Stephen Flynn
Q
I also have a question for both of you. Thomas, you touched on this in your remarks in relation to this being a skeleton of a Bill. We heard earlier from Professor Fothergill and Dr Pazos-Vidal about the potential implications of that lack of clarity about what sits behind the Bill and what the Government will be coming forward with: statutory instruments or secondary legislation. Do you see the lack of detail in the Bill having a consequence for the investment decisions of public bodies right across the UK?
Thomas Pope: On schemes, my specific concern—and this links to the one-month challenge window—is that a scheme gets added to the database or is set up. There is then a 28-day window where a potential interested party—someone who might be damaged by a subsidy that could be offered under the scheme—has a chance to appeal and to ask for more information and go through the process as set out in the Bill. Once that challenge window has passed, the scheme is approved and subsidies that fit with that scheme can then be offered with no opportunity to challenge.
The risk is that, if I am a competitor business and a business I am competing against is going to get a subsidy under a scheme, but has not yet got that subsidy at the point when the scheme has been set up, I will probably not know that the scheme is here and the clock is ticking. Here is this subsidy that will come later, and I am an interested party because a subsidy could go to my competitor. It is not even clear that that business would be an interested party, so my concern is that there is a benefit to using schemes in that you do not need to go through a separate process for every subsidy, but there is a corresponding risk that if there is not sufficient scrutiny of the schemes when they are set up, there is almost a sort of free pass if a scheme slips through the net and it allows you to give quite damaging subsidies. Once the time limit has passed, there is nothing you can do about that.
In terms of the Bill being a skeleton, there is a trade-off here. We want to be flexible and we want to be able to update elements of our regime over time. Things that are set in primary legislation are harder to change, but at the same time there are bits of the Bill where there is a lot of power given to the Secretary of State, with very little indication about how he or she might need to, for example, decide what constitutes a subsidy of interest or of particular interest. Those are subsidies that would have to be sent to the Competition and Markets Authority before they could be offered. More detail there would be good.
As to whether it will actually cause uncertainty and affect investment decisions, I do not talk directly to public authorities in the same way that some of your other witnesses will. To the extent that you can write very good guidance and have clear secondary legislation, that need not be a major issue. There are other ways that legal certainty can be provided. There probably is an extent to which this system will take a bit of bedding in. It is not clear how the Competition Appeal Tribunal is going to treat appeals and what the burden of evidence will be, or how easy it will be to challenge a subsidy subject to the principles. Probably that means there will be a bit of caution, at least initially while that beds in, because there will be legal precedent that will build up as well. Again, I do not think that will be a permanent feature necessarily.
Professor Rickard: I will weigh in briefly on the streamlined routes that have been proposed. The Government could propose a streamlined route, and they would bring it to Parliament, so there would be some room for scrutiny, but once that streamlined route or scheme is set up, granting authorities can just designate that subsidy as falling within that scheme, and then it is assumed to comply. That is a potentially interesting situation where you have a scheme and granting authorities say, “Yes, the subsidy is part of the scheme.” If we then assume compliance and do not see these subsidies showing up in the database, that potentially allows some leeway for subsidies that are not fully compliant with all of the principles. That would be one potential way in which the streamlined scheme would lay on top of the individual subsidies.
It is a route, of course, for the Government to set priorities and say, “This is an area in which we would like to see subsidies.” They are signalling a policy direction in which they would like to go. Of course, when you get a new Government, you might get new schemes. That would be right and proper. In a democratic system, you have a new Government with a new platform, and the voters have chosen that platform, but it does set up, potentially, a situation where you would have a streamed route scheme full of subsidies, and when there is a new Government there is a new streamed route scheme for subsidies. I am thinking about how to transition between them and the potential uncertainty generated for both businesses and granting authorities.
I want to pick up on one thing that Mr Pope said about who can challenge a potential subsidy. This is an area that would benefit from additional scrutiny. Thinking about who has a particular interest in challenging those subsidies, there may be good reasons to expand the potential set of challengers to ensure that it includes not just competitors but maybe also employees, trade unions, taxpayers or interest groups. That would give us more eyes on the subsidies to ensure that they are complying with the principles, ensuring value for money and achieving the economic outcomes that they set out to achieve.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Professor Rickard: Yes. In my opinion, that would be a good strategy. The benefits of ensuring increased scrutiny of how these subsidies are being allocated and how taxpayers’ money is being spent would outweigh any potential costs.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Professor Rickard: That is a good question. I do not have an opinion on that; I do not think I could say.
Simon Baynes
Q
Professor Rickard: That is an excellent question. The UK is in a unique position because of the TCA. It is hard to find a perfect analogy internationally because of the TCA, and the structure and the limit of the TCA puts the UK in a unique position.
However, there are world-leading examples in transparency, for example Norway and Germany. They are extremely transparent in their subsidies. States within Germany provide annual subsidy reports that run to 50, 60 or 70 pages. I am not saying that that is necessary, but that is the kind of world-leading transparency that the UK could and should aim for.
What the UK is setting up in the subsidy control regime here is closer to what we see in the World Trade Organisation. The WTO allows subsidies, except for those that are prohibited, a bit like what is suggested here. Granting authorities are allowed to provide subsidies, and they self-certify that their subsidies comply with the rules, as we see in the Bill. Those subsidies then persist until they are challenged. That is the best analogy that we see.
The challenge in the WTO system is that many subsidies that do not comply with the principles, with the agreed upon rules, persist for a long time, and in fact may never be challenged. That is the challenge in the subsidy control regime here: granting the ability to self-assess your own subsidies to ensure that they comply with the principles, but thinking about what happens when a subsidy that does not comply with those principles is enacted. How long does it persist before it is challenged? Certainly in the WTO system they persist for a very long time, because it is difficult to enact that challenge.
Simon Baynes
Q
Professor Rickard: I think that Norway is an excellent role model, but again it is in a slightly different situation because it is not bound by the TCA. It has a different system, because it does not have devolved Administrations or devolved authorities. It has Parliament providing budgets to particular subsidy categories, and then an independent body assigning subsidies to groups based purely on economic logic and cost-benefit analysis. So there are politics involved in the budgeting—“We allocate this amount of money for subsidies to research and development”—but then the decision making is granted to an independent body of experts. That works particularly well, because there is still democratic accountability at the budgeting level, but the actual decision-making process is apolitical and led by experts, based on economic logic.
Simon Baynes
Thank you, Professor. Thomas?
Thomas Pope: As Professor Rickard was alluding to, we are going to be more or less unique in having a domestic subsidy control regime like this. The main examples internationally are the EU state aid system and the WTO system, both of which have that international dimension. We have looked in our research at other systems and what other countries try to do, such as Canada in its inter-provincial free trade agreement. It has more barriers to trade than we do. It has a consulting requirement on subsidies, although it is not a very strong one.
Having looked at other countries, what you see in those countries that do not have a domestic subsidy control regime, which is most of them outside of the EU, are the negative effects of not having one. The US is the obvious example, which other witnesses have alluded to, where you get these quite big subsidy races between cities or states. In Canada, there have also been issues with the risk of subsidy races.
Very centralised countries are in a different situation, because if only one authority can grant subsidies, you are not worried about subsidy races. In a world made up purely of central Governments, I think that it would still be good practice to have a set of rules like this, but you would probably design the rules and the system slightly differently. In the UK, we have the three devolved authorities, which puts us in a different situation and means that, even though we are unique in having a domestic subsidy control regime and even though it is required by our TCA obligations, it is a positive thing and it will be very helpful.
Simon Baynes
Q
Thomas Pope: As I say, I do not think that there is one that has a domestic regime. We are charting our own course here.
Bill Esterson
Q
Professor Rickard: That is an excellent question. Some of the things that could help would be lengthening the time available to challenge—extending it beyond a month would be helpful—and clarifying, and potentially expanding, the definition of interested parties who could potentially challenge a subsidy if they are concerned.
Clause 71(3) has this really interesting phrase. It says that the relevant date you can challenge from is the date on which the subsidy has been published to the database or
“the date on which the interested party first knew or ought to have known”
about the subsidy decision in question. That is difficult. What is the date that a potential challenger ought to have known about the subsidy? That is one particular phrase that jumped out at me, and I am curious to think more about it. We should think about extending the time that you can challenge and defining more clearly and broadly who potential challengers may be, but also about how we will learn about a subsidy if it has not been notified and if we do not have publicly available information about it.
Potential challengers can ask the granting authority for information, and the Bill provides a duty on the granting authorities to provide that information. However, it is difficult to know, particularly within this short timeframe, how I will learn of this subsidy. How will I learn that there is a subsidy that is disadvantaging me and that I think is not complying with the principles? How can I learn that in this very short timeframe? Those are some concrete examples of changes that could be made to increase the ability of interested parties, competitors, businesses and others to scrutinise the subsidies that are being provided.
Bill Esterson
Q
Professor Rickard: The database set up by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is excellent, but I would make sure that more subsidies were notified into that database and that it fully encompasses all the information—not linking to other pages, but putting all relevant information into that database. I would also require granting authorities to put that information into the database in a timely fashion—quicker than six months—and make sure that more subsidies have to be notified, not allowing those exemptions for subsidies under £350,000 or £500,000 within a scheme.
Bill Esterson
Q
Thomas Pope: I will answer the first question first. I agree with many of the suggestions outlined by Professor Rickard. My real concern is that, as that 28-day period is so short, there is a risk that a subsidy or scheme that is concerning is missed by potential interested parties. The issue could be that they do not qualify as interested parties, so you could expand that, or that the time is too short.
I would propose one solution. At the moment, the CMA has a reactive role in the system—deliberately so. It issues reports on subsidies of interest and particular interest before they have been offered, if those public bodies offer the subsidies to the CMA for review. In special cases, where the Secretary of State is concerned about a subsidy, it can issue a post-award referral, and after a subsidy has been awarded, the CMA can issue a report. I think that the CMA should have the ability to do that investigation off its own bat. That would not mean giving it a standing a court, or anything like that, but that it could keep an eye on potentially problematic subsidies. If the CMA reports on a subsidy and raises a concern—there would not be ratings—it is much more likely that interested parties would be aware of that. I would possibly go even further and allow the CMA to have standing in court, but I understand that that is quite a departure from the system and it probably will not be a goer. However, at the very least, the CMA could have the proactive ability to investigate and issue reports ex-post.
The six-month challenge deadline is clearly something that has been brought in from the TCA, and that is the maximum we are allowed. I am afraid that I do not have a very strong view on the right amount. I have not spent enough time actually writing the reports. The public authorities have to be very strong on that.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Thomas Pope: We could make it shorter within our own legislation if we wanted to.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
I have two more questions. In the event of cumulative subsidies, where an organisation receives various subsidies from various organisations and it takes them over the threshold of the three-year period, who is responsible for ensuring that that is put on the subsidy database? I am not clear on that.
Lastly, EU state aid rules have a number of de minimis exemptions for agriculture and various other things. Does the fact that the Bill does not include them cause problems, or is it more of a tidying-up exercise?
Thomas Pope: On tax, again, that is a longer allowance that is in the TCA, and that is why it looks like that in the Bill. Of course, the bigger question is why it was permitted in the TCA in the first place. I think it is because tax measures tend to operate on a slightly different cycle—we have our financial years and budgets—and that is why there is a different time period, but I am not quite sure.
In terms of cumulative subsidies, I am not sure that they would end up on the database—I do not believe that is the case. In terms of monitoring that, and knowing whether subsidies have exceeded a de minimis limit, I think that is the responsibility of the recipient rather than the public body. However, I am afraid that is one where you would have to ask some lawyers.
Professor Rickard: I do not know the logic behind the 12 months, but as I said in my opening remarks, I think that is quite a long time. If a competitor is benefitting from a discriminatory tax break, then after 12 months I could be out of business. So it does seem like a very long time, and I would think about the potential benefits of shortening it.
The cumulative subsidies question is an excellent point, and it highlights the arbitrariness of having these thresholds. The monetary thresholds are potentially obscuring these cumulative subsidies, exactly as has been suggested. In my own research on procurements, not in the UK but elsewhere, I find that Governments break up their procurement contracts specifically to get them below the threshold so that they do not have to report them and they are not open to scrutiny. I am not suggesting that happens in terms of subsidies, but these cumulative subsidies could potentially take on that kind of logic where you are breaking up a subsidy or collaborating on providing subsidies below that threshold that actually end up going above the threshold.
Finally, in terms of exemptions, there are exemptions included in this Bill. Sometimes they may be legacy exemptions, but I think that the benefits of having this information surely outweigh the costs. If we understand where the subsidies are going and who is getting subsidised, we can have a better understanding of whether these subsidies are working and achieving their goals. If you are weighing up the costs and benefits, I think the benefits of having fewer exemptions would outweigh the costs.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Thomas Pope: That is a very good question, and one that I am afraid I do not know the answer to.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Q
Thomas Pope: Yes.
Andrew Bowie
Q
Thomas Pope: That is a very good question. I think there are various benefits, and in our research we have outlined them. I think there is a particular case, in a system where competing jurisdictions can offer subsidies, for worrying about subsidy races. Actually, that is effectively a co-ordination problem, and a subsidy control regime is effectively that co-ordination.
I also think that, in general, there are benefits to setting out very clearly what the principles are by which you are going to offer subsidies. An interesting analogy—it is not quite the same—is fiscal rules; they are not legally binding in the same way, but these rules are set out by politicians to indicate what we think is sensible policy. They can sometimes help you to resist, for example, political pressure to save a business that is going under but that has no long-term prospects. Those rules can also be quite helpful.
In general, it is quite hard to hold the line on those things, and that probably explains why there are not domestic subsidy control regimes in general, because this is Governments tying their own hands. In general, it is quite hard to do that. It just so happens that we have an international obligation that requires us to do that, but I think that is actually a benefit rather than a cost. That would be my answer as to why there are not lots of subsidy control regimes elsewhere. Professor Rickard may know better than me on that.
Professor Rickard: No, Mr Pope is absolutely right. You are committing to saying that the regions within the United Kingdom will not compete with each other in trying to win business, jobs and investment by awarding subsidies. It is difficult to give up that ability, and say that we will not engage in that type of subsidy war, but we have seen the damage that competitive subsidy provisions have caused. Estimates suggest that in the United States $80 billion a year is spent by states competing for business with subsidies. If they agreed not to do it, and had their own subsidy control regime, real income in manufacturing alone would increase by 5%, so there are real economic gains to tying your hands and saying, “We’re not going to engage in subsidy races.”
Evidence suggests that subsidy races do not work in the long term. Even providing big subsidies does not necessarily guarantee that you will get businesses where you want them to be. For example, the US biotech industry is concentrated in five cities with world-leading universities and very deep and highly educated labour pools. Businesses locate there despite the fact that 41 out of 50 states have very generous subsidies to try to lure them to their regions, so evidence suggests that spending subsidies to try to attract jobs may not always work, and doing so is really a waste, in terms of spending a lot of money in a way that potentially hurts productivity and real income.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Rickard: I don’t have a strong feeling on the level. I am not sure where the £175,000 number came from. I heard Mr Pope mention it. I do not know the logic behind it.
Kevin Hollinrake
I think it’s the EU level.
Professor Rickard: Okay, thank you. I do not see why it could not be lower. I recognise that there is a concern that we are putting a burden on granting authorities, but the granting authorities have this information. They have already collated it and made a decision. Increasingly, with tech, I do not think it is a huge burden to upload that type of information to a database, so I would argue for an even lower threshold than £175,000. If I gave you a number, it would be an arbitrary number—as I suggested, all thresholds are arbitrary numbers—but it could be as low as £100,000. I think that would not unduly burden governing authorities, but would increase transparency to ensure value for money and compliance with the principles.
Thomas Pope: I completely agree that all of these numbers are somewhat arbitrary. The reason I mentioned £175,000 specifically is that it is the EU level, and it is the number that was in the Government’s consultation at the start of the year. That was a question in the consultation, but in the end the level was higher. It is very hard to say whether the right number is £100,000, £80,000, £150,000, £175,000 or £210,000. It should be low enough that we have a good sense of how the system is actually affecting how subsidies are offered.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Thomas Pope: I am not an expert on that, and you will probably want to ask other witnesses. I think part of the point here is that a failure to comply with something like this could be challengeable, not directly, under the process set out in this Bill, but that is also a violation of public law. But as I say, it would be better to ask a lawyer than me on that.
Professor Rickard: One possibility, potentially, when you are talking about commercially sensitive information is not to limit the amount of commercially sensitive information that would be in the database but, when you do get a public request, to do something similar to what they do with Nomis and the labour data, which is very disaggregated by firms. You have to sign a declaration saying why you are using this information and that you are not going to use it in a commercial way. That may be a way to provide the necessary information to a potential challenger, but in a way that protects information that is potentially commercially sensitive. So I certainly think there are ways around it, and I think that it would be important to explore some of those mechanisms.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Professor Rickard: I think you are right that we are not only trusting the governing authorities to mark their own exams, but trusting them to provide accurate information about what they have done. So I think there are two possibilities—this is blue-sky thinking. One, as I have suggested before, is to collate information—get the information from the granting authority, but also request information from the body or entity that has received the subsidy. And then you can confirm: do these numbers match? This happens in trade all the time: you say, “What is the export data? What is the import data? Can we match these data?” And if not, what is the problem; why do they not appear to match? One way to have a check and balance on the information that is being provided by the governing authority is to seek this kind of information from the people who received the subsidy. It could even be a condition of receiving the subsidy that you will report this information.
The second suggestion, which is one that Mr Pope offered previously, is giving the CMA a bigger role for audits, and even beyond that. I am glad to see that the CMA has been tasked with doing five-yearly reports, but I really think that there is a lot of additional room for ex post scrutiny, not only of the regime but of individual subsidies, to say, “Did this subsidy achieve this goal? Was the subsidy successful? Did it engender jobs, business and economic opportunities?” I think that is a really important role for the CMA or another entity like that, but in order to be able to do this kind of auditing, this ex post analysis, we need more information, which means we need more transparency.
Thomas Pope: I would agree with all of that. What I would say is that I think there is an incentive to get the information right, in that I think if you are found to have got it wrong, probably your 28-day time limit after you have offered accurate information does not apply. So you do want to make sure that you are providing accurate information here. But I completely agree about some role for the CMA or some other body in getting the information from recipients—it sounds like a very good idea to me—and checking that, subject to how burdensome that would be. Yes, that is a good cross-validation. I suppose the concern here would be that the CMA ends up a sinkhole of time, just looking through every single thing that goes on the database, but if you just have a flag to say, “Hold on, the information doesn’t match here,” and then the CMA looks further, they are two strategies that work together quite well, I think.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Professor Rickard: I think it is a commendable first step. I think it is great that it is publicly available, that it is online, that it is relatively transparent. There would be some more things that I would like to see. For example, there are many cases, as you will know from looking at it, where it just says “other” or “not available”, and there are a lot of cells that have not been filled in or do not look as if they have been filled in correctly. I encourage some mechanism to ensure that you cannot just say “other” or “not available”. Sometimes the amounts are listed as zero; I am not sure I understand why that is the case. I also think best practice could be followed in terms of international comparability. For example, you could put on these codes that we use to identify the sector, like NACE codes—internationally standard codes that would identify the sector to which these subsidies are going.
The Bill is really commendable and is a great initial step, and I am glad to see it up there, but there are ways that it could be improved by providing more information, and more consistent and detailed information, and by using some of these international standard codes that exist in databases that we use—for example, for imports, employment, industries or firms.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Thomas Pope: I certainly think that the CMA and/or the subsidy advice unit should have a membership and input reflecting its four-nation role in the UK and the fact that, although subsidy control is a reserved matter, it affects devolved competence and the operation of policy in all four nations of the UK. I therefore think it is appropriate that there be better devolved representation. These statutory responsibilities go to the CMA and are then exercised by the subsidy advice unit and the Office for the Internal Market. I think it is time for a look at the CMA’s governance, although that is obviously slightly beyond the scope of the Bill.
There could certainly be ways that the subsidy advice unit could get input. A particular concern could be that, because the regional economies of the UK can look quite different, you may need a different set of local expertise when the CMA or SAU were looking into a particular subsidy in Scotland from what you would need in the north of England, which has quite a different industrial structure. There are lots of creative ways that the SAU could do that. You could have regional panels that have that expertise. I would go further and have a real look at the governance of the CMA as well, because ultimately, while it is the SAU doing the subsidy control, those are the CMA’s powers.
Professor Rickard: I was surprised to see in legislation that members of the SAU can only be employees of the CMA. There may be very good reasons for that. The key for the SAU is to ensure that it is insulated from politics and that the decisions it makes are really not only economic logic but are consistent with the principles. Of course, there is a role for politics in that—people saying, “We want to achieve these particular outcomes”—but I think you really want the SAU to be a technocratic body staffed by experts who will review a subsidy on balance, in line with the principles. With those goals in mind, there may be scope for expanded membership, or certainly at least for ensuring some sort of feed-in from experts on the particular issues, subsidies or areas that the SAU happens to be investigating.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions and, indeed, for this morning’s sitting. I thank our witnesses, on behalf of the Committee, for their evidence. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm this afternoon here in the Boothroyd Room to continue taking oral evidence.
Elections Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. I know that you have heard them before, but if you could listen, that would be helpful. Could we have social distancing, and could we have masks being worn when not speaking, please? Also, to be helpful to our wonderful Hansard colleagues, could you email any notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk? [Interruption.] That is a reminder: please could you turn off all electronic devices? Thank you very much indeed.
We now resume line-by-line consideration of the Bill. Members who wish to press a grouped amendment to a Division should indicate that they wish to do so when speaking to it.
Clause 16
Notional expenditure: use of property etc on behalf of candidates and others
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. Clause 16 makes an important clarification to our political finance rules that I hope will be welcomed by all members of this Committee. In 2018, after the Supreme Court determined that the rules on notional expenditure for candidates did not contain a test of authorisation, there were concerns among parties and campaigners that candidates could be liable to report benefits in kind that they did not know about, but could be seen to have benefited from. On Second Reading, we heard about the direct impact that unclear rules about notional expenditure has had on colleagues, and we must prevent the unwelcome consequences that this confusion may have on participation, such as stopping people from volunteering to be agents due to their fear of falling foul of the law through no fault of their own.
That is why we are making it clear that candidates only need to report as notional expenditure benefits in kind—property, goods, services and facilities that are given to the candidate at a discount, or for free—that they have used themselves, or which they or their agent have authorised, directed or encouraged someone else to use on the candidate’s behalf. That is what was already widely understood to be true prior to the court case. We have sought input from the Parliamentary Parties Panel on these measures, and are confident that they will bring important clarity to the rules and support compliance.
In this clause, we are also making an equivalent amendment to the rules for other types of campaigners, such as political parties and third-party campaigners, to ensure consistency. Expenditure that promotes an individual candidature would continue to count towards a candidate’s own spending limit, and expenditure that is joint between a party and a candidate will continue to be apportioned appropriately, a practice which all parties have long engaged in. Together, these changes will bring much-needed reassurances and clarity to candidates and their agents on the rules that apply to notional expenditure. They will support compliance with the rules and ensure that those wishing to participate in public life can feel safe in doing so. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Codes of practice on expenses
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
This clause amends existing provisions in electoral law in respect of the codes of practice that the Electoral Commission may prepare on election expenses for candidates. The clause also amends the parliamentary procedure to bring into force some of those codes of practice, so that parliamentary procedures are consistent.
Clause 17 ensures that the code of practice on candidate spending that the Electoral Commission may prepare can, and should, cover what constitutes notional expenditure and third-party spending under the Representation of the People Act 1983. We are making that change in order to put the scope of the guidance beyond doubt. It is important that the guidance is comprehensive, so that it can address concerns about notional expenditure that have been raised across the political spectrum. At present, the legislation implementing the various codes of practice on candidate spending is difficult to understand, and different codes are subject to different procedures.
Currently, the codes of practice on spending for both candidates and parties and campaigners are laid before both Houses in draft form, and are subject to parliamentary scrutiny for up to 40 days. It is right that Parliament is able to scrutinise those codes before giving them final approval, so this will not change. We are amending the provisions for the candidate code in the 1983 Act simply to specify that the order that brings this code of practice into force is a statutory instrument. This is a minor amendment to an existing power and simply remedies the fact that the legislation does not specify that at present. Like the other codes, the candidate code will still be subject to parliamentary scrutiny for up to 40 days. We are not changing that.
We are also amending the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 so that the order bringing the code of practice for political parties into force is subject to no parliamentary procedure, rather than being subject to the negative resolution procedure. That is in line with other commencement orders and with the procedure followed for other codes of practice prepared by the Electoral Commission. This follows the initial 40 days of parliamentary scrutiny when the code is laid in draft, and that will not change. As I explained, these changes will ensure that the procedure for all the codes of practice are consistent and clearer, while ensuring that Parliament remains able to duly scrutinise them and give them final approval.
None of the codes has been put forward to Parliament to date and, given that the Elections Bill is changing the law on notional expenditure, the draft codes previously developed by the Electoral Commission will need to be updated to reflect the changes in the law. We would expect the Electoral Commission to consult political parties and others in future on any new codes of practice.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Authorised persons not required to pay expenses through election agent
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Section 75 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 prohibits any third party spending above a certain amount on candidates without the written authorisation of the election agent. However, the current rules also provide that any authorised spending incurred by the third party must be paid for by the election agent. That is not logical, which is why we are amending the rules so that any authorised spending under section 75 can be both incurred and paid for by the authorised third party.
The measure does not change the existing rules around submitting spending returns, as any authorised spending should still be reported by both the third party and the candidate. This change will make the process of paying for that authorised spending more straightforward.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19
Declaration of assets and liabilities to be provided on application for registration
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 19 amends section 28 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to bring forward transparency about political parties’ assets and liabilities to an earlier stage. There is already a requirement for political parties to maintain a record of assets and liabilities in their annual accounting records. However, that information may not be available until up to a year after a party registers and can therefore be after an election that the party has contested.
Parties with assets or liabilities that do not exceed the £500 threshold will be required to make a declaration confirming that fact. Parties with assets or liabilities in excess of £500 will be required to produce a record of those assets and liabilities to accompany their declaration. That will be incorporated into the registration process with the commission and into the register maintained and published by the commission. Parties with assets and liabilities of above £500 will be indicated on the register of parties.
This is a good step forward as it will allow earlier public scrutiny of parties’ finances and ensure public confidence in the transparency of all political parties’ financial positions.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Prohibition on entities being registered political parties and recognised third parties at same time
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 20 prohibits groups and individuals from having access to multiple spending limits at an election. Spending limits exist to ensure a level playing field, and any opportunities to unfairly expand them should be removed. During the 2019 UK parliamentary general election, one group claimed that it could do exactly that by registering as both a political party and a third party campaigner. That showed the potential for the current rules to be abused and spending limits expanded.
If we do not close down the loophole, it may be exploited further in future. This change will prohibit recognised third party campaigners from registering as political parties and gaining access to a spending limit for each registration. That will serve to protect the integrity of the existing spending limits.
To ensure that there can be no doubt, the list of individuals and entities permitted to be on the third party campaigner register will also be amended to remove political parties. As groups may already appear on both registers when the provision comes into force, clause 21 will ensure that any group that spends in a third party capacity during a regulated period will not be able also to spend as a political party. That means that any group appearing on both registers when these provisions are commenced will have to choose whether it wants to spend as a political party or a third party campaigner during any subsequent regulated period.
Finally, clause 20 also makes consequential amendments to the rules on donations, spending and reporting for recognised third party campaigners, where they currently refer to the specific requirements for political parties, which take into account their existing financial controls as a party. Altogether, these changes will ensure that groups cannot use the rules to their advantage to expand their spending limits unfairly.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
Restriction on which third parties may incur controlled expenditure
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 22 restricts all third party campaigner spending during a regulated period to entities eligible to register with the Electoral Commission, as listed in section 88 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and to overseas unincorporated associations with the requisite UK connection.
Currently, foreign third party campaigners can legitimately spend on UK elections underneath the recognised third party campaigner registration thresholds, which are £20,000 during a regulated period in England, and £10,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This activity becomes illegal only once the thresholds are passed. It is important that only those with a legitimate and fair interest in UK elections are able to influence the electorate.
Clause 22 will remove the scope for any legal spending by foreign third party campaigners underneath the registration threshold but above a £700 de minimis. The inclusion of such a de minimis provision will balance the desire to prohibit spending by foreign entities without criminalising low level, potentially unintentional breaches below £700, which are unlikely to adversely impact an election.
It is worth noting that only individual overseas electors are permitted to register as third party campaigners with the Electoral Commission. In order to support overseas electors, who are important participants in our democracy, to work together, the clause will permit them to form unincorporated associations to campaign if they spend below the new lower tier registration threshold of £10,000, set out in clause 24. That is in line with the current situation, and it is only right that such electors should be able to spend in UK elections as they can now. Under our proposals, unincorporated associations will meet the “requisite UK connection” requirement to incur spending in UK elections only if they are composed solely of registered overseas electors.
To conclude, these provisions make necessary and proportionate changes to ensure that spending at UK elections is only permitted, above a £700 de minimis, for those with a legitimate interest in UK elections. They help reduce the risk of illegitimate foreign influence in UK elections.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Third parties capable of giving notification for purposes of Part 6 of PPERA
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 71, in clause 23, page 33, leave out lines 6 to 10.
This amendment would leave out the powers for ministers to remove categories of permitted campaigner while leaving in place their power to add new categories of campaigner.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 72, in clause 23, page 33, line 10, at end insert—
“(11) The power to make provision by virtue of paragraph (9)(b) or (c) is exercisable only on, and in accordance with, a recommendation of the Electoral Commission.”
This amendment would require the Government to obtain the recommendation of the Electoral Commission before removing or varying categories of permitted campaigner.
Fleur Anderson
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard.
Part 4 and its provisions are a brazen attack on our democracy. They will undermine the ability of civil society organisations, charities and trade unions to engage and campaign in our democracy—that is why they are so controversial. We need to spend additional time considering them, and I hope that all Committee members will take up our amendments, which are reasonable, represent an improvement and come very much from civil society.
The provisions in question will infringe the rights of working people to organise politically or campaign on pay or rights at work, and they risk silencing the very people who got our country through the pandemic. They are an unnecessary and disproportionate reaction. They will not add to the integrity of our elections, but only have a chilling effect on democracy.
In a free and open society, democratically elected Governments are scrutinised by Opposition parties and civil society, often campaigning on single issues. Part of what makes democracy healthy is the freedom for civil society to challenge those in power, which the Government are seeking to curtail with the clause and which we seek to amend with amendments 71 and 72.
The clause will allow a Cabinet Office Minister to define who may legally campaign at elections, giving them the power to amend or remove the types of organisations that are allowed to spend as little as £700 on election campaigning across the whole UK. It also doubles as the list of organisations that are allowed to register with the Electoral Commission and spend more than £10,000 at elections. The Minister may now be able to ban charities that are critical of Government cuts to foreign aid, ban local community groups protesting against planning reforms, ban unions that might work with a political party for workplace rights, and ban anyone convicted of a public order offence. In conjunction with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which makes it much easier to criminalise protesters—even a protest involving one person—this would disproportionately impact on the Government’s most vocal and active opposition, who may have already been criminalised for protesting. That is a terrifying prospect and, as far as I can see, quite unprecedented.
The Bill is not about influence. It is a way for the Government to stifle their critics before elections and cripple them during elections. Giving the Government such power over their opposition during elections is completely at odds with free and fair elections. It is deeply inappropriate and offensive to our democratic tradition. Unions and other campaign organisations have a right to engage in our democracy and already face a highly regulated landscape, which is why the clause is unnecessary.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The hon. Lady says this is the Government stifling their opposition. Actually, civil society, trade unions and charitable organisations are all our opposition, because they put equal pressure on all candidates and parties that stand in an election, as they want to achieve policy change. Obviously, some organisations are more closely affiliated with political parties than others are, but many of them are party-neutral in that sense, because they want to drive a policy change rather than see one party be successful in any given constituency or general election.
Fleur Anderson
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is a range of political opinions and opinions about different issues that are not necessarily the main bread and butter of political parties, but which are so vital, especially in an election time, when we are talking about the future of such a wide range of policy decisions that are about to be made on behalf of the electorate. Unless we accept the amendment, we face the risk of some groups, individuals, community organisations and single-issue campaigns being unnecessarily banned from taking part in the electoral process. There will be scandals ahead unless we accept the amendment.
Labour’s amendments 71 and 72 seek to temper the clause. Amendment 71 will delete the unprecedented and dangerous powers to remove categories of permitted campaigners while respecting the Government’s stated intention to future-proof electoral law by allowing the addition of novel categories of campaigner. It is flexible and can still respond to new issues and campaigns as we go forward, but it does not have the draconian and heavy-handed influence of only the Minister choosing who is on the list. Amendment 72 requires the Government to obtain the recommendation of the Electoral Commission before removing or varying categories of permitted campaigner, and I hope all Members will agree that it is a very reasonable amendment.
Both amendments are necessary to prevent a Minister from having the unprecedented ability to interfere in a free and fair election. They also have significant civil society support, including from Bond—British Overseas NGOs for Development—which represents over 400 organisations, ranging from small specialist charities to large, international non-governmental organisations. It has many supporters in all our constituencies, with a worldwide presence, and believes that:
“This is an extremely broad power which could be open to abuse by future governments.”
I would add that it could be open to abuse by the current Government. Bond has urged that it be amended, and so do I.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 23 builds directly on the requirements put in place by clause 22. As I have mentioned, the aim of clause 22 is to remove the scope for foreign entities to spend above a £700 de minimis amount during the regulated period running up to an election by restricting all third party campaigner spending at that time to spending by entities that are eligible to register with the Electoral Commission, as in section 88 of PPERA.
However, we are conscious that legitimate categories of third party that are not on the list of categories of campaigners may emerge in future, and clause 22 would significantly restrict their ability to campaign if they could not be added to the list quickly. For that reason, clause 23 makes provision for the amendment of the list of eligible categories of third party campaigners in PPERA. It will allow the Government to add to, remove items from, or otherwise amend the list of categories of third party campaigners as necessary. Any such changes will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny via the affirmative procedure. These provisions will ensure that we can be responsive to the emergence of new groups, and that eligible categories of third party are not unduly restricted from campaigning and participating in our democracy in future. I therefore urge the Committee to allow the clause to stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 24
Recognised third parties: changes to existing limits etc
Fleur Anderson
I beg to move amendment 76, in clause 24, page 33, line 23, at end insert—
“(5C) Registered charities and Community Interest Companies may act as a recognised third party subject to the lower-tier expenditure limits without the requirement to give the Electoral Commission notification under section 88 of PPERA.”
This amendment would exempt registered charities and Community Interest Companies from the notification and registration requirements of Clause 24, which introduces a new lower tier registration for third party campaigners who spend more than £10,000 on controlled expenditure anywhere in the UK.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 77, in clause 24, page 33, line 23, at end insert—
“(5C) Registered charities and Community Interest Companies (CICs) which intend to incur election expenditure within the lower-tier expenditure limits may provide the Electoral Commission with their charity or CIC registration number, and the Commission—
(a) shall treat that information as sufficient for the charity’s or CIC’s notification and registration for electoral purposes under section 88 of PPERA, and
(b) may collect any information the Commission requires about the charity or CIC from the Charities Commission or Companies House respectively.”
This amendment seeks allow charities or Community Interest Companies who wish to campaign at elections within the lower tier of expenditure and which are already subject to transparency requirements to avoid the additional compliance burden arising from Clause 24.
Amendment 90, in clause 24, page 34, line 22, at end insert—
“except where the third party is a charity which is registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales under section 30(1) of the Charities Act 2011 or is exempt from registration under section 30(2)(a), (b) or (c) of the Charities Act 2011 or is registered as a community interest company under section 36B of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004;”.
Fleur Anderson
I am pleased to speak to amendments 76 and 77, which would significantly improve the Bill. Amendment 76 would exempt registered charities and community interest companies, or CICs, from the notification and registration requirements of clause 24, which introduces a new, lower-tier registration for third party campaigners who spend more than £10,000 on controlled expenditure anywhere in the UK. Our amendment 77 seeks to allow charities or CICs that wish to campaign at elections within the lower tier of expenditure, and that are already subject to transparency requirements, to avoid the additional compliance burden arising from clause 24.
The Electoral Commission says on part 4:
“Some of the changes in Part 4 of the Bill would increase transparency for voters about who is spending money campaigning at elections and how they are funded.”
So far, so good. It goes on:
“But they would not increase transparency about how much is being spent and on what. The added complexity of these changes could deter some from campaigning at elections, or restrict the type of campaigning they can spend funds on. Voters could therefore receive less information about candidates and parties, and hear from a narrower range of sources.”
The Electoral Commission continues:
“Third party campaigners are individuals and organisations that campaign in the run-up to elections but do not stand as political parties or candidates. These are a vital part of a healthy democracy and play a significant role in providing voters with information. It is important that a broad range of campaigners can take part in public debate ahead of UK elections and referendums so voters hear a diversity of voices.”
The commission states:
“These changes would add new requirements to laws which many campaigners have said are already complex and hard to understand.”
Again, these changes are unnecessary and will have a chilling effect on democracy, and especially on registered charities and CICs. That is why they are the focus of our amendments. The Bill risks tying organisations up in red tape and stifling democratic engagement by civil society organisations, which are concerned about breaking the rules.
I was working in a charity when the gagging, or lobbying, Act—the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 —was introduced. I very often found myself sitting around with my colleagues asking, “Can we now do this? Can we now say that? Can we now work with them? What can we do?”. Our charity did not have enough money to seek a large amount of legal advice. The law was also quite unclear, so to avoid falling foul of it, we would step back and not do many things that would have been perfectly within the law, which had been changed, just in case they were not.
The provisions we are discussing extend those powers. Indeed, I see this as a trilogy, comprising the lobbying Act, the Trade Union Act 2016 and this Bill, which altogether stifle democracy and free speech, and stop really valuable campaigners campaigning about issues that we politicians need to hear about.
I spoke to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which is concerned about this issue. It said that it was unconvinced by the argument in favour of the lower threshold in general terms. Has the Minister met the NCVO to discuss its concerns? The Government have framed the issue in terms of increased transparency, but it was not clear to the NCVO, which represents charities across the country, that there would have been a significant impact. It cannot see that there will be more transparency.
The NCVO asked the Minister’s predecessor to look at whether charities could be exempted from the lower threshold. Its argument is that when campaigning is done by a registered charity, people can in any case look it up on the register and see who its trustees are, how it is funded and so on. The transparency point therefore does not apply in the same way, because charities are already transparent and highly regulated. This new tier will inevitably result in smaller organisations being unable to engage in democracy. Charities and community groups that might not have the policy and legal expertise of larger organisations and that, as I have said, will fear running afoul of the rules may decide—in fact, will decide—that it is not worth the trouble to spend a relatively small sum, or they might be put off by appearing on a public register.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
The hon. Lady is obviously making a powerful speech, but the primary purpose of charities, which we give tax relief to, should surely be supporting good causes, not campaigning in elections.
Fleur Anderson
In many respects, supporting good causes is done by campaigning. For many charities, the causes of the symptoms they are seeking to address will be back in Government policy. The policies that we decide all the time obviously have an immediate impact on people on the ground. Charities work with those people and need to change the policies to change the issue they are addressing.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that charities by their nature have expertise and understanding—for example, of homelessness, third-world debt, climate change, or whatever—that we in this House have to learn from? The idea that they should be restricted simply to raising funds to alleviate an issue, rather than trying to engage and inform the debate, is simply preposterous.
Fleur Anderson
I absolutely agree. For example, during this Bill Committee, we have relied on expert advice from the Royal National Institute of Blind People about the impact of these changes on people who are blind or partially sighted across this country. As the representative organisation of those people, who will be affected by the Bill in how they vote, the RNIB should be giving us expert advice. In the future, having to work out how much money it has spent jointly and severally with other organisations, which tier it falls into and whether it will get on to the list will all have an effect on whether or not we receive that expertise, which helps us to be much better decision makers.
When we consider that the Conservative party spent £16 million in the last general election, we see that lowering the spending threshold for groups to register during an election from £20,000 to £10,000 is clearly aimed at deterring smaller organisations, community groups and single-issue groups, which the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute mentioned, such as groups concerned with refugees, disability rights, women’s rights and LGBTQ issues. Community groups campaigning on a single issue in our constituencies may fear running afoul of changing election rules, which will have that chilling effect.
I ask the Minister whether there will be a review of the impact of the lobbying Act as we go forward with the Elections Bill, because I think that they go together. To know what impact the lobbying Act has had on campaigning will be very instructive. Perhaps there has been such a review already, and I did not know about it. If not, will there be a review of the impact of that Act and this legislation on campaigning, particularly single-issue campaigning?
If existing party activity is redefined as joint campaigning, smaller unions that spend only very small amounts on regulated activity and do not come close to meeting the threshold for registering with the Electoral Commission could find themselves having to register and submit a complex and comprehensive return, despite having not spent any of their own funds on a campaign. Should not they be spending their money on frontline service provision and advocacy, rather than filling in complex and comprehensive returns that do not add to transparency but only decrease our democracy? This will be a huge bureaucratic burden on small organisations; it is both completely unnecessary and overly burdensome.
Labour’s amendment 76 seeks to reduce the chilling effect and remove the burdens of additional regulation by exempting registered charities and community interest companies from the notification and registration requirements. In the community organisation that I worked for just before I became an MP, there was a fantastic organisation called SEN Talk—special educational needs talk.
For years, I supported it in becoming a CIC. It is a long process. The organisation had to go through a lot of measures and have a lot of transparency. It was doing a lot of frontline work with parents and children with special educational needs, but also it was advocating to the council for the changes that it needed in order to operate on behalf of parents, and to the Government, and working on Select Committee reports, for example. If that organisation were asked to then submit returns but did not know exactly when the election period was and feared falling afoul of this, it would have to cut down on its frontline services or not take part in the advocacy that really does help it to stand up for children with special educational needs. It would put that organisation in a real bind, and it is just one example.
This proposal has also, as I have mentioned, been called for by Bond—the overseas aid network—and several other third-sector organisations. Setting up a registered charity takes considerable time and effort, and these entities must already, by law, identify their trustees—or, in the case of CICs, their directors—and publish their accounts. There are already robust transparency initiatives regulating charity governance, so it is highly unlikely that those seeking to exert undue influence in elections would pursue this approach as a means of evading regulation. I would like to know how many conversations the Minister has had with CICs, in particular, about the effect of the Bill.
Registered charities cannot exist for solely political purposes, and charities that do engage in political activity in pursuit of their charitable objects are already closely monitored by the Charity Commission. These organisations would still have to register with the Electoral Commission as a non-party campaigner if they met the existing spending thresholds.
Amendment 77 would recognise the need for all campaigners at elections to submit to electoral regulation by the elections regulator, and to be transparent about their purpose if they are seeking to campaign to influence voters at election time—but without duplicating the compliance burden for those organisations that already routinely are required to be transparent.
I urge all hon. Members to support these very reasonable amendments, which would allow small organisations and single-issue campaigns to continue to campaign.
Patrick Grady
Like the Labour Front-Bench team, SNP Members have warned repeatedly about the chilling effect that the Bill as a whole will have on political participation. We have gone through the clauses that suppress turnout; we have gone through the clauses that weaken oversight of elections; and now we are on to clauses that will deter organisations with legitimate interests from contributing to debate and policy development, though that is what happens during general elections.
The intervention made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was very telling. His point was that charities should be seen and not heard—the patrician attitude was that charities do beneficent works, helping poor unfortunate souls, maybe contributing to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, or maybe not, and while doing all the hard work must live with the consequences of the policies made by Governments of whatever colour. That includes SNP Governments in Scotland; there will be organisations that are highly critical of some aspects of SNP Government policy—but so they should be, as the point of a vibrant third sector is to contribute to policy debate.
Most charitable organisations that I have come into contact with in my professional career, both in that sector and as a politician, ultimately do not want to exist. They are there to solve problems, and they do so by providing immediate relief and support to people who require it, but they also want to tackle the underlying policies that have caused those problems. The best time to do that is at election time, when decisions are made and when power really is in the hands of the people and the voters. Of course those organisations want to seek pledges from individual politicians. They are not necessarily seeking to influence political parties as a whole. They are certainly not telling their supporters which party to vote for. First, they are not allowed to, but even if they were, they are not going to tell their supporters and donors which party to vote for, because by definition these are cross-party organisations that draw support from a wide range of people across society, and doing so would be counterproductive.
It is crucial for our democracy, however, to allow these organisations to encourage supporters and donors, educate the people who support their cause, and engage with decision makers. If that means extracting pledges from candidates on a constituency-by-constituency basis, then good for them. If that means that candidates from whatever party get elected and are then held to account for signing a pledge or supporting a policy in the election, so much the better. When we have mass lobby days here in Westminster—there are a few lined up this week, now that covid restrictions are easing—Members of Parliament from all the political parties come along to demonstrate their support for a charitable cause. Yes, sometimes there is weight in one direction or the other, but inevitably the best way to drive political change is to achieve cross-party consensus. That is what these organisations are often trying to do, but the clause will have the chilling effect of which the hon. Member for Putney spoke.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
When we heard the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, was the hon. Gentleman reminded, as I was, of Desmond Tutu’s words:
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river…We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in”?
Is that not the philosophy of the charities that the hon. Gentleman has worked with? Certainly the charities that I have worked with in my constituency want to stop people falling into the river upstream, rather than just keep fishing them out at the bottom.
Patrick Grady
Absolutely. Where are those decisions ultimately made? Here, in rooms like this one. We are engaging with charitable organisations on this Bill. We are being advised and lobbied on matters in the Bill by organisations that are making representations to us, have frontline experience, and are delivering in a whole range of sectors. We have heard from domestic organisations and from Bond, the international development network.
I am sure all Committee members have diligently read the written evidence submitted by Bond, EB14. I strongly encourage them to do so, because it explains the challenges and difficulties faced by these organisations, which are having to comply with election registration regulations and reporting requirements, and finding it incredibly difficult. There is evidence in that document—we heard it from the hon. Member for Putney as well—that many organisations are already choosing simply to step back, so their voices are not being heard. That goes back to the narrative of what exactly the Bill is trying to achieve, in terms of suppressing debate and political participation in this country.
Although clause 24 is not quite as draconian as clause 23, it is still pretty oppressive. Amendment 96, tabled by the SNP, could achieve much the same as the Labour party amendments in exempting registered charities from these incredibly stringent new reporting requirements. The threshold of £10,000 could easily be reached once everything that had to be calculated was taken into account, such as staff time, resources, and collaboration with other organisations.
It would be easy to hit that threshold, potentially unexpectedly. The charity would then face another burden if it was sanctioned. There have been examples, referred to in the written evidence, of charities that inadvertently crossed the threshold and did not report that appropriately, and then faced fines. That is fair enough, if that is the regime, but it is another cost. That is money that people have given to those charities. It might be taxpayers’ money, received through gift aid, that has to be spent on fines, compliance and regulation, deterring the charity from political participation and delivery of frontline services, when it already exists in a rightly strong and tightly regulated environment.
The Government should accept the amendments. If they genuinely believe in levelling up, surely they want to hear from organisations that have frontline experience of the difficulties and challenges being faced by ordinary people day to day, and that are identifying solutions that will help to raise standards in society and level up. In fact, we are seeing a levelling down, suppression of debate, sticking with the status quo, and a message not to challenge anything coming from the Government who happen to be in power now.
We have learned in this Committee and in others that the chances of an amendment succeeding are middling to none. Nevertheless, I look forward to the Minister’s response to my points.
Brendan O’Hara
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right, though I admire his endless optimism that the chances are middling to none. He is far more optimistic than me that the Government will ever move an inch. That does not mean that the arguments cannot be made. Indeed, there is every reason for the arguments to be made.
At general elections, every single one of us has been made to think, question and commit one way or another to an idea coming from a third party or campaigning organisation. That is exactly how it should be in a democracy. When we put ourselves forward for election, people have a right to know where we stand on the big issues of the day—whether that is homelessness, third-world debt or support for those suffering domestic violence—and where better to do that, for a charity or third party organisation, than a general election? People are not asking us just as individuals; they are asking all those who put themselves forward for election in this country where they stand, because our public have an absolute right to know that.
The real question is about the motivation of the Government in introducing the measure in the first place. Campaigning is a core function of many organisations. It allows them to highlight areas of concern and contribute to the wider public discourse, from a position of authority and experience, from which every one of us benefits. We have all heard from numerous third party organisations of their concerns, but these measures will make an already complicated area even more confusing and burdensome for those issue-based campaigning organisations. They face new rules that may see them inadvertently fall foul of legislation and, as a result, step a long way back from their activity. They will shrink back from that public debate, which can only harm our democracy. That will dampen public debate, and the voice of those marginalised groups they represent will be further diminished.
Organisations will quite rightly engage in campaigning 12 months prior to a general election, but the vast majority of that campaigning will not be focused on that general election. Those organisations campaign every day of the year, every year of a decade. That is what they are there to do; they are there to inform and to advocate.
What is really troubling here is the purpose test and whether it can be passed. It is confusing. The legislation says that the purpose test can be passed if it
“can reasonably be regarded as intended to influence voters to vote for or against political parties or categories of candidates, including political parties or categories of candidates who support or do not support particular policies”.
That is all well and good, but the confusion arises because that is not the intention of the charity of a third sector organisation. The interpretation comes from someone else, and it is their perception of what counts as political campaigning. Even if the charity is clear that that is not its intention, it could be decreed by someone else that it is. The result is that the charities will shrink from those areas of concern—homelessness, domestic abuse—for fear of falling foul of the legislation. Many of us on this side of the Committee think that that was probably the Government’s intention from the start.
Kemi Badenoch
Amendments 76 and 90 would exempt from the transparency requirements provided by the lower tier of expenditure registered charities, charities exempt from registering with the Charities Commission, and community interest companies spending more than £10,000 across the UK but less than the existing notification thresholds. Amendment 77 would allow those groups to forgo the usual notification process for the lower tier and instead provide only their charity or company number.
The Government are clear that any group spending significant amounts in UK elections should be subject to scrutiny. That is essential to ensure transparency for voters and to maintain the level playing field for all participants in elections. It is therefore right that all types of third party campaigner should be subject to the same sets of rules where they are trying to influence the electorate. The amendments would undermine those principles, and the Government cannot accept them.
Additionally, third party campaigner regulations do, and should, focus on the purpose of campaigning activities conducted by all organisations, not just specific types of organisation. Charities and CICs can always choose to spend less than £10,000 in the period before an election if they do not want to register with the Electoral Commission.
Patrick Grady
Given the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, how will charities know when it is 12 months before a general election?
Kemi Badenoch
I will come to that point in a moment. Charities can choose to spend less than £10,000 in the period before an election. The clause is drafted so as to increase transparency by requiring third party campaigners to register at a lower level of spend than is currently the case, while also ensuring that the regulatory requirements on such third party campaigners is proportionate to their campaign spend.
Digital technology has significantly reduced the cost of campaigning, and it is important that the lower tier of expenditure reflects that reality. Those third parties subject to the lower-tier expenditure limits will be subject only to minimal registration requirements and will not be subject to reporting or donations controls. That increased transparency is intended to reassure the electorate and to continue to uphold transparency as a key principle of UK elections. No group should be exempt from that. In fact, having third party spending limits is essential to prevent the influence of American style “super political action committee” pressure groups in UK elections.
The notification requirement for third party campaigners involves the provision of important information, which the Electoral Commission uses to ensure that campaigners are eligible and to provide information about those campaigners to the public. While amendment 77 would still require third party campaigners to notify the Electoral Commission, it would allow them to provide only their registration numbers with the Charity Commission or Companies House, instead of providing the usual information, which would undermine the intended transparency.
Let me address some of the questions raised by Opposition Members before I continue on clause 24. I am not clear about what the hon. Member for Putney was referring to when she talked about the impact on the lobbying Act; if I am not answering her question here, I am happy to write to her with more information. The report on the 2014 lobbying Act from Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts said that as one of the fundamental purposes of electoral law
“is to maintain public trust and confidence in the integrity of the electoral system, it must be right that any regulation should apply to all such participants, regardless of their size or status.”
That shows that, even as the lobbying Act was being created and reported on, those considerations were taken into account.
Brendan O’Hara
I ask the Minister a very, very simple question. How will a charity or any other organisation—
Brendan O’Hara
Indeed, or a Back-Bench MP—how will they know when they are in that 12-month period before a general election?
Kemi Badenoch
The fact is that we all have a fairly good idea of when an election will be. Although snap elections can be called, the fact is that everybody will be in the same situation.
Kemi Badenoch
I am not giving way again on that point. Third party campaigning groups will not have any special intelligence. People will need to take that into account when they are campaigning politically. People seeking to influence the electorate should all be subject to the same laws.
The debate is not about whether charities are nice groups or nice individuals, which is 50% of the argument made by SNP Members. To be perfectly honest, it sounds like Opposition Members want charities to make their political arguments for them, because they think they are more acceptable.
Kemi Badenoch
I am no longer giving way on that point.
That is not how we want to regulate our politics or our electorate. Charities should make points on their own—not in the way that SNP Members are saying, as if there are other political reasons that would be helpful to them, rather than the Government. They accuse us of playing politics, but it sounds to me as though they are the ones doing that.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
In 2017, the Prime Minister called a snap general election. What would the Minister say to charities who find themselves in a similar situation after the Bill is passed?
Kemi Badenoch
I would say that all third party campaigning organisations need to be mindful of their spending. I believe that snap elections are a rarity, given what happened in 2017. They do not happen very often.
Kemi Badenoch
Yes, but the fact is they are not very common. Every single one of us in this room is in the same situation. I was elected in 2017. I did not know that a snap election was going to be called. I am afraid that what Opposition Members are asking for is the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which is not within the scope of what we are discussing. Debates on the clause are not the place to discuss certainty around election time, if that is what Opposition Members want. The clause is about regulating political finance transparency.
The fundamental point made by Opposition Members is that clause 24 creates an undue administrative burden for charities and community interest companies, but it does not do that. They can easily supply the relevant information.
Kemi Badenoch
The hon. Lady knows that I cannot answer any questions about when elections are forthcoming. That does not change the premise of our argument. I do not know; she does not know; charities do not know; no third party campaigners know. The law is equal for everybody. I am afraid we simply do not accept the argument that there should be special rules and exemptions for particular groups.
Charities can supply the relevant information, and the amendment would increase the administrative burden for the Electoral Commission—a point it has made several times—and not allow it to obtain all the necessary information covered in the notification requirements. Under the amendment, charities and community interest companies would not have to provide the name of a responsible person. That information cannot be obtained through Companies House or the Charity Commission because it is specific to electoral law.
It is important to identify a person who will be responsible for ensuring compliance with electoral law. Naming a responsible person also acts to protect third parties from being liable for expenditure that has not been authorised by that person. Allowing charities and community interest companies to be exempt from that requirement would risk their duty of compliance and protection falling away, which would not be right. In the light of the reasons I have given, and the minimal burden on charities that the measures will generate, we oppose the amendment.
Brendan O’Hara
I have a question for the Minister, which I think is a perfectly reasonable and fair question to ask on behalf of charities. How do they know right now that they are not 12 months out from a general election? How do they know where their spending is in relation to the next general election, and that they have not already exceeded the threshold? The question is whether she thinks it is fair for charities inadvertently to fall foul of the legislation, with their having absolutely no way of knowing where they stand because the Government have changed the rules around about them. Will she address the basic issue of fairness to our charities?
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Kemi Badenoch
Third party campaigners must currently register with the Electoral Commission before they spend £20,000 in England and £10,000 in any of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland for controlled spending during a regulated period before an election. Groups that spend below those thresholds could be spending substantial amounts of money on campaigns, but they are not regulated. Clause 24 addresses that issue, and introduces registration for third party campaigners at a lower level of spend than is currently the case.
Third parties spending in excess of £10,000 on controlled expenditure during a regulated period across or in any constituent part of the UK, but below the existing per-country thresholds for registration, will be required to register with the Electoral Commission. That will not replace the existing registration thresholds, which will stay in place. Therefore, if a third party campaigner spends more than £20,000 in England or £10,000 in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, they will still be required to notify the commission as they currently do. That will be for all groups, as we said in the debate on the amendments. No exceptions will be made for any special category of campaigner; they will all be subject to the same rules.
In addition, all the measures apply only to qualifying expenditure that can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success at any relevant election. I want to be clear that they do not apply to wider non-electoral campaigning that groups may undertake.
As I mentioned, third parties registered in the lower tier will be subject to minimal regulation upon registration—for example, ensuring that they are UK based or otherwise eligible to register with the Electoral Commission. Again, such entities will not be subject to some of the other political finance controls in legislation around reporting on donations and controlled expenditure, nor will they be subject to the internal reporting and recording requirements.
We must recognise that digital campaigning has significantly altered the campaigning landscape by making it easier to spend less on campaigns and to spend more widely across the whole UK. Introducing registration at a lower level of spend reflects that reality and will help to increase transparency for the public with regulation proportional to the level of spend.
Patrick Grady
The Minister said in her previous speech that the measure was partly intended to avoid a situation arising comparable to the US super-PACs that spend millions of dollars with very little regulation. It is impossible under current UK electoral law for a situation anything like that to arise in this country. The notion that small local charities that want to lobby their local candidates to stop the closure of a swimming pool, a school or a library are somehow comparable to the dark money seen in other parts of the world, which has been reported as potentially having an increasing impact in this part of the world, is completely extreme.
It is not impossible that there will be a general election in February 2022, because as the Minister has admitted, the Prime Minister will have that option when the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 is finally repealed. As soon as that happens, the next election campaign will effectively start, which is delightful for all of us because of the rare snap elections that we have experienced twice in the last three years.
Under the terms of the clause, if an election came that early it might be the case that some organisations would have already reached the threshold without knowing it, not least because they are in the process of holding us to account for pledges that we made in 2019 that they have not had much opportunity to lobby on. Organisations that are organising a big lobby day—there are several coming up—that involve a lot of logistics such as the hire of the hall and the transportation of people, and that are related to pledges that Members may have made at a general election and therefore could reach the threshold, may find that they are already in breach without knowing it.
It is an awkward clause that relates to the overall package of reform that the Government are bringing in through the Bills that we have mentioned throughout the progress of this Bill, including the repeal of the 2011 Act, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and the other aspects of electoral and political law that are being amended. The Minister is falling back on the idea that it affects everyone, but that does not really answer that point. In a sense, it does affect all of us and we may already be in the run-up to a general election campaign but we just do not know because of the power grab that is being exercised by the Conservative Government, of which this clause is another example.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 24 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
Joint campaigning by registered parties and third parties
Fleur Anderson
I beg to move amendment 74, in clause 25, page 36, line 19, at end insert—
‘(2A) In section 85(2) of PPERA, after “incurred”, insert “(in the case of a parliamentary election only after the date of the election has been set or fixed)”.’
This amendment would limit regulated periods for UK Parliamentary General Elections to the period between the announcement of the election and the close of polls.
Clause 25 is about joint campaigning by registered parties and third parties and sets up the necessary amendment to have joint plans registered by those registered parties and joint parties when they are campaigning together. It clearly focuses mainly on suppressing the unions’ ability to campaign with parties. The Opposition oppose clause 25 in its entirety, as I will come to later.
On amendment 74, we have just been talking about deadlines and dates and how, if there is confusion about who can campaign, there is confusion about what has to be registered financially and who that has to be registered with. Then there is a lot of red tape. On top of that, there is confusion about the dates and the period that we are in: is it an election time or not? That will all, jointly, have a huge suppression effect on campaigning, which is the lifeblood of our elections and our free and democratic society.
Kemi Badenoch
Third party campaigners are subject to limits on their controlled expenditure in the periods leading up to parliamentary elections in the UK, including devolved elections. The time during which those spending limits apply are known as regulated periods and are 12 months long for UK parliamentary elections and four months long for the relevant parliamentary elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Regulated periods can be longer where they overlap. It is right that any campaign that could influence the electorate at an election should be regulated and subject to a spending limit. While significant amounts of spending might take place following the announcement of a poll, elections are often known, rumoured or expected to take place long before the poll date is announced and a Parliament is dissolved, which is the point that we are debating.
Brendan O’Hara
Can the Minister explain how the House can legislate on the basis of a rumour of when a general election might be? How is that any way to run a country?
Kemi Badenoch
That is not what we are legislating on; that is a statement of fact. Just as with every intervention the hon. Gentleman has made, it is a point we all acknowledge that while elections are at expected times, they can happen at different times: earlier or there may be snap elections, though rare. That does not change the fundamental point under discussion.
Opposition Members seem to be annoyed that there is a regulated spending period at all. I am afraid that that is not going to change. Campaigning and political activity, which can occur up to 12 months or more in advance of an election, may have a significant influence on its outcome. Having a short regulated period, as proposed by the amendment, would mean that spending, which does influence the electorate, is likely to fall away from being regulated and reported. That fatally undermines the principle of transparency and spending limits.
Cat Smith
On the point about transparency, does the Minister not recognise that the Government are not being transparent with charities or third party campaigners? How are they ever meant to know when the regulated spend period is kicking in when we do not have scheduled, regular general elections for the UK Parliament because of legislation we already passed a couple of months ago? Does the Minister agree that we are asking charities, which are blindfolded, to make decisions with no idea when an election will take place? The amendment is the only way we can treat all third party campaigners fairly and give them any sense of transparency. Can the Minister see that the Government are a little inconsistent on the point about transparency?
Kemi Badenoch
I do not think so at all. In the previous clause, we made the situation equal for everybody. The Opposition are talking as if there is a secret conspiracy where everybody knows, other than them, when an election is going to be called. We are applying the law equally to everybody. That is right and I am happy to continue making the argument.
Kemi Badenoch
I have already given way multiple times and we need to proceed. There are other more important reasons why the amendment simply cannot pass.
Under the terms of the amendment, third party campaigners would be able to incur spending beyond their current limit, prior to the poll being officially set, and still be able to influence the electorate. That would give a potential advantage to those with access to greater funds, and thus also undermine the fundamental democratic principle that there should be a level playing field for all those taking part in elections. That would apply to all third party campaigners, whether on the Government’s side or the Opposition’s. That is the fairness about which the hon. Lady is talking. In addition, donations of third party campaigners are regulated only where they are used for controlled expenditure during a regulated period. That ensures that donations that are spent to influence the electorate in the period before an election come from permissible sources and are fully transparent. This is a regulated period amendment and we are not talking about charities.
A shorter regulated period would allow third party campaigners to accept and spend donations from potentially impermissible sources in the run-up to an election, and do so without being subject to transparency controls, as long as those donations were spent before the regulated period began. That risks unchecked money being used to influence the outcome of an election.
Kemi Badenoch
I have answered that question already.
The amendment, as drafted, does not achieve the aims set out in the accompanying explanatory memorandum. Although the memorandum suggests that the amendment would limit
“regulated periods for UK Parliamentary General Elections to the period between the announcement of the election and the close of polls”,
that is not correct. It makes changes to section 85 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which provides a definition for what constitutes controlled expenditure, namely spending incurred by third party campaigners at relevant elections, not just UK parliamentary elections, which can be regulated. The amendment does not amend the length of the regulated period, but rather creates an additional time period over which controlled expenditure is regulated. That would cause confusion to third parties as to which time applies.
The amendment would also create disparity between the rules for third party campaigners and the controls on political parties, which would still have a twelve-month regulated period, known as the relevant period. The proposed change would therefore also have the effect of making regulated periods for UK parliamentary elections significantly shorter than those for the devolved Parliaments, whose regulated periods would remain at four months. The amendment therefore should not stand because it would undermine the principles of controls and transparency that are placed on election funding and spending, and it would create confusion and disparity.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Kemi Badenoch
As I have already set out, spending limits are an integral part of the political finance framework. They ensure a level of fairness between parties and campaigners. Controls are already in place on the integrity of spending limits—for example, in the case of targeted spending where a cap is placed on third party spending to promote one political party, and joint campaigning, which applies where third party campaigners work together and must all report costs. It is right that where groups work together on a campaign the spending should be accounted for by anyone involved in it, otherwise groups could unfairly attempt to make use of multiple spending limits. Therefore, we are extending the principle of joint campaigning to cover scenarios where political parties and third party campaigners are actively working together on a campaign. That is very different from targeted spending, where a third party targets a political party with their spending, but they do not actually work together on a campaign. It will simply mean that where a political party and third party campaigner are incurring spending and actively campaigning together, the relevant spending for that joint campaign should be accounted for by all groups involved in the spending. That will help to ensure that campaigners are playing by the rules and make it much easier to know who was involved in such campaigns. Of course, it will not stop groups spending separately outside the joint plan in their capacity as an individually recognised third party or political party. Any regulated spending that is undertaken by an individual group and is not part of a joint campaign will need to be reported only by the group incurring the spend.
Furthermore, to create parity with the current rules on joint campaigning between third party campaigners, the requirement to specifically identify relevant spending and spending returns will also be applied to the existing rules on joint campaigning between more than one third party campaigner. It is absolutely right that the rules on transparency of joint campaigning should be as similar as possible across all types of campaigners, to ensure fairness and support compliance. Therefore, I urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Fleur Anderson
We oppose part 4 in its entirety. The Minister makes it sound very easy. Parties campaign together and write a joint plan. If they have been a part of it, they declare all the expenses. In practice, that involves a huge amount of red tape and burden, and it is absolutely disproportionate to the effect that the Government are trying to achieve with the Bill—transparency, integrity and freeing up our elections so that everyone can take part and we all know what is happening. There should absolutely be transparency, but there should not be an overly bureaucratic system that will actually suppress freedom of speech.
The clause is a deliberate attempt to silence the trade unions in particular, which is what I will focus on. It is all about the Conservatives rigging democracy in their favour, because they know full well that the clause will silence Labour-affiliated trade unions. It is totally out of step with what we see globally. Only four of the 57 member states of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe—the UK, the Czech Republic, Ireland and Slovakia—require third parties to register campaigning activity at election time. Clause 25 would change the joint campaign rules so that organisations campaigning jointly with political parties are collectively liable for the total campaign expenditure of all organisations. No matter what small part or supporting role an organisation might play, it has to declare the full total amount, which will take up all of its campaigning allowance. That will include the political party.
The 2021 report “Regulating Election Finance” by the Committee on Standards in Public Life says:
“When considering calls for greater regulation of non-party campaigning it is important to be mindful of the role of non-party campaigning in the broader ecosystem of democracy and pre-election debate. As the Committee made clear when it first concluded that spending limits for non-party campaigners would be necessary, there is nothing wrong with individuals and organisations sending out explicitly political messages in advance of and during election campaign—‘On the contrary, a free society demands that they should be able to do so, indeed that they should be encouraged to do so.’ The right to campaign is also protected by law through the right to freedom of expression. This should act as a check on ensuring that regulation strikes the right balance.”
We contest that the Bill does not strike the right balance. Who can think of a political party that has strong historical links with external organisations working together—maybe around election time, and maybe for workers’ rights across the whole country—and traditionally campaigning together as a movement for change? That’s right: it is the trade unions. I hope that the Minister has talked to the trade unions about the Bill and understood the impact that it will have on trade union activity in all our constituencies, as well as across the country.
Patrick Grady
I want to speak briefly in solidarity with my Labour comrades. I was reminded during the hon. Lady’s speech of the quote, often attributed to Margaret Mead, that is a favourite of many third sector organisations:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Policy change cannot be effected without building a coalition. We cannot change direction and implement new legislation without bringing several diverse and disparate groups together to support that cause. That is why we have left the European Union: that was done reasonably successfully. We can ask about where some of that money came from, because we know where trade union money comes from; it comes from the members, by and large, and if people do not want their trade union membership fee to fund the Labour party—I have first-hand experience of this—they can opt out. Thatcher introduced that quite some time ago.
Historically, the Labour movement has that relationship with the trade unions, but there are unions or branches in Scotland that support either individual SNP candidates—the cause of independence—or at the very least Scotland’s right to choose. Perhaps the Labour party would be in a slightly better position if it aligned itself with those enlightened trade unions.
The point made by the hon. Member for Putney, about the effect that the clause will have in restricting the ability of organisations to unite behind a common cause, is very concerning. How else will change be achieved? As I said earlier, the whole thing seems to be about putting up a block now—“We have reached some sort of status quo, and that should be the end of it.” That is always the Conservative attitude—that Conservative government is, essentially, the end of history, that perfection has been achieved with their election and that nothing should change. It is not so much levelling up as levelling over—just pouring concrete on everything that might have gone before or anything that might pose a challenge to them, to try to stop it there. Labour Committee members are right to highlight the dangers of the clause, and we will be very happy to vote with them should they press the clause to a Division.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider that schedule 8 be the Eighth schedule to the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 26 creates a new disqualification order for offenders who intimidate those who contribute to our public life. Political intimidation and abuse have no place in our society; they risk reducing political participation and corroding our democracy. To tackle the problem, the Committee on Standards in Public Life suggested that it would be appropriate to have specific electoral sanctions that reflect the threat posed by the intimidation of candidates and their supporters.
Based on the protecting the debate consultation, the Government committed to applying electoral sanctions to existing offences of intimidatory behaviour. That is precisely what the new disqualification order achieves. It is a five-year ban on standing for, holding, and being elected to public office. It can be imposed on those convicted of intimidating a candidate, elected office holder or campaigner. After all, it is simply not right that those who try to damage political participation through intimidation are allowed to participate in the very same process that they tried to undermine.
The disqualification order can be applied to a wide range of intimidatory criminal offences such as, but not limited to, stalking, harassment, common assault and threats to kill. For the disqualification order to be imposed, the intimidatory offence must be aggravated by hostility related to, for example, a candidate. That ensures that the disqualification is imposed only in instances where political participation is genuinely at risk.
The court that determines conviction for the intimidatory offence will also impose the disqualification order. Where the court is satisfied that the offence is aggravated by hostility, then it must impose the disqualification order, except where the court considers that there are particular circumstances that would make it unjust to do so. This sentencing model strikes the right balance between ensuring a sufficient deterrent against political intimidation, while maintaining the crucial role of the judiciary in determining the most appropriate penalty commensurate with the seriousness of the individual offence and in light of the specific circumstances of the offender.
The clause also gives effect to schedule 8, which lists the offences that, when committed by an offender with the necessary hostility, can trigger the imposition of a five-year disqualification order. There is no single offence of intimidation in criminal law, so the schedule lists a wide range of offences of an intimidatory nature in respect of which the new disqualification order can be imposed.
The list is based on a core list of offences suggested by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, such as common assault, harassment, stalking or sending communications with intent to cause distress and anxiety. Following public consultation, and engagement with key stakeholders such as the Crown Prosecution Service and the Electoral Commission, we have broadened the list to include four intimidatory offences.
It is important to cast our net widely in selecting intimidatory offences for the schedule; that will help to avoid a situation where a person commits an offence against a candidate with the clear intention of intimidating them but, because the offence is not included in the schedule, the new disqualification order cannot apply. That is why the clause should stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
I have agreed that the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood can make her remarks while seated.
Cat Smith
Thank you, Mr Pritchard. I welcome not just clause 26, but the whole of part 5 of the legislation. As shadow democracy Minister, I have had the unfortunate pleasure of having to take part in many debates about intimidation of candidates; I am sure all Members will be aware of some of the accounts.
We know that many of our colleagues are intimidated, and many candidates of our party have experienced intimidation and threats. It is devastating that we should be debating this clause so soon after the murder of our colleague, Sir David Amess, who was on the Panel of Chairs and chaired many debates on issues like this. I must be honest: I did not expect when I stood for election in 2015 that I would lose two colleagues to murder in such a short space of time. An attack on an MP, and an attack on a candidate, is an attack on democracy. The Opposition therefore welcome part 5 of the Bill.
I am making remarks about clauses 26 to 34 so that I do not have to bother for future clauses. My only concern is that some of the legislation does not go far enough. Many of the people who might go on to intimidate candidates, agents or campaigners might not be put off by the idea of not being able to stand for elected office for five years, because many of the people who commit these crimes are not interested in participating in our democratic processes—they are, in fact, opposed to the democratic process in its entirety.
As the Minister finds her feet in this new role, I would be very happy to open a dialogue with her to explore ways in which there might be a consensus across the House to ensure that our democracy, which we all take part in and support, can be strengthened so that we do not see the acts of violence and intimidation that we have seen in recent years deter good people from entering public life.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 8 agreed to.
Clause 27
Vacation of office etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
While those in public life are often the targets of intimidation and abuse, I regret to say that they can also be the perpetrators of intimidation and abuse. For example, it is possible that an MP or a local authority mayor or councillor will be sanctioned by the new intimidation disqualification order. They will be treated no differently from anybody else and will be disqualified from holding elected office.
The clause sets out the process by which the office holder’s office is vacated; this is no more than three months after the officeholder receives the intimidation disqualification order. During the period prior to the office being vacated, the officeholder is suspended from performing the functions of their office. However, if the officeholder makes a successful appeal against their conviction or sentence before that three-month period ends, the office is not vacated and consequently they can resume their office.
The process strikes the correct balance between, on the one hand, the right of an offender to appeal and, on the other, the smooth vacation of office and a swift resolution. A swift resolution provides certainty for electors and ensures that there is an office holder in place who can discharge the responsibilities of that office. This is also consistent with the existing process for vacating office outlined in the Representation of the People Act 1983.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 28
Candidates etc
Kemi Badenoch
The new disqualification order will be applied only when intimidatory offences are motivated by hostility towards certain groups of people. This clause defines the first group that requires this additional protection from abuse and intimidation. Candidates at any election, including candidates named on lists, will be protected by the new disqualification order. Future candidates—people whose intention to stand as a candidate has been declared, but whose formal candidacy has not yet begun—are also included in this clause. Substitutes and nominees who are expected to fill vacancies in Northern Ireland will also be protected by the new disqualification order. Candidates, future candidates, substitutes and nominees all play a vital role in participating in our democracy and standing for election. That is why they deserve the additional protection from intimidation provided by the new disqualification order, and it is why I commend this clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 28 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Holders of relevant elective offices
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
Clause 29 builds on the previous clause and sets out another group of people whom the new disqualification order will protect: holders of elected office, such as—but not limited to—MPs, councillors and mayors. Given the high-profile nature of their roles, elected officeholders are sadly all too often the targets of intimidatory, threatening, or abusive words or behaviour. We cannot allow intimidation to force those public servants to stand down from their offices or not stand for re-election. Banning those convicted of an intimidatory offence from standing for election and potentially standing against the very same people they abused is an important step. That is why I commend this clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 30
Campaigners
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
The previous two clauses extended the protection of the new disqualification order to, broadly, candidates and elected officeholders. However, we must not stop there. Campaigners, from grassroots volunteers through to party employees, play a vital role in our democratic process, and the intimidation and abuse to which they are subject is abhorrent. Therefore, an intimidatory offence that is motivated by hostility towards campaigners can also trigger the new disqualification order.
Unlike candidates, there is no single definition of a campaigner. For the purpose of this clause, we have used a reasonably broad definition that includes individuals who are a recognised third party campaigner, an accredited campaigner for a recall petition or a permitted participant in a referendum, or who are involved in the management of a local referendum campaign. Individuals who are employed or engaged by the aforementioned people to carry out campaigning activities are also considered campaigners. This definition includes campaigners who undertake relevant campaigning activities at any time of year, not only during a specific election period, to reflect the fact that campaigning—particularly online campaigning—takes place outside of formal election periods. Unfortunately, intimidation and abuse also affects campaigners at any time of year, not only during election periods.
Anybody can potentially be a campaigner, including volunteers, and the disqualification order must protect campaigners from intimidation in the same way as it protects MPs. For that reason, I commend this clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 30 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Election etc of a person to the House of Commons who is subject to a disqualification order
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
The new disqualification order, which we have already debated, disqualifies offenders from being elected to various offices. This clause ensures that this disqualification applies to the House of Commons. It specifies that if an offender who is subject to an intimidation disqualification order is elected to the House of Commons, their election will be void. Other relevant elected offices already have provisions that state that an election will be void because of disqualification. The House of Commons has no such provision, and we therefore need to provide specifically for that possibility.
This clause is reasonably technical in nature, but it has an important role to play in ensuring that the new intimidation disqualification order works smoothly. I therefore commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 31 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 32
Power to amend Schedule 8
Patrick Grady
I beg to move amendment 92, in clause 32, page 44, line 12, leave out “may by” and insert
“must consult with such persons as the Minster considers appropriate before making”.
This amendment empowers the Secretary of State to consult broadly before making regulations under clause 32 to amend Schedule 8.
Patrick Grady
This relatively technical amendment is based on the written evidence and suggested amendments submitted by the Law Society of Scotland, which I am sure Committee members are familiar with and have read in detail. Schedule 8 provides the list of offences that disqualify offenders for elected office, including offences under the law in Scotland, which in a lot of these areas is determined by the devolved Scottish Parliament, so we think it is pretty simple and appropriate that the clause places a duty on Ministers to “consult with” relevant persons as appropriate before making statutory instruments.
A lot of themes that have come up in the course of our deliberations are about the need for enhanced scrutiny and consultation. Indeed, the Minister strongly defended the role of consultation—as opposed to seeking consent from the devolved Assemblies, which we are not asking for in this amendment—in a debate on a previous clause. I look forward to her saying that the amendment would be overly bureaucratic and delay the process and therefore is not necessary.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. If he already knows what I am going to say, and if we have had this debate multiple times, it raises the question of why he chose to table the amendment. Nevertheless, I will speak to the clause and his amendment.
The purpose of clause 32 is to future-proof the new disqualification order so that it remains relevant and can continue to apply to offences of an intimidatory nature. For example, the nature of electoral campaigning is evolving as online campaigning increases in significance, which unfortunately means that the nature of intimidation and abuse is also evolving and shifting online. It is possible that new online intimidatory offences will be created. For example, a Law Commission report in July recommended the creation of a more modern harm-based communications offence. If this proposed offence became law, we might want to make it possible for the intimidation disqualification order to be imposed in relation to that offence where the necessary hostility was established. That is why the clause enables Ministers to add, amend or remove offences from the list of intimidatory offences in schedule 8. Any statutory instrument made using this power would be subject to the affirmative procedure.
Amendment 92 would require the Secretary of State to undertake a consultation with such persons as he considers appropriate before making use of the regulation-making powers to amend the list of intimidatory offences in schedule 8. This is not necessary, as the hon. Gentleman knew I would say. The Secretary of State will be able to seek and consider the views of such persons as he considers appropriate when relevant without the need for a legal requirement to do so—this is the normal business of government. As previously stated, the clause already requires that any statutory instrument laid using these powers will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure. This will ensure that Parliament can scrutinise and decide whether to accept any proposed changes to schedule 8. The Government will therefore not accept the amendment, as we believe that it is unnecessary. To ensure that the new disqualification order evolves in the same way that intimidatory behaviour and criminal offences evolve, the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Patrick Grady
I do not think that was a massive surprise. The Minister is right to say that it is important that the legislation is future-proofed. The Scottish Parliament has a proud record—as indeed does the Senedd Cymru—of being in advance of this place sometimes in terms of the legislation it has brought forward and the kinds of behaviour it has gone on to deem a criminal offence; in fact, a recent piece of hate crime legislation might well contain examples to add to the disqualifying offences in the Bill.
In an attempt to strike a note of consensus, I will take in good faith the Minister’s commitment to monitor the development of legislation north and south of the border and that the consultations will happen. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 33
Interpretation of Part
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
The clause helps to interpret and clarify two terms that are used frequently in this part of the Bill. The first is “disqualification order”, which refers to the new five-year intimidation disqualification set out in clause 26. The second is “relevant elective office”. The list of offices determines the offices that an offender subject to the new disqualification order cannot stand for, be elected to or hold. It also determines the elected office holders who are protected by the new disqualification order.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 33 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 34
Minor and consequential amendments
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss that schedule 9 be the Ninth schedule to the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
The clause gives effect to schedule 9, which contains minor and consequential amendments resulting from part 5 of the Bill.
The new intimidation disqualification order must be enforceable. Offenders who are banned from standing for election must be prevented from doing so. It is already a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment, to provide false information on a candidate nomination form. All candidates must declare that they are not disqualified from being elected. That will be a sufficient deterrent for most offenders banned by the new disqualification order, but it is possible that some will try to stand for election regardless. That is why schedule 9 amends the rules for Northern Ireland, local and UK parliamentary elections. It provides returning officers with the power to hold a nomination paper invalid where a candidate is disqualified by virtue of the new intimidation disqualification order. Returning officers are only expected to hold nomination papers invalid where they are certain, based on information provided or otherwise available to the returning officer, that a candidate is disqualified.
Schedule 9 also makes minor changes to the process for vacating various elected offices and, by amending the Armed Forces Act 2006, allows the new disqualification order to be imposed by military courts on an offender who is subject to service law. Schedule 9 is important for the enforcement of the new disqualification order and for ensuring that the disqualification fits smoothly and consistently with all elected offices.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 34 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 9 agreed to.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Health and Care Bill (Sixteenth sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 10 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
On a point of order, Mrs Murray. I put on record through you my gratitude to the Committee, and particularly to the usual channels and the shadow Ministers, for facilitating the adjournment of the Committee last Thursday in order to allow me to attend the funeral of my friend James Brokenshire.
The Chair
Thank you, Minister. I am sure the Committee has taken note of your point of order.
Clause 106
Prohibition on disclosure of HSSIB material
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 86, in clause 106, page 92, line 26, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) In this Part ‘protected material’ means—
(a) all statements taken from persons by the HSSIB during a safety investigation or in the course of deciding whether an incident is going to be subject to an HSSIB investigation,
(b) records revealing the identity of persons who have given evidence in the context of the safety investigation,
(c) information that has been collected by the HSSIB which is of a particularly sensitive and personal nature, such as (but not limited to) copies taken by the HSSIB of health records, care records, clinical notes, or personnel records,
(d) material subsequently produced during the course of an HSSIB investigation such as (but not limited to) notes, drafts and opinions written by the investigators, or opinions expressed in the analysis of information obtained through the investigation,
(e) drafts of preliminary or final reports or interim reports, information that would be subject to legally enforceable commercial privileges.”
This amendment would define more closely the materials covered by the “safe space” protection provided for by the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 87, in clause 106, page 93, line 6, leave out
“information, document, equipment or other item held by that individual”
and insert “protected material”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 86.
Clause 106 stand part.
Amendment 91, in schedule 14, page 212, line 14, leave out paragraph 6.
This amendment would remove the provision allowing coroners to require the disclosure of protected material.
Amendment 136, in schedule 14, page 213, line 3, at end insert—
“Disclosure to families
6A The Chief Investigator may disclose findings to any patient involved in any incident which HSSIB is investigating, or the family of any such patient, on the condition of confidentiality and any other condition the Chief Investigator sees fit.”
This amendment would give the Chief Investigator the discretion to disclose information about an investigation to a patient/family involved if they deem this appropriate, on the condition that the information remains confidential.
That Schedule 14 be the Fourteenth schedule to the Bill.
Amendment 88, in clause 107, page 93, line 17, leave out from “Part” to the end of line 41.
This amendment would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to make regulations authorising disclosure of protected material beyond that provided for in the Bill.
Clause 107 stand part.
Amendment 89, in clause 108, page 94, line 15, leave out paragraph (c).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 88.
Clause 108 stand part.
Amendment 90, in clause 109, page 95, line 6, leave out subsection (7).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 91.
Clause 109 stand part.
Clause 117 stand part.
Dr Whitford
We are now discussing the health services safety investigation body, and I rise to speak to amendments 86, 91 and 88, which are the main substantial amendments, with amendments 87, 89 and 90 being consequential on those three. HSSIB will not apply in Scotland, but having been a surgeon for over three decades and having been involved in quality improvement and the Scottish patient safety programme, I will be watching it with interest. We want it to succeed, and I am sure the other nations in the UK will want to learn from it, so it is important that it is not simply drowned at birth and that we get it right at this stage.
HSSIB is based on the principles of the air accidents investigation branch, and we on the prelegislative Committee felt that the most central and important part was the safe space protected materials. The main priority is learning from incidents, mistakes and errors and looking at how to prevent them from happening in future; it is not about blaming individuals. That is because most incidents in the NHS are system-related, rather than individual-related. Errors and mistakes will happen, particularly when NHS staff face workforce shortages and are covering more patients than normal. The pandemic might mean that they are working outside their comfort zone. They also work long hours, and sometimes the system will cause a mistake. We should be designing a system that prevents a simple mistake or error from delivering harm to a patient. That is the critical aim, and that has been the focus of the Scottish patient safety programme, which was introduced in operating theatres in 2007, when I was still working as a surgeon.
That programme made the World Health Organisation checklist compulsory. It involved a discussion at the beginning of operation lists and time out with the whole theatre team before the operation started, so that patient safety and the responsibility to prevent wrong site surgery, which the shadow Minister raised previously, is made everyone’s responsibility. The whole team stops and is quiet, and everyone goes through that final check before the operation starts. A former Health Minister from this place visited Scotland but never made that checklist compulsory in England. I do not understand why not.
This issue is not in need of investigation by HSSIB, but it does demonstrate that it is necessary for someone learning from an incident to recognise and admit candidly that they have made a mistake. Such mistakes could include putting the wrong mark on a patient, putting the wrong side on the consent form, or putting the X-ray up the wrong way around. Whatever led to the error, we need people to be willing to completely admit to their mistakes, and to then create systems to prevent that mistake from resulting in harm to the patient. That is why the safe space is so critical—otherwise NHS staff, clinicians, and anyone else involved will not be candid—and it is why the prelegislative Committee felt it was important to be absolutely focused on protecting it. The aim is to design safety nets to protect the patient.
Amendment 86 seeks to change the orientation of the Bill. The Bill defines protected materials very widely and creates exceptions. It implies that other organisations cannot get on with their investigations because HSSIB is getting in the way. The amendment seeks to define protected safe space materials very narrowly. HSSIB would only hold copies of records. That means that the originals—the safe space testimony of witnesses or others —would still be held by the NHS. Patients and families could still give permission for their testimony to be disclosed, thereby avoiding the need to repeat it to another agency, but evidence could not be forcibly disclosed. Other bodies could not use HSSIB as a substitute and say, “Oh well, if you’ve investigated it, we won’t bother. We’ll simply copy what you’ve found.”
Amendment 88 to clause 107 would remove the potential for the Secretary of State to simply expand the disclosure exceptions later on. There is a big list in clause 107 of what could be changed. Schedule 14 lists the authorised reasons and persons who would access disclosure. Amendment 91 seeks to remove coroners from that list. If coroners are given access to testimony, other people do not understand why they should not be given access, too. We have probably all been lobbied about that by the ombudsman and the freedom of information bodies. If that happens—if more people access the safe space raw testimony—it will no longer be a safe space and the system will simply not match the achievements of the air accident investigation branch in getting such frank and candid evidence. People can be summoned and made to respond to factual questions, but will they discuss poor interpersonal relationships in a team, people not working together and all the things that could contribute to a bad atmosphere or system?
In the prelegislative Committee we felt that there were two key reasons for disclosure to go ahead regardless. The first obvious one is if there is an ongoing significant risk to patient or public safety, and the other is if there is a criminal prosecution because of someone’s actions or because they have breached the disclosure rules. The Bill states that access can be granted to safe space materials via the High Court. That is how it is for air accident investigations. It is felt that the High Court will weigh up the importance of admitting the disclosed materials versus the chilling effect that could have on future investigations and people giving evidence to them. It is important to keep the High Court provision in place and to trust it as the main route for other bodies or individuals seeking access to safe space testimony or records.
It is important to recognise that aviation is among the safest industries because of the safe space provided when investigating air accidents. It is not always a matter of investigating catastrophes; it is also about investigating near misses and working out why an accident did not happen. Was it by the grace of God, or did something kick in, and should processes and procedures be changed?
The amendments would strengthen the safe space, help ensure the willingness of NHS staff to come forward to give honest testimony, and protect that testimony so that it could be used to reduce any future harm to patients.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see with you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I will speak to amendment 136, as well as the other clauses and amendments in the group. I will not repeat the points made by the Scottish National party spokesperson, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, in her excellent introduction, but I will draw the Committee’s attention to a few salient points.
First, amendments 86 and 87 seek to create a new definition of protected material. We support the amendments because, as the SNP spokesperson said, it is important to turn this around and try to create as much certainty as possible by defining protected materials as far as possible. I suspect that the Minister will tell us that the amendments are unnecessary, but we certainly feel that it is better to over-prescribe now than to undercook the Bill and find out in two or three years’ time that some loophole ends up having the chilling effect that we have discussed several times.
I am aware of the counter-argument that there should be no restrictions or protected material if an individual is not capable of being identified, but that is a rather risky strategy. It would not remove the risk of people being able to identify someone simply by working out who was doing what at a particular time and what evidence they gave. It also does not help to build the confidence necessary to deliver the safe space that the Bill is trying to achieve. Certainty and clarity are needed wherever possible, and defining materials that are to be considered a safe space and protected will assist in that aim.
Turning to clauses 106 to 108 on disclosure, it is appropriate to make clear in clause 106 that the disclosure of protected material is prohibited, but we think that clear statement is rather undermined by the ability of the Secretary of State in clause 107 to make regulations to change that. As I have said, the parameters of safe space should be clear, consistent and constant. That is why amendment 86 in particular ought to be supported. The Secretary of State is once again giving himself more powers—a theme we have picked up throughout the Bill—and that is of concern.
Let us not forget that this Bill has been floating around in various guises for about five years, so we do not think it is acceptable or, indeed, necessary for the Secretary of State to reserve for himself greater ability to move the goalposts at some later date. If we do not know now what protected material and safe space are, we are never going to know. Amendment 88 commends itself on those grounds alone. Any ability for the Secretary of State to change the boundaries risks undermining trust and confidence. If those taking part in investigations do not have trust in the safe space provided, it is likely that they will not feel confident enough to be as candid as we would like them to be. If the Minister feels that exceptions are needed, they should be on the face of the Bill; they should not be slipped in by regulations at a later date.
The independent advisory panel of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has also offered a view and stated that staff would not speak up if there was a risk of exposure of identity, and any issues regarding the limits of disclosure are best dealt with by the High Court, not by the Secretary of State in further regulatory procedures.
A related concern on disclosure is that an HSSIB employer who reveals information showing that the organisation itself is failing to properly discharge its responsibilities would commit an offence if he or she knew or suspected that what they were disclosing was protected information. Given the work that they are likely to undertake, I think we can all see that that is likely to be the case. It would not be needed to show that the disclosure had caused, or was likely to cause, harm, and there would be no reasonable excuse defence and no protection under whistleblower legislation. Yet under clause 108(4) a reasonable excuse defence is available to third parties that disclose information to them provided by HSSIB. Will the Minister explain that discrepancy and what protections might be available to whistleblowers who work for HSSIB?
Turning to amendment 91, it is right that considerable concern has been raised about the proposal to allow coroners to access protected material, because it could mean individual coroners routinely requesting material from HSSIB investigations. I hope it is clear to members of the Committee the ramifications that could have on healthcare professionals’ willingness to be fully engaged and open with HSSIB investigations.
Another consideration—and another reason why we think this is a bad idea—is that there is variation in coronial practice around the country. There is a risk that one coroner or region could be more proactive than others, and could undermine confidence in the system as a whole. It is right that coroners have their own discretion and powers, but the chilling effect would be obvious should only one coroner make a stand on a particular issue.
There is also the question of cost. If HSSIB needs to challenge these decisions, which I am sure it will want to from time to time, it will have to spend considerable amounts on legal fees to do so. Surely its resources would be better spent on delivering its core objectives, rather than on trotting off to the High Court every five minutes to deal with inquisitive coroners.
The Joint Committee on the Draft Health Service Safety Investigations Bill concluded:
“We recommend that the draft Bill be amended to put beyond any possible doubt that the ‘safe space’ cannot be compromised save in the most exceptional circumstances, and therefore that the prohibition on disclosure applies equally to disclosure to coroners.”
That is why we believe that amendment 91 should be supported.
I also refer to the evidence submitted by the independent advisory panel of the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, which said of the proposal that there is in fact no parallel in the transport sector—from which the idea for this body was originally conceived—and nor is there any evidence from its experience of the transport sector that such an approach would be necessary. Obviously, we are dealing with different orders of investigations. Certainly, the number of people who would die in an air accident is very different from an incident in the NHS, and we would also expect there to be a significant number of patient safety issues that do not apply to the air sector. However, HSSIB has been going for a considerable time and it has not had any circumstances or incidents where it thinks this power would have made any difference.
HSSIB’s approach to protective disclosures does not limit the powers of coroners to conduct investigations in their own way—there is nothing in there that takes away from their current situation. The independent advisory panel also said that areas of prohibited disclosure should be highly specific and as limited as possible, and expressed the view that disputes regarding the prohibition of disclosure should be determined through an independent judicial process in the High Court, which is already provided for in the Bill.
Finally, I will say a few words on our amendment 136, which is a probing amendment. We want to raise the concern articulated to us that, although it is important that any evidence gathered by HSSIB remains protected, for the reasons we have been discussing, there may be occasions when it would be appropriate for some information to be shared with a patient, or the family of a patient, who has been involved in any qualifying incident. I certainly would not envisage such a power being used routinely. Indeed, the amendment places the discretion entirely in the hands of the chief investigator, who may decide not to use that power at all. However, there may be occasions when certain information, handled correctly—and at the very least on condition of confidentiality, and quite possibly with the consent of the individual or organisation that has provided the evidence—could be passed on to those with a direct interest in the matter, whose knowledge and understanding of what had gone wrong would be improved by the disclosure of the information.
That would still not be considered to be admissible evidence for any proceedings. Given the chief investigator’s desire to keep the concept of safe spaces as secure as possible—which should always be the primary consideration—we can see why that might be put at risk, but I want to flag up this as an issue. Patient groups have long-running concerns that the defensive culture that so often pervades the NHS when something goes wrong does little to aid the ability of patients and their families to get to the bottom of what went wrong. There are always concerns about medical negligence or professional competence proceedings, but rarely do families go into these situations looking for compensation. They are far more likely to want an explanation and an assurance that measures are being put in place so that nobody else will have to go through what they have. In any event, the proposed powers are not too dissimilar to those set out in paragraph 2 of schedule 14.
Dr Whitford
I want to echo that. I have been involved as an external for significant adverse event reviews, and it has always been my experience that what the family wants to find is that it will not happen again. I therefore feel that we have to trust HSSIB that the duty of candour will mean that there is discussion with the family as we go. That should be the culture across the NHS. The problem is that the more threatened clinicians feel by litigation, the more defensive they become. If the whole orientation can be changed to be about learning and preventing rather than blaming, we will probably get better relationships with families and better, open duty of candour discussions.
Justin Madders
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, which articulates well what we are trying to highlight. It is a question of culture, which legislation can go only so far in addressing. As a Parliament, we need to address what more we can do to engender greater openness in the NHS. When things go wrong, there are better ways of handling that than what happens at the moment. When we have an £8 billion a year clinical negligence bill, it is incumbent on us all to look at ways that we can reduce that as well as assisting patients and their families to gain a better understanding of what has gone wrong.
Edward Argar
It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire not just for her amendments but for the opportunity to debate the issue, which goes to the heart of the challenges we face. I think there is broad consensus on clauses up to clause 119, perhaps with a challenge or a tweak here and there, but the provisions that we are considering are the one bit, as I know from the hon. Lady’s work on pre-legislative scrutiny and when the Bill was previously considered, that remains challenging. It is a matter of striking the appropriate balance to ensure the proper functioning of judicial authorities at the same time as achieving the overall objective of what we are trying to do with HSSIB: foster that learning culture, understand what goes wrong and avoid a repetition of it. It ultimately comes down to a subjective view of where that balance is most appropriately struck.
Clauses 106, 107, 108, 109 and 117, and schedule 14, address how HSSIB will protect the material it holds and outline the concept of safe space. Before getting into the detail of the clauses, I want to acknowledge that there has of course been extremely good and well-informed debate outside the Committee about how broad or narrow safe space should be; whether it should be as defined in the Bill with exceptions, or, to use the suggestion of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, flipped around to be the converse of that; and the merits of HSSIB sharing or not sharing information with other organisations. I feel it is important to set out how we came to the balance we propose.
The hon. Lady mentioned a previous Minister who visited Scotland. I am very conscious that I have a kind, outstanding invitation to visit from her and I look forward to taking that up at some point soon, I hope. I also spoke to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who endorsed that invitation. I therefore look forward to being able to come not only to Edinburgh, but possibly to Ayrshire, and finding a way to shoehorn that into the visit.
Key to our vision for a new model for investigations is that they are conducted in a safe space so that patients, families, NHS staff and other participants in an investigation are encouraged to speak freely and candidly and have the confidence that the information they provide will be protected, save in the most exceptional circumstances.
The objective is to encourage that open flow of information and get to the bottom of what may have happened with the best possible information available. Without guarantees that that information will not be shared—again, save in very limited circumstances, which I will come on to—we risk, as the hon. Lady said, eroding the confidence of all those who candidly trust HSSIB with that information.
We propose that information, documents, equipment or other items held by the new body in connection with an investigation will be considered protected material and must not be shared, apart from in certain limited circumstances, such as when necessary to address a serious and continuing risk to the safety of a patient or to the public, and then only to the extent necessary to allow a person to address the risk.
It is also important that people have certainty that the information they provide will not be used for the purposes of blame or liability. The current investigation branch does a good job under the current legislative framework but can only operate a weakened form of safe space. In addition, it has no powers to impose sanctions. We need to address that and put the HSSIB on a par with similar investigation bodies in the transport sector, as colleagues have said. Non-compliance with safe space protections may result in criminal sanctions.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I have listened to the reasoning behind the amendments, and I feel that they are based on an acknowledgement that people in the health service have perhaps so far not found themselves willing to come forward and speak up when they see something wrong. The scope is much wider with this proposed body because evidence can be taken not just from people who work in the health service, but more widely. It is hugely important that we get to that place, because when we look at evidence taken on civil aviation and what happens in the civil aircraft space, we see that people always behave with the best interests of their sector, their workplace and the public at heart. People want to do the same with this Bill, so I am grateful that HSSIB has been set up. Can more consideration be given to how we ensure that people can speak up without feeling that they will blame another person or that they could be singled out for speaking out? That is exactly what we hope to address with the safe space.
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I should say that, even now, I am sure that many people in the health sector co-operate voluntarily, even when it is potentially challenging for them to do so. They do so because they want to foster that culture. This proposal will take that a step further forward and make it even easier for people to do so with confidence and to overcome any reticence that might exist because of, as she said, the fear of blame, the fear of opening up about something and the need to protect their sector and organisation, as they see it. She is absolutely right, and the key is to try to create a learning, rather than a blaming, culture. That is why the balance we strike in the definition of the safe space and exceptions to it is so important. We may or may not reach a consensus on where the balance should be struck, but this debate goes to the heart of the efficacy of the new body and how it will operate.
The Bill therefore sets out, on a statutory footing, a much stronger and more robust form of safe space. Clause 106 is the cornerstone of that. It is key to ensuring that all participants are completely candid with the information that they share, and it enables more thorough investigations and the development of meaningful recommendations. Investigations where protected material is held in the safe space should improve openness and co-operation between all participants and identify risks to the safety of patients, so that patients, families and the wider public can benefit from the experience of better investigations, and improvements can be made to the systems and practices in the provision of healthcare in England.
We believe that we have reached the right, balanced position after a lot of careful thought. In dealing with this legislation, my predecessors and I, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who is now Culture Secretary, wrestled a lot with the question of how to strike the right balance. I therefore turn to amendments 86 and 87. I am pleased that there is, I think, a consensus among all Members across the Committee that we need to protect materials, and about the value attached to protecting materials in the safe space, which is a key part of our approach to improving patient safety by allowing individuals to feel able to speak candidly.
Amendment 86 seeks to list in detail the types of material that will fall under the definition of protected material, while amendment 87, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire set out, is consequential on that. The definition given in clause 106(2) is intentionally broad. HSSIB will carry out a range of investigations, and it would be impossible to identify prospectively, in advance, all the material that will need to be gathered and should be protected by the safe space. By having a broad definition, we can give greater confidence to those who speak to HSSIB that all the material that it collects will be appropriately protected. There are very specific exceptions, which I will come on to.
As a future-proofing mechanism, the materials that are protected have not been listen in detail in the Bill. New technologies and ways of recording data are developing at a rapid pace. It is vital that HSSIB is able to adapt as these developments reach the frontline, rather than having to rely on returning to this House for further amendments to primary legislation. Listing the types of material in detail would have a number of practical implications. If we had a specified list, we could inadvertently leave out material that should be protected, when the vast majority of material the HSSIB will gather would be protected under the current definition. The Government endeavour to get everything right, but, as we all know, often do not.
Justin Madders
Does the Minister think that there is anything missing from the amendment that ought to be included?
Edward Argar
I will take the intervention from the hon. Lady, and I will address both together.
Dr Whitford
I want to point out that it is irrelevant whether records, statements or information, all of which are listed in amendment 86, are in a digital form or some different form in the future. We use the words “statements”, “information” and “records”, and the importance of having copies is that the originals will still be available to other investigatory bodies. I cannot see what the gap is. Whether we are talking about an audio recording or sheets of paper, the technology is irrelevant.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister and the SNP spokesperson, whose points are not dissimilar. I take the hon. Lady’s point that statements and information are recognised legal terms and would catch different mechanisms by which they are recorded. We still think it is prudent to allow not only for developments that we may not have anticipated, but for clarity. We believe that the blanket provision gives greater clarity and certainty without the assistance of the amendment, so we do not share the hon. Lady’s view. I suspect she may still wish to test the amendment with a Division to make the point, as she is entitled to do.
Moving on from these amendments, to illustrate the variety and breadth of debate on this subject—we have had a small taste of it this morning—I want to address the argument that keeping protected materials in the safe space would potentially undermine the role of other bodies, such as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. This illustrates part of the challenge. There are, understandably, calls from colleagues on the Committee to further restrict the exceptions to the safe space. As has been alluded to, others outwith this place argue for an expansion of the list of those exceptions. Some have argued that the PHSO should be on that list. With all due respect to those who advocate that, I do not agree. I do not think it would be appropriate to add the Ombudsman to the list of exceptions. The PHSO will still be able to fulfil its important independent role. It will have direct access to the same sources as it does now when it needs to investigate a complaint. The HSSIB will not in any way limit its ability to conduct an investigation.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I am a member of the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, which oversees the ombudsman. The Minister will be aware of correspondence between the Committee and the ombudsman. Could the Minister comment on the report from the Venice Commission about how far the United Kingdom will be outwith international consensus on this subject?
Edward Argar
I will do so now for the hon. Lady. I have great respect for the work of the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission around ombudsman services. The Venice Commission has looked at this, understandably, from the perspective of the ombudsman and uniformity of process. We have had to weigh that up—exactly as the Committee is doing in this debate—in balancing the impact of too many exceptions, or exceptions that are too wide, on the candour with which people can contribute their views to further the improvement of patient safety. There is no ideal line on this, hence this morning’s debate.
I respect the views that the Venice Commission has set out. I think it formally set out its conclusions a week or so ago, after a number of informal meetings among its members and with officials to gather evidence; I suspect it also took the views of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The Venice Commission looked at the matter, quite rightly, from the perspective of the ombudsman and the uniformity of the services it provides. We had to strike a slightly different balance, hence why we reached a different conclusion.
Justin Madders
I appreciate the work that has gone into ensuring greater consistency among coroners. The fact remains, however, that, as the Minister said, these are independent judicial positions, and coroners are entitled to make decisions as they see fit. I do not think that that concern has been adequately addressed yet.
Edward Argar
I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, because I suspect it is consequential on what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Dr Whitford
I would like to understand what coroners have now that they would lose by the protection of safe space. The provisions on granting disclosure apply to the High Court, not to all courts and not to all judicial positions. Why is the coroners’ court specifically being given the right to access, as opposed to applying for disclosure through the High Court? It will be the thin end of the wedge, and other groups will feel they ought to have a right to the same safe space. As clause 107 allows regulatory changes to be made later, this could continue to be eroded. I do not understand what part of what coroners do would be undermined by the introduction of HSSIB and the real safe space.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady and the hon. Gentleman, and I think the points they made are linked. The distinction we draw with other organisations and individuals is because of the key point that coroners are members of the judiciary. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that that gives them independence in the exercising of their functions, and I will turn in a minute to what the Chief Coroner is doing specifically with these clauses to seek achieve greater consistency.
Coroners are independent and that goes to the heart of their role, which is to determine the circumstances of a death. That is why we believe it is important that their independence, and their existing right to access papers and documents, is not in any way fettered by the legislation. I will try to make a little progress in explaining what we have done with the Chief Coroner, and that may assuage some of the hon. Lady’s fears. I fear it will not, but I will try.
As we know, coroners would not have wholesale access to the protected material. They would have access only when it was necessary for them to fulfil their judicial functions in a clear way—for example, in particular individual cases. We expect that the memorandum of understanding between HSSIB and the Chief Coroner, which will be in place, will set out how HSSIB and coroners will work together to minimise the occasions and the amount of material on those occasions that would need to be shared to meet the responsibilities of a coroner that are clearly set out in statute when investigating a particular death.
Although I hope I have provided a degree of reassurance, I fear that it may not be sufficient for the hon. Lady, who has studied the issue over many years in her work. Our aim is that, due to its sensitive nature, the information cannot be publicly disclosed or shared further without an order from the High Court, which is an important safeguard and something that we have considered carefully to balance the needs of coroners and HSSIB. We believe that we can trust our coroners as judicial office holders to behave appropriately.
Dr Whitford
If it is the case that it should be judicial officers, why is it only the High Court, and not other courts in the land that might have an interest in such a case?
Edward Argar
The role of the coroner is very specific, which is why we have singled out coroners, because their role is to investigate deaths. Hopefully, a large number of the investigations that HSSIB will be investigating will not be about deaths but, to use the hon. Lady’s analogy with air accident investigations, near misses or incidents that, thankfully, did not result in the death of the patient but may have resulted in injury or other concerns. In the vast majority of cases, therefore, I do not believe that coroners will be involved in HSSIB’s work, but they have a specific role in investigating and determining the circumstances and cause of a death. Therefore, we feel that their ability to access it in extremis is the right approach.
The hon. Lady talked about the High Court. For other circumstances, we think that that is the right bar, whether for the PHSO or others, because it is experienced in considering those very complex cases. I suspect, and I think there have been some cases in a similar vein, that the court will consider and debate them over many days because the balance is so delicate.
Because of coroners’ historical and defined-in-statute role, specifically around the investigation of deaths, we think that they are the single right exception in the judicial space. The hon. Lady may take a different view and I entirely respect that, as I respect pretty much all her views when it comes to health. We do not always agree on everything but, like the hon. Member for Bristol South, she knows of what she speaks even if sometimes we reach a different political conclusion.
As I have said, an order will be made only if the High Court is satisfied that the interests of justice served by allowing disclosure in those other cases outweigh the impact. As I touched on in my reply to the hon. Lady, I remind hon. Members that HSSIB will be looking at systemic learning rather than individual cases. As I said, thankfully, many instances do not involve deaths, and even if they do, they may not be ones that are scrutinised by a coroner save in a formalistic way. Therefore, we would not expect the power to be used frequently by coroners at all.
We have included the last limited exception because, as I say, we want to ensure that coroners have appropriate access to information to carry out their statutorily defined judicial functions while seeking to balance that with protecting the integrity of safe space by preventing onward disclosure, except by court order. As such, I hope that hon. Members, even if they do not necessarily agree, recognise the amount of thought that has gone into seeking to strike the appropriate balance.
Dr Whitford
I still do not understand from the Minister’s explanation what the coroner loses from where they are now. They can still investigate a death, exactly as now, and that was the argument for narrowing what is kept in safe space so that all the original materials are available to other bodies, including the coroner. The Bill adds something extra at the risk of undermining safe space.
Edward Argar
I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I do not believe this very narrow exception does or will undermine safe space. What it does is enable coroners to continue to do their job, and if there is information available out there, it enables them to access it from that source. My personal perspective is that we have struck the right balance: if the information is there, we should make it easier for coroners to do their job and access information that facilitates it. I have sat through coroners’ court hearings, and I have seen how families cope with them—it is not the easiest experience for them. If there is information out there that would make it easier for a coroner to reach a swift conclusion, and would give them the information that they need about circumstances and cause of death and so on—the other key part, which is not necessarily pertinent here, is the identification of the deceased individual—I believe it appropriate that we give them access to that information.
Justin Madders
I understand what the Minister is saying: we need the ability to make regulations to give us some flexibility. Equally, the definition of protected material is broad, to give Ministers and HSSIB flexibility as well. It seems that there is a bit of cakeism going on here.
Edward Argar
I think I know what the shadow Minister means by cakeism. I see his point, but I think the Bill strikes the right balance by building in a further degree of flexibility, but with the safeguard of the affirmative procedure. As he knows, because he has debated such things with me in the past, the affirmative procedure is not always a friend to Ministers in obliging them to come to this House and debate and explain everything. It is, however, an important democratic safeguard when regulation-making powers are inserted into primary legislation, and that is why we have adopted the affirmative procedure in this context. I hope that that gives him a degree of reassurance that the Secretary of State’s regulation-making power is simply a future-proofing mechanism, with sufficient parliamentary and democratic safeguards attached to it.
It is crucial, of course, that the integrity of investigations is protected and that we take a careful approach to how information is protected, so that there is public confidence in the work of HSSIB. That goes to the heart of what we are seeking to achieve with this part of the legislation. To ensure that confidence, the Bill provides for the creation of offences for unlawful disclosure. That is the backbone to the creation of statutory safe space. Clause 108 creates three offences of unlawful disclosure. The offences extend to HSSIB and connected individuals, individuals who are no longer connected with HSSIB, and persons who are not connected with HSSIB but receive certain protected material. It is important that we send a robust message that there will be consequences if protected information is disclosed unlawfully. It will be a criminal offence, and the person who commits an offence will be liable on summary conviction to a fine.
Clause 109 prevents a power in any other legislation from being used to require the disclosure of any protected material by HSSIB, or to seize protected material from HSSIB. That is, as we have debated, with the exception of certain parts of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which allows coroners to require disclosure in some circumstances due to provisions made in schedule 14 of the Bill. However, that provision respects the devolution settlement agreement and therefore does not apply to any provision that is within the legislative competence of the devolved Administrations. The clause will help to enhance HSSIB’s safe space protections by prohibiting the unauthorised disclosure of protected material. It is important to ensure that safe space cannot simply be breached by the use of a power elsewhere in another part of the statute book, and this provision makes that position entirely clear.
As we have debated, safe space encourages all participants to be completely candid with the information that they share with HSSIB, enabling more thorough investigations into what went wrong. That will also help more widely to protect the “learning, not blaming” culture that hon. Members have spoken about and that HSSIB is hoping to embed.
Mary Robinson
I am so pleased to see and hear this balanced argument, and the way that all the considerations have been taken into account. With regard to the penalties for disclosure of information, how does the Bill add to or improve the provisions in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998? Does it improve on those provisions, or sit alongside it? Does it protect workers who disclose that there is an issue, not only from penalties such as losing their job, but also from the fine for disclosures put out there deliberately?
Edward Argar
I know that my hon. Friend has done a lot of work in this space, possibly involving the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing. I know she is very concerned to make sure that, while these protections are in place, the legitimate rights of whistleblowers seeking to disclose information are not inhibited. This provision sits alongside the 1998 Act, but it is a difficult balance to strike, as she rightly suggests. I pay tribute to her work in helping to foster a culture in which people feel able to speak up and bring matters to the attention of the appropriate body to address wrongdoing.
Finally, clause 117 ensures that the disclosure of information, documentation or other items that are authorised by the provisions I have just discussed does not breach any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure or any other restriction. The clause also confirms that part 4 does not authorise any form of disclosure that would contravene data protection legislation, which is intended to ensure that where an individual is required or authorised to disclose material, they are protected from violating restrictions on disclosure. A disclosure to HSSIB in those prescribed circumstances therefore does not contravene any restrictions on disclosure, removing barriers that individuals may face in disclosing information to the current investigations branch and helping to instil trust in the new HSSIB investigatory process.
Safe space is an exciting and important development of recent years. What we are seeking to do today is a first for a health body in this country. The clauses are of great importance to the new HSSIB and the vision we have for it. The novelty of what we are seeking to do here, building on what happens in the transport space, and the challenges that that poses, are demonstrated in the debate we have had on what the right balance is. It is an incredibly difficult and, to a degree, subjective judgment for Members of this House and others to make. While I have set out where we believe it should sit, I entirely respect the perspective of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, who has a slightly different and entirely legitimate view. I commend the clauses to the Committee.
Dr Whitford
This is the nub of the entire debate on HSSIB. I welcome that the Minister is struggling with exactly how to achieve that balance. I think everyone on the Committee is trying to do their best to get a good outcome. The Minister talks about clarity, but then we hear about flexibility. It is important that we get this right in the Bill. I wish to press amendment 86 to a Division.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to debate that clauses 111 and 112 stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
The clauses address HSSIB’s relationships with other bodies, including with the devolved Administrations.
Clause 110 places a requirement on HSSIB and a number of listed bodies, including the Care Quality Commission, NHS England and the commissioner for patient safety, to co-operate with each other when they carry out investigations into the same or related incidents. The duty to co-operate relates to the practical arrangements for co-ordinating those investigations.
Clause 110 would not require the sharing of any protected material held under the safe space. It will also require HSSIB to publish guidance regarding when an incident may be considered related to another incident. That will ensure that there is the necessary clarity across all organisations as to when co-operation is required in often complex investigations. HSSIB will, of course, still be able to co-operate with bodies that are not listed in clause 110, and the current investigation branch has already established many strong relationships with bodies not covered in that list.
However, clause 110 is crucial if we are to ensure that there is a consistent and cohesive approach to investigations in the same area or related areas. It is important that we encourage organisations to co-operate in this way so as to ensure that multiple investigations touching on the same incident can be delivered in the most stream- lined way. For example, the clause would compel two organisations that wished to interview the same individual to co-ordinate. Similarly, if two organisations need to visit a clinical area, it is important that they co-operate to minimise the impact on the day-to-day running of that clinical area.
Clause 110 helps to ensure that information is accessed effectively and efficiently. It ensures that organisations can carry out the important but different roles that they have in an efficient manner and also minimises disruption to patients and to others involved.
Clause 111 places a requirement on HSSIB to comply with any request for assistance from a relevant NHS body. That assistance would be in connection to an investigation into any incident that may have occurred during the provision of NHS services or at premises at which NHS services are provided. NHS England or the Secretary of State may also request that HSSIB provides a relevant NHS body with assistance. Assistance can be provided to trusts, foundation trusts, NHS England and the newly formed integrated care boards. Such assistance may include advice, guidance and training for those organisations in connection with an investigation.
The purpose of HSSIB’s investigations is to identify risks to the safety of patients and to address those risks by facilitating the improvement of systems and practices in the provision of NHS services or other healthcare services in England. HSSIB is designed to encourage the spread of a culture of learning within the NHS, and clause 111 allows HSSIB to support others in undertaking investigations and to share knowledge gained from its own investigations. The clause will help HSSIB to promote better standards for local investigations and improve their quality and effectiveness. To this end, HSSIB will disseminate information about best practice and standards to be adopted.
Clause 111 will also enable HSSIB to provide assistance to bodies other than relevant NHS bodies if they request assistance in relation to any matter connected with the carrying out of investigations. That will help to encourage the spread of learning and enable HSSIB to share its expertise across the wider healthcare sector, both within the UK and abroad, if requested. It will be able to charge a fee for such activities. Of course, we would not expect HSSIB to provide such assistance should doing so significantly interfere with the exercise of any of its investigative functions, and protections are included in the clause to ensure this.
Finally, clause 112 enables HSSIB to enter into agreements to carry out certain investigations relating to Wales and Northern Ireland, a provision that the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive were keen to see included. Those investigations would identify risks to the safety of patients and help to facilitate improvement of systems and practices. Investigations would not assess blame or involve the determination of any civil or criminal liability. It is important that HSSIB has the opportunity to share its expertise and help facilitate greater learning and improvement outside England. The clause allows HSSIB to charge for such investigations in Wales and Northern Ireland but only to cover the costs incurred through the course of the investigation. Of course, we would not expect HSSIB to provide such assistance should it significantly interfere with the exercise of its core investigative functions and, again, protections are included in the clause to ensure that.
These clauses are crucial to ensure that HSSIB has strong working relationships with NHS bodies, as well as regulators and, where requested, the devolved Administrations. I therefore commend the clauses to the Committee.
Justin Madders
As we have heard, the clauses deal with the requirement to co-operate and I will not go over the ground that we have already trodden on in respect of degrees of co-operation and how that might make a material difference to ultimate success. We hope that the many organisations listed in clause 110 will respond not simply because of the legislation but because the no-blame culture to which this body aspires is just as relevant to them as it is to individuals.
Is the long list of organisations in clause 110(3) the totality of NHS bodies or bodies associated with the NHS, or with running NHS services? I think the Minister mentioned that there may be others that have been involved but that are not in this list. Has any of them been excluded from the list and, if so, why?
The power to levy charges on NHS bodies for assistance shows why our amendment requiring the creation of the post of chief finance officer would have been sensible. While there are sanctions for individuals who block investigations and there is a debate about where co-operation ends and obstruction starts, I am unclear whether there is a similar sanction that could be imposed on the bodies listed in clause 110. Has the Minister considered that? Is there a process whereby the buck will stop with a named individual in any of these organisations or is that dealt with later in the Bill?
Karin Smyth
My point concerns the practical implementation, given the examples where the organisations currently do not work together or share, and the issues about real accountability. I have a case that I have dealt with since 2016, which preceded me by some four years, involving an individual going through the complaints system. It resulted in the parliamentary ombudsman’s report wanting details to be shared between the trust, NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission. In August this year, the trust admitted that it had not provided any such details to NHS Improvement or the CQC. There seems to be no recourse in respect of that lack of communication and accountability between the existing organisations.
My concern on co-operation is about adding HSSIB to a system that does not work now in terms of ensuring that recommendations are shared and acted upon. The intent on co-operation in clause 110 is welcome, but what assurance can the Minister give that that wider culture of co-operation, delivery and implementation of recommendations will be improved by the addition of HSSIB? There is an opportunity for HSSIB to do that, but that would require all those other organisations, named and perhaps unnamed, to also look to their own house to make sure that in the interests of those patients the recommendations are acted upon.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I want to ask some questions about clause 112. I have practical questions that the Minister might answer today, or he might wish to write to me. I welcome the clause as a continuation and an improvement, hopefully, on current arrangements. Who might ask HSSIB to carry out an investigation in Wales? Would it be the individual health board or the Welsh Government? Has a mechanism been established yet? Secondly, how involved would the Welsh Government be in any investigation? Would the Senedd, for example, have access to information in an ongoing investigation?
Thirdly, in respect of challenging who would be responsible for paying, would it be the Welsh Government or the individual health board? Fourthly, the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has noted that the Bill could be strengthened by the Secretary of State giving a clear mandate for HSSIB to monitor the progress of the response to recommendations. Does the Minister envisage the Welsh Government having a role in monitoring progress, or would it be a matter for HSSIB or the health board?
On clause 107, which has already been debated, I have reservations about extending further exemptions. Would the Welsh Government be able to request or even authorise exemptions where HSSIB carries out investigations in Wales, or is it a matter specifically for the Secretary of State, although health is almost entirely devolved, of course? Finally, will the Minister outline what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government about these provisions? I appreciate that those are detailed questions and he might want to reply to me in writing.
Edward Argar
A number of questions were asked that I will seek to address. If I cannot answer the specific points raised, I will write to clarify them.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked about sanctions, and the hon. Member for Bristol South asked about a list of bodies and whether there are any not included—essentially, who was in and who was out. There are two, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have noticed, not included in the list of bodies: the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. I suspect that is the genesis of his asking the question. We recognise the strategically important role that both bodies play in patient safety. Not listing them does not mean that HSSIB cannot co-operate with them. Co-operation across different bodies is something that we encourage. In fact, we would expect HSSIB to develop memoranda of understanding with those organisations, but we focused on specific ones on the list where there is likely to be day-to-day co-operation, particularly with health trusts and others.
On sanctions, we focused on what HSSIB is doing and its being able to progress its investigations. Ultimately, as we have debated, it has the power to seize documents and require information. I very much hope that that will not be needed and that co-operation and memoranda of understanding will be an effective way of moving forward, as it appears to be at the moment, but we have those powers in the legislation, were they to be needed in extremis.
The hon. Member for Arfon mentioned several issues relating specifically to Wales and engagement with the Welsh Government. As I briefly alluded to in my speech, the inclusion of powers to allow the Welsh Government to request the involvement of HSSIB was done at the request of the Welsh Government. We have discussed the issue with them, and I think their request reflects their view that HSSIB involvement could add value in Wales.
The hon. Gentleman sought to understand how the arrangement would work in practice and asked a number of questions about what the fees would be, who would pay them and whether that would be the responsibility of a trust or the Welsh Government. We are still working through those practical matters with the Welsh Government, but we were keen to include the power while we had the opportunity, because the original request came from the Welsh Government. It is a similar case with the Northern Ireland Government. Scotland, to which the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire alluded, has its own well established approach, which works, and therefore a different option was taken in its respect.
Conversations with the Welsh Government have not progressed to the extent that I can give the hon. Member Arfon detailed answers to all his questions, but I will write to him if there is any more that I can add.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 110 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 111 and 112 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 113
Failure to exercise functions
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
The clauses relate to the oversight of HSSIB’s functions. Clause 113 enables the Secretary of State to direct HSSIB to exercise its functions within a specified time period and in such a manner as the direction prescribes. That direction-making power, on which I suspect the shadow Minister the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston will question me, will apply only in the event that the Secretary of State considers that HSSIB is failing or has failed to exercise any of its functions, and that that failure is significant. Directions must be in writing and will ensure that appropriate action can be taken by the Secretary of State in the event of any failure on the part of HSSIB to exercise its functions.
Independence as a concept is fundamentally important, and indeed at the heart of HSSIB, and will be a crucial way to ensure that patients, families and staff have trust in its processes and judgments. However, the clause serves to help to safeguard the trust placed in HSSIB by patients and families in the event of its significant failure to exercise its functions. We believe this is a sensible and proportionate provision, which ensures that HSSIB is performing its vital functions. To maintain the independence of the investigatory process, such directions made by the Secretary of State will not be able to influence the outcome of any HSSIB investigation.
We do not expect to use the power—in fact, I hope that we will never have to use it—but it is right that the Secretary of State has the power to act in the event of significant failure. That is consistent with similar existing powers available to the Secretary of State in relation to other non-departmental public bodies, including the Care Quality Commission. Should HSSIB fail to comply with such directions, the clause enables the Secretary of State to choose to make arrangements either to undertake the exercise of HSSIB’s functions themselves or for another body to undertake them. That will ensure that the important investigatory work is sustained and delivered at the appropriate high standard, should HSSIB have experienced significant failures in achieving that.
Clause 114 requires the Secretary of State to undertake a review of and prepare a report on the effectiveness of HSSIB in undertaking its investigation function. That report must be prepared, published and laid before Parliament within four years of clause 94 coming into force, which sets out its investigation function. Given the trust that patients, families and staff will place in HSSIB’s processes and investigations, it is vital that Government is transparent to the public and parliamentarians regarding the performance of the new body. That report will be key to ensuring such transparency and to helping to facilitate learning and improvements within HSSIB. I therefore commend the clauses to the Committee.
Justin Madders
As the Minister has anticipated, clause 113 troubles me somewhat. We have talked extensively about the importance of independence and the need for HSSIB to have the confidence of those with whom it interacts so that it is fully effective. Once again, in common with much else in the Bill, we see that the Secretary of State gets to hand himself extensive powers to interfere with HSSIB. Subsection (1) basically places judgment about the exercise of that power in the hands of the Secretary of State. It is his opinion that counts, and no attempt is required to evidence-proof a failing. HSSIB is apparently unable to challenge that judgment. Subsection (5) states that that failure only has to be a failure to exercise its functions properly. That is qualified a little by subsection (1)(b), which says that the failure has to be significant, but unfortunately that is what the Secretary of State considers significant, nobody else. With all that together, the Secretary of State has pretty much a blank cheque to step in and interfere any time he likes, so long as he considers that there has been a significant failure.
However, it gets worse. Subsection (2) allows the Secretary of State to direct HSSIB in whatever manner he determines, which I would have said is about as far away from independence as we can get—until I read subsection (4), which allows the Secretary of State to step into HSSIB’s shoes and do its job himself. I am sure he has other things in his diary at the moment, but the idea that he can come in and undertake the functions of what is meant to be an independent body is simply unacceptable. I can do no better than refer to the evidence that Keith Conradi gave to the Committee:
“Ultimately, we end up making recommendations to the Department of Health and Social Care, and in the future I would like to ensure that we have that complete freedom to be able to make recommendations wherever we think that they most fit.”––[Official Report, Health and Care Public Bill Committee, 7 September 2021; c. 60, Q78.]
The Secretary of State having the power to effectively step in and start running the body, either directly or indirectly, at a moment’s notice, will not help with that freedom. Why does that need to be in the Bill and hanging over the body the whole time?
There is a suggestion that the Health and Social Care Committee would be better placed to administer this function, or at the very least that the Secretary of State should require its agreement before exercising this function. I agree that that Committee might be better placed than one person to have oversight of HSSIB. Perhaps we should consider which group will be best placed to have oversight of HSSIB, to ensure that it is truly independent.
The Secretary of State is tasked with carrying out a review of HSSIB. I am pleased that any subsequent report would be laid before Parliament, but again it is the Secretary of State undertaking that review—his judgment alone. Clause 114 says that the report must be laid within four years of the Bill’s passage. Is there a particular reason why four years was chosen? I am sure the Minister anticipated that question, so I hope he will be able to answer. My reading of the clause is that a report is required after four years, and after that there is no further requirement. It seems rather remiss for there to be no ongoing commitment to review HSSIB.
On clause 113, there are concerns that the oversight of HSSIB will be carried out by the same person who appoints its members, can remove them at a whim, sets remuneration, directs investigations, sets the funding and consents to the criteria of processes. There appears to be a clear conflict of interest. While I accept that there is a role for the Secretary of State, it is not necessary for this role to be so far reaching and overbearing. HSSIB is meant to be an independent non-departmental public body, but the role given to the Secretary of State throughout the Bill suggests that that will not quite be the case. The Bill firmly situates its functions under the Health Secretary, which is far from the definition of a non-departmental public as separate body from the sponsoring Department. Non-departmental public bodies tend to be responsible to Parliament, rather than the Government. Placing scrutiny powers with Parliament and ensuring that a framework document is in place to inform the basis of performance monitoring, rather than placing all the power in the Secretary of State’s hands, would be the best way to achieve this.
I have to say that the fact that the Secretary of State can pretty much pick all the main players in HSSIB does not say much about his confidence in his own judgment about these decisions, if he needs these sweeping powers up his sleeve just in case. I suspect that he was not the person responsible for these appointments, but the point remains that there are still questions over whether this is needed. I know the Minister said that this power would hopefully not be used, but if that is the case, why does it need to be in the Bill?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his comments. I semi-predicted where I thought he might be going with his challenges, and I hope I can offer him reassurance.
First, at the heart of this is the fact that with an NDPB, an executive agency or any other public body, ultimately the Secretary of State is accountable, quite rightly, to this place for the operation of that—not for the operational decisions, but that it functions as an effective public body. Therefore, we never know, but I suspect that there may be a day—not necessarily in the immediate or near future—when the hon. Gentleman is sitting in my office or the Secretary of State’s office, and he would want, quite rightly, where there is a significant failure of an organisation, to be able to take action to address that. That is what the clause provides for.
Those powers would be used only in extremis, and only where
“HSSIB is failing or has failed to exercise any of its functions, and…the failure is significant.”
These are terms of which there is a legal understanding. It is not carte blanche for the Secretary of State, as I think the hon. Gentleman suggested in a debate on a previous clause, to get up one morning and say, “Do you know what I feel like doing? I feel like exercising these powers.” It is not possible to do it in that way. These are understood terms that set a very high bar for interventions.
Secondly, these powers are analogous to similar powers that the Secretary of State has over other NDPBs, or the CQC, as I said in my opening remarks, and other organisations in this space.
Justin Madders
I am not suggesting that anyone might wake up in the morning and decide on a whim to do this, but the fact of the matter is that, as the clause is drafted, if the Secretary of State was minded to do that, there is nothing that would stop them being able to do it, is there?
Edward Argar
I come back to the point that I have just made to the hon. Gentleman. Terms such as “the failure is significant” are understood terms, and of course public law principles would apply to decisions made by the Secretary of State, such as reasonableness and proportionality. I do think that this is both analogous to powers that the Secretary of State has over similar bodies and also proportionate.
Similarity, I do not believe that the clause questions or brings into question the independence of HSSIB. We recognise that that is fundamental to its success, and that is why it would be used only if the body
“is failing or has failed…and…the failure is significant.”
I come back to those understood terms, and that is a very high bar that would be subject to public law principles.
On the report that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, why is it four years—why not three, two or five? We think that four years is an appropriate and reasonable length of time for the new body to become established and to show what is working and what is not, so that we can see a meaningful report on how it has functioned over a number of years. As he said, the House would have the ability to debate that report, if it chose to do so. The report would be laid before the House and he could call a debate, if he was still in the same role at that point. Given that he has served in his Front-Bench role even longer than I have served in mine, I suspect that, much though he enjoys doing so, he may be hoping for a change by then.
The other point is that, just because this is the only report that is formally specified, it does not mean that there would not be the opportunity for other reports or reviews to be undertaken regularly. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we do that with other public bodies from time to time. It is right that Governments of whichever complexion review the NDPB landscape. We talked about ALBs earlier in our consideration of the Bill, and about the ability to move functions around depending on whether they are best exercised by the existing body or elsewhere, which reflects the same point.
I hope that gives the hon. Gentleman some reassurance that there is no desire on the part of the Secretary of State or me to add to our current workload, or indeed, should the day come, to add to the hon. Gentleman’s workload, were he to occupy this office—or indeed to that of the hon. Member for Nottingham North, whom I would not wish to exclude. The words used and the public law principles that apply would mean that the provisions would be commensurate with the powers over other bodies, and proportionate. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the following: Clause 116 stand part.
Clause 118 stand part.
That schedule 15 be the Fifteenth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 119 stand part.
Edward Argar
These clauses cover further detail regarding offences created in part 4 of the Bill and interpreting part 4 of the Bill more generally. Clause 115 specifies that when an offence created by part 4 is committed by a company, an officer of that company may also be liable for that offence. This would be the case where it could be proven that such an offence was committed with the consent or involvement of an officer of the company or that such an offence could be attributable to neglect by an officer of the company. Hence the officer and the company who commit the offence are both liable and can be punished accordingly. Company officers who are liable in such a way would include any person who would purport to act in that capacity, including any directors or managers in the company.
It is important that any offences set out in part 4 of the Bill are capable of being fully enforced, and this means ensuring that the right actors are held to account and are therefore also deterred from committing such offences in the first place. Ensuring that both an individual and an organisation can be held to account shows clearly the commitment to maintaining a high standard of investigation and information protection, and to protecting the principles of safe spaces more widely.
Clause 116 specifies that when an offence created by part 4 of the Bill is committed by a partnership, a partner may also be liable for that offence. This would be relevant in an instance where, for example, a GP partnership commits an offence. The clause allows proceedings to be brought in the name of the partnership as well as the individual partners. Similarly to clause 115, where an offence is committed by an partnership and it can be proven that such an offence was committed with the consent or involvement of a partner or could be attributable to neglect by a partner, the partner and the partnership that commit the offence are both liable and can be punished accordingly. The clause also provides that where a fine is imposed on the partnership, it must be paid out of partnership assets. However, should a fine be imposed on a partner, that fine would be paid by the partner as an individual.
The committing of offences set out in part 4 of the Bill would reduce trust in HSSIB’s investigatory processes, and therefore it is important that the right actors are held to account should such offences be committed. Ensuring that both the partnership and individual partners can be so held to account is important for the same reasons I have discussed in relation to company officers under clause 115. The corporate structure itself should not make any difference: we want to ensure that the investigatory process and the principles of safe space are always upheld and protected. Both clause 115 and 116 are common provisions in relation to offences. They ensure that the appropriate actors are covered, but also add a further deterrent effect that can help avoid offences being committed in the first place.
Clause 118 inserts schedule 15 into the Bill. Schedule 15 makes the relevant consequential amendments to other Acts of Parliament to ensure that HSSIB, as a new non-departmental public body, is referenced in relevant legislation. This includes relevant public body, health, employment and equalities legislation and means that HSSIB must comply with the relevant legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Act.
Finally, clause 119 sets out the defined terms used in part 4 of the Bill. The clause is crucial to ensuring that the HSSIB provisions are correctly interpreted and provides the necessary clarity on key terms. I therefore commend these clauses and this schedule to the Committee.
Justin Madders
I am not going to spend an awful lot of time on these clauses and this schedule, because the Minister has set them out very well, but I want to come back to his reference to clause 110 and the obligations on those who hold senior positions in NHS bodies. Regarding offences committed, the Minister said that there would not be the same need for punishments to follow failure to co-operate. I wonder whether that is consistent. Could he set out how offences committed by officers of a body corporate could be equated to offences committed by those who are running NHS bodies, or whether there is any discrepancy there that he would like to address?
Edward Argar
I will also endeavour not to detain the Committee for too long. I do not believe there is any discrepancy; I believe there is consistency there. The shadow Minister has highlighted what is essentially a technical point in the read-across between the two, and over the next couple of hours I will quickly check on that to make sure that I am right. I do not think there is any inconsistency there, but he has raised an interesting technical point, and I will review it. I hope he will forgive me if I do not give a technical answer right now, but I may shoehorn it in somehow this afternoon, keeping it in order by relating it to a clause that we will discuss subsequently. That will be a challenge, because we are about to finish the HSSIB clauses, but if there is anything to add to what I have just said, I will endeavour to work it in later this afternoon.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 115 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 116 to 118 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 15 agreed to.
Clause 119 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Steve Double.)
Nationality and Borders Bill (Ninth sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Nationality and Borders Act 2022 View all Nationality and Borders Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Before we start, I ask Members to ensure that their electronic devices are either switched off or on silent. Members are encouraged to wear masks at all times, except when speaking, but I entirely accept that it is a matter of personal choice, and of necessity in some cases. I understand from the usual channels that we might sit past 5 o’clock. I put that on the record so that Members can adjust their diaries accordingly should that be necessary, although it may not be. The reason, as some Members might not understand, is that come 4 November at 5 o’clock, the guillotine comes down, which means that anything undebated in the Bill remains undebated in Committee, so it is necessary to pace the pitch backwards. We hope to get through all the work in a timely fashion, but we are putting down a marker. If Ms McDonagh is not available to take the Chair this evening, I shall. Hansard and the Doorkeepers have been informed as well.
Clause 14
Asylum claims by persons with connection to safe third State: inadmissibility
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 56, in clause 14, page 17, line 31, at end insert—
“(d) there are in law and practice—
(i) appropriate reception arrangements for asylum seekers;
(ii) sufficient protection against serious harm and violations of fundamental rights;
(iii) protection against refoulement;
(iv) access to fair and efficient state asylum procedures, or to a previously afforded refugee status or other protective status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2-34 of the 1951 Convention;
(v) the legal right to remain during the state asylum procedure;
(vi) a grant of refugee status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2-34 of the 1951 Convention for those found to be in need of international protection;
(e) it is safe for the particular claimant, taking into account their individual circumstances.”
This amendment modifies the definition of a “safe third State”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 18, in clause 14, page 17, line 33, leave out “5” and insert “3”.
This amendment is consequential on a later amendment about the definition of “connection”.
Amendment 19, in clause 14, page 17, leave out lines 35 to 38.
This amendment removes subsection (6), which states that a claimant whose asylum claim has been denied by virtue of their connection to a particular safe third State may be removed to any other safe third State.
Amendment 20, in clause 14, page 17, line 40, leave out “may” and insert “must”.
In cases where it is unlikely to be possible to remove the claimant to a safe third State, or in other exceptional circumstances, this amendment would require otherwise inadmissible claims to be considered under the immigration rules.
Amendment 21, in clause 14, page 17, line 41, leave out line 41 to line 2 on page 18 and insert—
“(a) in the absence of a formal, legally binding and public readmission agreement between the United Kingdom and the State to which the person has a connection;
(b) as soon as the proposed State of readmission refuses to accept the person’s return or if the person’s readmission has not been agreed within three months of the registration of their asylum claim, whichever is sooner;
(c) if, taking into account the claimant’s personal circumstances, including the best interests of any children affected by the decision, it is more appropriate that the claim be considered in the United Kingdom;
(d) in such other cases as may be provided for in the immigration rules”.
This amendment broadens the circumstances in which the Secretary of State must consider an asylum application, despite a declaration of inadmissibility.
Amendment 22, in clause 14, page 18, line 13, leave out line 13 and insert—
“(a) has been granted refugee status or another protective status in the safe third state that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2 to 34 of the 1951 Convention”.
This amendment would strengthen the safeguards in place before a “connection” can be relied on for the purposes of inadmissibility.
Amendment 23, in clause 14, page 18, leave out lines 16 to 24.
This amendment changes the definition of a “connection” to a safe third State.
Amendment 24, in clause 14, page 18, leave out lines 35 to 37.
This amendment changes the definition of a “connection” to a safe third State.
Amendment 25, in clause 14, page 18, leave out lines 38 to 43 and insert—
“(6) For the purposes of this section, a “relevant claim” to a safe third State is a claim for refugee status or other protective status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2 to 34 of the 1951 Convention.”
This amendment changes the definition of a “relevant claim” to a safe third State.
Amendment 26, in clause 14, page 18, line 46, at end insert—
“80D Conditions for implementation of section 80B
(1) The Secretary of State may not make a declaration under section 80B(1) in relation to any State unless there are in place reciprocal arrangements with that State by which—
(a) that State has agreed to receive from the United Kingdom a person with a connection to it; and
(b) the United Kingdom has agreed to receive from that State a person who has made an asylum claim in that State who has a connection to the United Kingdom.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), any reciprocal arrangements must provide for the period within which a State is to receive a person from the United Kingdom; and any declaration made under section 80B(1) shall cease to apply if that period has passed and the person remains in the United Kingdom.
(3) The period to which subsection (2) refers must not be longer than 6 months from the date the asylum claim to which it relates is first made.
(4) Notwithstanding subsection (3), the passing of the period shall not prevent the transfer of a person from the United Kingdom to another State in which the person has a family member and to which the person wishes to be transferred.
(5) The Secretary of State may not make a declaration under section 80B(1) in relation to any person who—
(a) has a family member in the United Kingdom;
(b) has been lawfully resident in the United Kingdom;
(c) has worked for or with any United Kingdom Government body or other body carrying out work for or sponsored by the United Kingdom Government; or
(d) has a family member who has been lawfully resident in the United Kingdom or worked with or for such a body.
(6) In this section—
“a family member” means a child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from rejecting asylum claims on the grounds that the claimant has a connection to a safe third State unless the UK has reciprocal arrangements with that State.
Clause stand part.
Stuart C. McDonald
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Roger. I will speak to amendment 56 and the other amendments in the group, and against the clause, as currently drafted, standing part of the Bill. The clause allows the Secretary of State to declare asylum claims inadmissible on the grounds that she considers the person has a connection to a safe third state. That brings us to another provision in the Bill in relation to which we allege profound inconsistencies with the refugee convention—no doubt those will have been discussed when the Minister met with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees last week.
That inconsistency is one of the reasons why we believe the clause should not stand part of the Bill. Another reason is that we already know it does not work, because a version of this scheme has been in place in the immigration rules since the start of the year. It is incumbent on the Minister to provide the evidence that the provision has achieved anything remotely along the lines of what was intended. From the information that I have seen, it has achieved nothing of the sort.
Those immigration rules were put in place because, with the end of the transition period, the applicability of the EU’s Dublin rules came to an end. That created a significant problem for the Government as they had no replacement agreement in place with the EU under which individuals who would more appropriately have their asylum claim processed elsewhere could have their case transferred there. The clause is not a replacement for Dublin, but a dreadful, one-sided, pale imitation of it, and it is incompatible with the refugee convention.
The Dublin regulations were far from perfect but, first, they included important safeguards that are totally absent from the Government’s scheme, and they contained some restrictions on the grounds for transfer, whereas here the connection can be flimsy indeed, including mere transmit. Secondly, the Dublin rules are two-way. People could be transferred here from the EU or could remain here if they had connections to the UK, such as family, that made it appropriate for asylum claims to be considered in this country. Under the rules that the Government are offering, it is one-way only. The absence of such provision means that, unlike Dublin, this is not about responsibility sharing; it is about responsibility offloading.
The UK is failing to live up to its international obligations and hoping that somebody else will pick up the slack. More often than not, that will be a country that already supports larger numbers of refugees and processes far more asylum claims, including France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Greece—all highlighted by the Home Secretary at Second Reading.
Thirdly, the Dublin rules represented an agreed framework between member nations. Other countries had actually agreed in principle to take people back. In contract, the scheme set out in the immigration rules and in this Bill, as it stands, is a Home Office pipe dream. There are no agreements with our neighbours to take back those whose claims have been deemed inadmissible. In essence, the Home Office is suspending consideration of asylum claims for six months, even with no realistic prospect of removing more than an handful of people to have their claims considered by other countries. It simply adds another six months of limbo to these people’s lives, at a time when there is already a massive waiting time.
The latest figures I have read showed that something like 4,500 asylum seekers had been subject to the inadmissibility procedures since they came into effect in January. I think seven had ultimately been found inadmissible, and nobody had been removed. Those figures will have changed since then, and I look forward to receiving the updated figures, but what a disaster that represents. Freedom of information requests have confirmed that thousands of cases, including hundreds of Eritreans, Syrians and Afghans, have been served with inadmissibility notices, even though the Home Office knows that, for all intents and purposes, it will not be possible to remove them to so-called connected safe third states.
This is a waste of officials’ time, adds six months to the backlog and adds to, rather than resolves, the problems with the UK asylum system. I would ask the Minister, in responding, if he has calculated how much money the Home Office has spent supporting and accommodating people declared inadmissible only for the Home Office then to start assessing their claims six months down the line. As it stands, clause 14 should not form part of the Bill.
The amendments in this group prompt the Government to think about safeguards that could enable the clause to be consistent with the refugee convention, including restrictions and reciprocity. Amendment 26 tries to do that in a comprehensive but succinct way, while the other amendments probe more deeply into certain aspects of the clause as drafted.
Amendment 26 would basically add a new clause into the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, alongside the Home Office clauses, to fix the failures highlighted. Subsections (1) to (3) would require that an arrangement is in place with the third country, so there is no mass service of inadmissibility notices on people who there is no prospect of removing. Subsection (1) would also address the absence of reciprocity by ensuring that the agreement is a reciprocal one, so the Home Secretary can operate an inadmissibility regime only in relation to countries that are able to send people here or transfer claims here as well. Thus, for example, people with a family connection to the UK are able to have their claims considered in this country, and other examples are given in the amendment. As it stands, people’s connections, such as with family—even their closest family members—as well as language, previous residence in the UK or working for UK entities, including the British Army, are all totally overlooked by the Government’s scheme.
The remaining amendments in this group probe in more detail how the Government will ensure various other vital protections are in place. They take into account the published legal opinion of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the concept of inadmissibility and some of the criticisms raised there. Amendment 56 seeks to ensure that the rights of asylum seekers will be fully protected in the country to which the Government are seeking to transfer the claim.
As it stands, the definition of a safe third state is really pretty pathetic. So long as your life and liberty are not at risk for a refugee convention reason and that some sort of asylum process is in existence, off you go. There could be an almost certain risk of human rights breaches, albeit falling short of a threat to life or liberty, and that would not matter. There could be a threat to life, but for a non-convention reason, and again it seems that it does not matter, and the country is still deemed safe.
The wording of the safe third state definition is troubling from all sorts of angles. For example, the clause states that a country is safe if “a person” can apply for refugee status and “a person” will not be removed in contravention of the convention, without specifically asking the question, “Will this individual that we want to declare inadmissible be at such a risk?” It is not robust enough either in what it requires for access to asylum and refugee procedures. It simply says that a person may apply and receive protection in accordance with unspecified principles of the convention.
As I read clause 14 just now, if I was at risk in a proposed country I had a connection to because of new autocratic rules or a ruler who decided they wanted capital punishment for people with red hair, it would still very likely meet the definition of a safe country, because my life would not be threatened for a convention reason—arguably, it could be a particular social group, but it is not clear—and if I had previously made a claim there and it had been refused, apparently I am connected enough to be required to go back there. If I am wrong about that, I look forward to the explanation of how that would apply in these particular circumstances.
Amendment 56 therefore surely sets out totally unobjectionable safeguards about which we can all agree, so that—not just on paper, but in practice—fundamental rights are going to be respected, there are appropriate reception arrangements for asylum seekers, there is access to fair and appropriate asylum procedures, and the full convention of refugees must be available if accepted as a refugee.
Amendment 19 again seeks information from Ministers about their intentions in relation to a new provision that allows them to deny an asylum claim on the basis of a connection to country A, but instead remove that person to country B, even when, it seems, there is no connection. I guess that is a foretaste of the debate we will have on clause 26, but this is an extraordinarily wide provision and it is not constrained by any assessment of the appropriateness or otherwise of the transfer in the circumstances of the individual person.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that any country that meets the Copenhagen criteria, by virtue of being either a member of the European Union or an accession country, would be, by definition, a safe country?
Stuart C. McDonald
It almost certainly would, and it would meet the criteria in the Bill. However, that is not really the issue, because, as drafted, the definition of “safe country” goes way beyond who would meet those criteria in the EU. That is what I am driving at. Again, we struggle to see how clause 14 can be justified and how it can possibly be said to be appropriate or consistent with the convention. As the UNHCR put it:
“This would be a significant break from…international practice”.
Amendment 20 would simply mean that if there is no reasonable likelihood of removal to a third country in a reasonable period or there are exceptional circumstances that mean that the Home Secretary should consider the claim, then she “must” do so. As it stands, she “may” do so, but she also may not. Surely it is odd to want to give the Secretary of State the power not to consider a claim when she has decided that
“the claim should be considered”.
The amendment should probably also have taken out the reference to “exceptional circumstances”. After all, if the unexceptional circumstances suggest that the claim should be decided here, where is the logic in not doing that?
Amendment 21 sets out circumstances in which claims should, on any reasonable view, be processed here rather than attempts made to move them elsewhere. In short, if there is not an agreement with a third country that will allow for the transfer of cases, the Home Office should just get on with considering it. If the third country refuses the transfer or does not reply in three months, the Home Office should, again, just get on with considering the case. And if in the circumstances, including the best interests of any children affected, it is better for the claim to be decided here, the Home Office should get on and do it.
Amendments 18 and 22 to 24 take us to the current definition of “connection” to be introduced into law by clause 14. Amendments 23 and 24 remove from the Bill two circumstances in which it is currently said that a connection is sufficient for the purpose of the inadmissibility regime. Amendment 24 would remove what is termed “condition 5”, which is so vague as to be almost incomprehensible and allows the Secretary of State to decide that a connection has been established in an almost unlimited number of scenarios. There is reference to “the claimant’s particular circumstances” but no explanation of what is meant by that.
Amendment 23 takes out “condition 2”, so that a connection can be provided only by proper and full-blown refugee status in accordance with the convention, and not a substandard or pale imitation of it. Amendment 22 puts the full-blown refugee status as a possible connection in the clause.
Amendment 25 is similarly motivated. In short, if the making of an asylum claim in another country is to establish the connection necessary for an inadmissibility declaration, it must be the case that the protection status offered in that other country to a refugee is fully compatible with the 1951 UN refugee convention. Again, it is absolutely not enough for a substandard asylum regime to be in place, and it would be outrageous for the UK Government to say otherwise and to be seen to be tolerating the watering down of refugee rights across the globe.
All these amendments provide ways to fix the flaws in the scheme. We could also have tabled other amendments to fix the inability of anyone to challenge inadmissibility decisions on any grounds. The Government say that this is all about deterring onward movements from France and other neighbours, but the clause is drafted in a way to allow removal to any old regime, regardless of how they treat asylum seekers and refugees. That is not remotely good enough, so the Minister must accept the flaws in the drafting and engage with the UNHCR on changing them.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
I speak in support of the Scottish National party amendments and against clause 14 standing part. Once again, we are faced with a draconian, punitive clause that we the Opposition believe risks putting vulnerable people in danger and depriving them of the protection that they deserve under international law. I will begin by setting out what clause 14 does. Again, I thank the many sector organisations that have helped us to analyse the likely impacts of the clause.
Clause 14 puts in the Bill an existing immigration law on inadmissibility that makes any asylum claim inadmissible in a number of circumstances, including if the claimant has passed through a safe country or if they have a connection to a safe third country. The result of a finding of inadmissibility is that, unless the Secretary of State decides that there are exceptional circumstances, the claimant will be denied access to the United Kingdom’s asylum system for a “reasonable period”—currently defined as six months by Home Office policy—while the UK seeks to transfer them to “any other safe country”.
Before getting to the extremely problematic moral and legal aspects of clause 14, I want to draw hon. Members’ attention to the unworkable practical aspects of it. Members know that the current regime is unworkable even as it stands because the UK Government do not have returns agreements with European Union member states, namely the “safe third countries” that refugees are most likely to have passed through. With the huge backlog and delays currently in the system, it is truly impossible to understand how adding another six months to the asylum process will help an already dysfunctional system.
Any Member who is familiar with dealing with asylum cases will be only too familiar with cases that have dragged on for years and seemingly been lost in the system, and the many refusal cases that are overturned on appeal. The current system is not working and by adding extra time to it before a case can even begin suggests a huge increase in the processing backlog. As an ex-lawyer, I know that justice delayed is justice denied, and therefore I have grave reservations about the time stipulations in the clause.
To put the Government’s actions so far into greater context, it is worth noting that in the first six months after implementation of the inadmissibility provisions of the immigration rules—they are echoed in the statutory provisions we are currently considering—the asylum claims of more than 4,500 people were put on hold by the issuance of notices of potential inadmissibility. Incredibly, the UK sought to transfer only seven of those cases—seven out of 4,500. Surely that demonstrates that the concept of inadmissibility is deeply flawed, and that attempts to enforce it by statute, as currently envisaged in clause 14, are equally flawed.
To make matters even worse, the inadmissibility rules set out in clause 14 have a far broader reach than anything that has gone before. First, let us consider the clause’s reference to a “safe third country”. The clause creates a disturbingly low standard for when a state would be considered safe for a particular claimant. The criteria are that their
“life and liberty are not threatened there by reason of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
That state must be one from which “a person” will not be removed in breach of a non-refoulement obligation under the refugee convention or the European convention on human rights, and that “a person” may apply for refugee status there and, if recognised, receive protection in accordance with the refugee convention. According to clause 14, therefore, a country could still be considered safe even if the applicant had been, or perhaps continues to be, at real risk of being subjected to human rights violations in that country which either fall short of threats to life or liberty, or to which they were not exposed for reasons of a refugee convention ground.
Equally worrying is that, according to clause 14, although that safe state must be one in which in general a person “may” apply for refugee status and receive protection
“in accordance with the Refugee Convention” ,
it is not clear from the terms of the Bill that that possibility needs to be available to the particular applicant. Given the reference in the Bill to “a person”, it appears that it may be sufficient that, in general, there is the “possibility” of applying for refugee status in that state. That is hardly reassuring. In fact, it means that the supposed “safe” third country might not be at all safe for any particular individual. That surely makes a mockery of the term “safe” as commonly understood.
In addition, in order to be found to have a connection to a safe third state, the particular applicant need not have had a reasonable opportunity to access refugee status there. It is worth examining that in more detail. The terms of the clause imply that although the state would have to be one in which, in general, the possibility existed for a person to apply for refugee status, an individual claimant could be found to be inadmissible because they had received nothing more than protection against removal, in violation of the refugee convention or article 3 of the ECHR, or had made or had a reasonable opportunity to make a “relevant claim” for such protection in that state.
Furthermore, we need to look at the use of the term “connection” in clause 14. The clause makes it clear that the mere presence in a safe state where it would have been reasonable to expect the applicant to make a “relevant claim” would be sufficient to establish a “connection”. That in turn would be enough to trigger inadmissibility. Overall, the use of the term “connection” is nothing short of Orwellian. The framing of that term suggests that it could be an otherwise unelaborated connection—in other words, in the claimant’s particular circumstances, it would have been hypothetically reasonable for them to have gone to a given state to make such a claim, even if they had never been there.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)
I thank hon. Members for tabling their amendments. I have listened carefully to the arguments that they have put forward.
Amendments 18 to 26 and amendment 56 seek to amend the Bill provisions relating to the inadmissibility of asylum claimants with a connection to a safe third country. This Government are clear that people should seek asylum in the first safe country they reach rather than make dangerous journeys to the UK to claim asylum here. Inadmissibility is a longstanding process designed to prevent secondary movements across Europe, and these measures are being introduced to support that. The amendments seek to significantly weaken our ability to treat these individuals as inadmissible, and therefore weaken our ability to focus our resources on those most in need of our help. I make no apologies for prioritising the protection of the individuals most in need of help over those who could have claimed asylum elsewhere.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Will the Minister indicate where in international law there is a requirement on an individual to make such a claim in the first safe country they reach? Or is the UK seeking to impose its domestic law on the international community?
Tom Pursglove
It is fair to say that the Committee had an extensive debate about this issue last week in relation to earlier clauses. I would refer the hon. Member to the comments read out in the Committee from a previous Bill Committee under the last Labour Government, where the principles we are talking about here were very firmly established and endorsed. They have underpinned the approach that has been taken on these matters under successive Governments in this country, and we continue to believe that they are applicable.
I wholeheartedly agree with the importance of the UK continuing to meet its obligations under the refugee convention, including through the rights that we provide to refugees in the UK. I understand the spirit of amendment 56 in defining a safe third state in a way that ensures that an individual removed to that country is provided with adequate protection and their individual rights as a recognised refugee under the refugee convention. However, the definition of a safe third state as set out in clause 14 already ensures that the principles of the refugee convention should be met if we are to remove an individual to that country.
Stuart C. McDonald
The term “the principles of the refugee convention” is vague. What do the Government mean by that?
Tom Pursglove
As we have repeatedly made very clear during the passage of the clauses we have already debated, our obligations are being properly upheld through the provisions of this Bill. We believe that the Bill is fully compliant, and I maintain that that remains the case. The approach is not new; it has been part of our previous legislation on safe countries. We will only ever return inadmissible claimants to countries that are safe, so I do not agree that the amendment is necessary.
Neil Coyle
Defining what is safe is very important. It is not adequately set out in the Bill. Does the Minister believe that Afghanistan is a safe country?
Tom Pursglove
I refer the hon. Member to our earlier exchanges during the passage of the clauses we debated previously. In relation to Afghanistan, as that situation has evolved, the approach that we have taken has also evolved, and quite rightly so. No one is being returned to Afghanistan at the moment. That fully reflects the in-country situation in Afghanistan, of which we are incredibly mindful, as the hon. Member and people of this country would quite rightly expect.
Neil Coyle
The Home Office has published updated guidance that suggests that it is open to question as to whether there continues to be a situation of international or internal armed conflict in Afghanistan, and that should indiscriminate violence be taking place, it is only in some areas and to a far lesser extent following the Taliban takeover. Therefore, the Home Office is saying that Afghanistan is becoming safer because the Taliban are now in control. Does the Minister accept that position?
Tom Pursglove
I will repeat this point again: we are not returning individuals to Afghanistan at the present time. I believe that is the right decision and I believe it fully takes into account the circumstances within the country at the moment. That is an approach that Members across this House can support.
Mr Goodwill
Does the Minister agree that situations in different countries can change? I have a constituent who was granted asylum from Iran, but subsequently has gone on a package holiday to Turkey and visited his family in Iran. As far as he is concerned, the situation in Iran has obviously improved.
Tom Pursglove
It is of course the case that situations in countries change. That is why the approach we take is flexible and means that we keep under constant review the circumstances in individual countries. We then make judgments on the approach that we take in response.
Neil Coyle
The Government’s resettlement scheme for citizens of Afghanistan is not even open and they are paving the way for Afghanistan to be redetermined as a safe country. Based on the previous example, if an Afghan asylum seeker ever gets to come through the scheme in this country and then goes back to visit Pakistan to see relatives—probably in one of the refugee camps there—they may be deemed to be okay to go back to Afghanistan.
Tom Pursglove
I can only the refer the hon. Gentleman to the point that I have now made several times about Afghanistan.
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that it is not a convincing argument. The bottom line is that we are not removing people to Afghanistan based on the current circumstances. I think that is the right approach.
The ability to return an individual declared inadmissible to any safe country, and not just the safe third country they have a connection to, has formed a part of our inadmissibility process since the changes to our immigration rules in December 2020. In seeking to remove that ability, amendment 19 would remove a provision that Parliament has already been provided an opportunity to scrutinise.
Stuart C. McDonald
We all know that there is no scrutiny with these things in any real sense, but that is not a justification for the change. On what possible grounds can a connection with a country A justify removal to country B? What is the point?
Tom Pursglove
Again, we have had extensive debates in Committee about the approach that the Government are seeking to take on these matters. We have to stop these dangerous, unacceptable crossings of the channel. We believe that the deterrent effect is very important.
Amendments 18 and 22 to 25, taken together, seek to narrow the meaning of whether we consider an individual to have a connection to a safe third country, and therefore whether it is appropriate to consider them inadmissible. If individuals have travelled via or have connections to safe countries where it is reasonable to expect them to have claimed asylum, they should do so, rather than making dangerous and unnecessary onward journeys to the UK.
We already have in place a well-established process, should it become clear that an individual cannot be returned to a safe country or if after a reasonable period no return agreement has been possible. Where that is the case, the individual’s asylum claim will be considered in the UK. The Bill provisions will not change that. Therefore, I do not agree that amendments 20 and 21 are required.
Agreements by a safe third country to accept an asylum seeker may not always be via a reciprocal arrangement. I believe it is right to also seek returns on a case-by-case basis where appropriate.
Neil Coyle
Will the Minister set out how many reciprocal arrangements we have at the moment? Will there be more detail in the Bill documents about what those arrangements might be?
Tom Pursglove
As I have said, there are case-by-case agreements that are reached in relation to returns. The Government are ambitious about the approach we want to take through the Bill. We want to try and forge fresh returns agreements with countries. The hon. Gentleman will note that this year we reached a returns agreement with Albania. That is a positive and welcome development. I will not give a running commentary on the negotiations we might be having with countries to forge returns agreements, and he would not expect me to do that.
Mr Goodwill
We certainly have a returns agreement with Nigeria, where we have biometric evidence that the person concerned is indeed the person who came to the UK. I know that because I signed it myself.
Tom Pursglove
It is fair to say that my right hon. Friend was a proactive Immigration Minister. That was a significant achievement during his tenure.
Neil Coyle
While we are celebrating this one reciprocal arrangement that can be used, and having trashed the Dublin Accord and all that it provided, can I just remind the Minister that Albania provided, in the last full year we have stats, the second highest number of successful asylum claims to the UK? The Albanian Foreign Minister has described the Government’s approach to negotiations on offshoring with Albania as “fake news”.
Tom Pursglove
As I said, I am not going to get into a running commentary about negotiations that the Government may or may not be having with individual countries. What I would say more generally on returns arrangements is that we are seeking to negotiate readmission arrangements with key EU member states. Where we do not have broad return agreements, we will seek returns on a case-by-case basis—a long-established process that we will continue to follow.
Mr Goodwill
I note the point made by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, but is it not the case that Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey are in negotiation with the European Union, under article 49 of the 1992 Maastricht treaty? That means that they will have to meet the 1993 Copenhagen criteria on human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities. If they meet those criteria regarding accession to the EU, they must meet the criteria for returns.
Tom Pursglove
The simple reality is that we will not return people to countries where to do so would put them in danger, or where their rights would not be respected and upheld. That is a perfectly correct approach to take, and entirely in line with what people would expect.
Tom Pursglove
I will give way, but I am very conscious that I want to make some progress.
Stuart C. McDonald
I absolutely accept that that is the Minister’s intention. He is not going to remove people; he is going to do all he can not to remove people to unsafe countries. The problem is: what about the next Minister responsible for immigration? As drafted, this definition of safe third state allows his successor to remove somebody to a place where they are at risk of serious human rights abuses, albeit falling short of a threat to life and liberty—it could be torture or whatever else, just as long as it is not a convention ground. I accept that the Minister is going to do the right thing, but we need a Bill that has proper constraints on the next Minister to come along, and that is not clear.
Tom Pursglove
The provisions, as drafted, define safe countries as states where people would not be at risk of persecution or a breach of their article 3 ECHR rights. The provisions are considered and consistent with our obligations under the refugee convention. An individual will have an opportunity to raise specific ECHR claims against removal under schedule 3 provisions.
I am confident that the measures in place are appropriate and sufficiently robust. We know it may not always be appropriate to apply inadmissibility to all claimants. Any oral or written representations from a claimant about why inadmissibility processes should not be applied in their case, including any connections they may have to the UK, will be considered ahead of any removal to a safe third country. However, if an individual has family in the UK, there are family reunion routes available. These amendments should not be used to circumnavigate those provisions. For those reasons, I do not support the suggested addition of proposed new section 80D in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, under amendment 26, and I invite hon. Members not to press it to a Division.
Turning to the clause overall, an increasing number of people are risking their lives to get to the UK, using unseaworthy vessels, putting at risk not only their lives but those of the UK Border Force and rescue services. Those routes are often facilitated by criminal gangs, seeking to arrange those dangerous journeys for profit. We are determined to make the use of small boats to cross the channel an unviable option for reaching the UK. We are determined to send a clear signal that it is unacceptable for individuals to travel through multiple safe countries to then claim asylum in the UK.
To stop people risking their lives on those dangerous crossings, reduce the unsustainable pressure on the asylum system and protect those most in need, we must be clear that many of those coming to the UK by irregular means will not be admitted into our asylum system. Inadmissibility is a long-standing process, designed to prevent secondary movements across Europe, and these measures are being introduced to support that. People should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, rather than make dangerous journeys to the UK to claim asylum here.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
What consideration has the Minister given to the impact on the system of international protection for those fleeing conflict and persecution if the entire world adopted that principle, so that the responsibility only ever fell on the countries on the frontline of conflict and persecution?
Tom Pursglove
I have heard the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I would make the point that this country has and will continue to make a significant contribution to the global effort to tackle the challenges that we face around displacement. We would argue that that must be achieved through safe and legal routes. That is the cornerstone of our policy, and I think that is the right approach. We must render these dangerous channel crossings unviable.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for giving way again. I want to press the issue, because it is helpful to have an answer that reflects the question. The question did not ask him to reiterate his belief, but to articulate what the Government feel would be the consequences for the international protection system if every country adopted the same approach.
Tom Pursglove
The point that I would make is that we need to establish a clear principle that people should come to this country through safe and legal routes. We would argue that the best and most effective contribution that we can make as part of the global effort is to establish those safe and legal routes—there are many past and current examples. We think that is the right approach; we cannot in any way support or endorse people making dangerous and unacceptable crossings.
As a result, we strongly believe that the approach that we are taking in the Bill is right and builds on our proud traditions in this country of providing sanctuary to those who require it. That gets to the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s question. It is not about this country refusing to participate in the global effort, but about establishing clear expectations around how we intend to do that. We will continue to build on the proud traditions that we have in this country.
Neil Coyle
I am finding the Minister’s answers increasingly disappointing. Could he come back to the specific legal question from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate about article 33 of the refugee convention and the principle of non-refoulement?
Tom Pursglove
Again, I refer back to the point that has been raised, which is that we will not return individuals to countries where they would be unsafe as a consequence. Of course we would look at cases on an individual basis and at the concerns that have been raised. If there are concerns, it is important that they are properly taken into account. I am confident that the approach we are taking addresses that issue.
We know, however, that it may not always be appropriate to apply inadmissibility to all claimants. For example, we will not apply those procedures to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The introduction of the clauses on inadmissibility aims to strengthen our position on inadmissibility, further disincentivise people from making those dangerous journeys, and encourage them to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. Those who fear persecution should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. Parliament has already had an opportunity to scrutinise the measures when they were placed in the immigration rules in December 2020.
Stuart C. McDonald
I just do not think that the significant legal questions that have been asked have been answered appropriately, and there are all sorts of questions about the safeguards around the description of a safe third state, so I want to press amendment 56 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Bambos Charalambous
I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 16, page 20, line 8, at end insert
“, subject to subsection (1A)”
This amendment is consequential to the amendment which would remove the ability to serve an evidence notice on certain categories of person.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 37, in clause 16, page 20, line 8, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State may not serve an evidence notice on a person—
(a) who has made a protection claim or a human rights claim on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity;
(b) who was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom;
(c) who has made a protection or human rights claim involving sexual or gender-based violence; or
(d) is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking.”
This amendment would remove the ability to serve an evidence notice on certain categories of person.
Amendment 153, in clause 16, page 20, line 8, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must not serve an evidence notice on a person—
(a) who has made a protection claim or a human rights claim on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) who was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom;
(c) who has made a protection or human rights claim on the basis of gender-based violence;
(d) who has experienced sexual violence;
(e) who is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(f) who is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(g) who has been a victim of torture;
(h) who is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(i) who is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from serving an evidence notice on certain categories of people.
Bambos Charalambous
We are extremely worried about the implications of clause 16 and its possible effects on vulnerable people. We tabled these amendments because we wish to further understand the Government’s intention with regard to certain particularly vulnerable groups. We believe that the impact of this clause, if it remains unamended, will further retraumatise vulnerable people.
As the Committee will know, clause 16 provides for an evidence notice to be issued to a claimant requiring them to provide evidence in support of their claim before a specified date. If they fail to do so, the provision of evidence will be deemed to be “late” and the claimant will be required to provide a statement setting out their reasons for providing that evidence “late”. The consequence for not complying with the evidence notice without good reason is that a decision maker may give minimal weight to the evidence. Apart from potentially impacting on a claimant’s credibility, the late provision of evidence in respect of evidence notices, under clauses 16 and 17, and priority removal notices, under clauses 18 and 20, may prejudice the weighting that a decision maker may give to the evidence. As we will see later, clause 23 states:
“Unless there are good reasons why the evidence was provided late, the deciding authority must, in considering it, have regard to the principle that minimal weight should be given to the evidence.”
It is unclear what “minimal weight” or, indeed, a decision maker having “regard to” this principle would mean in practice.
We are therefore extremely concerned that this clause and the others alongside it may potentially compound discrimination faced by people with protected characteristics. It is well established that people with different traumatic experiences may find it more difficult to disclose on demand their experiences of persecution, especially if they lack effective access to legal advice. Indeed, the Government’s message about legal aid to PRN recipients is insufficient amid the broader gutting of legal aid for the immigration sector since the legal aid cuts in 2013. This on its own is reason to doubt that individuals are likely to receive adequate legal support in terms of submitting evidence.
The situation may be compounded for people with protected characteristics. For example, women who have experienced sexual and/or gender-based violence may find it particularly difficult to disclose information about their experiences. The Home Office itself acknowledges the particular difficulties that LGBTQI+ asylum seekers may have in substantiating their claim or providing full disclosure, including experiences of discrimination, hatred, violence and stigma.
The stipulation about late evidence in clause 16 also has profound implications for the victims of trafficking and modern-day slavery. Frontline anti-trafficking organisations have previously highlighted how lack of identification is compounded because victims of trafficking are often unaware that there is a system to protect people who have experienced exploitation. The Government’s own guidance on the national referral mechanism provides that
“Victims may not be aware that they are being trafficked or exploited, and may have consented to elements of their exploitation, or accepted their situation.”
It is highly concerning that an individual could potentially be punished for failing to give evidence on time, in that such late disclosure might affect the credibility and/or weighting given to their evidence, which in turn would adversely affect their chances of a protection or human rights claim succeeding. It is clear that this is likely to lead to compounding of the discrimination experienced by certain groups, and make it harder for them to make the best possible case for themselves.
The Chair
In his opening remarks the hon. Gentleman referred in some depth to clause 16 in addition to speaking to the amendment. I have no problem with that whatever, but I remind the Committee that you cannot have two bites of the cherry. In the light of the line that has been taken, I suggest that we treat this as a stand part debate as well. If anyone has anything to say, now is the chance.
Stuart C. McDonald
May I confirm, Sir Roger, that there are two groups of amendments to this clause?
Stuart C. McDonald
Thank you, Sir Roger. In relation to the first group, we fully support the shadow Minister and amendments 36 and 37, which would limit the range of applicants who might face those notices, including children survivors of trafficking and those who need protection because of gender-based violence or sexual orientation. Amendment 153 simply excludes a number of additional groups of people, including those suffering from mental ill health. The shadow Minister explained exactly why it can be very difficult to demand disclosure by certain deadlines from certain applicants. The same arguments apply in relation to our amendments. If we go down this route, there must be a recognition that disclosure of evidence for some can be an incredibly difficult process. How will that be taken into account?
Paul Blomfield
Taking account of your suggestion, Sir Roger, I wanted to make a few comments, although my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate made a substantial contribution. We need to pay close attention to this clause and those that follow it, because they cut across a basic principle of English and Scottish law: the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Underlying the clauses is an assumption of disbelief—everybody is playing the system. Of course, there are people who do, but we do not design our justice system on that assumption, nor should we design the asylum system on that basis.
Instead, we should look at the practical application, because as I said when I spoke to clause 10, we need to understand the journeys taken by those seeking refuge in our country as they flee persecution and conflict, and understand the trauma that led them to uproot themselves from their homes and the trauma that they experience on their journeys. That should give the Government serious pause for thought.
Clauses 16, 17 and 23 prejudice the system against survivors of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, and reduce access to refugee protection. Clause 16 permits the Home Secretary to serve an evidence notice on a person who has made a protection of human rights claim, forcing them to provide evidence before a specified date. That needs to be looked at in terms of the consequences set out in clause 23 diminishing the weight of their evidence. We are returning to a theme here, because this is in conflict with the Home Office’s own asylum policy, which recognises that there are many good reasons why women who have survived sexual and other gender-based violence would be late in applying for asylum or in submitting evidence.
Let me quote the Home Office’s policy:
“There may be a number of reasons why a claimant, or dependant, may be reluctant to disclose information, for example feelings of guilt, shame, and concerns about family ‘honour’, or fear of family members or traffickers, or having been conditioned or threatened by them…Those who have been sexually assaulted and or who have been victims of trafficking may suffer trauma that can impact on memory and the ability to recall information. The symptoms of this include persistent fear, a loss of self-confidence and self-esteem, difficulty in concentration, an attitude of self-blame, shame, a pervasive loss of control and memory loss or distortion.”
That policy—the policy of the Home Office—states that
“disclosure of gender-based violence at a later stage in the asylum process should not automatically count against their credibility.”
Yet that is precisely what the Government are trying to do in these clauses, in conflict with their own policy.
The Women for Refugee Women charity, which does extraordinary work supporting those fleeing gender-based violence, says:
“because there are so many legitimate reasons for why a woman who has survived gender-based violence may submit evidence late, we do not think there is a way in which these evidence notices can be implemented fairly in respect to these highly vulnerable individuals.”
Let me return to the Home Office’s own assessment of the proposals, which found that the Bill’s
“policies could indirectly disadvantage protected groups”,
such as
“children, disabled people and people who are vulnerable for reasons linked to other protected characteristics—including but not limited to gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation and sex.”
That disadvantage, which the Home Office has identified, to vulnerable people and victims of huge trauma and violence will be hardwired into our law by these clauses, so I urge the Government to withdraw them.
Neil Coyle
On a day like this, I really do regret giving up coffee. I remind Members of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and of my support for the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy project.
I had not planned to speak but I was very disappointed with the first set of answers I received. The only reason our debating time is limited is that the Government set an artificial timeframe for a very controversial piece of legislation. Yesterday morning I visited an asylum hostel set up in Southwark without giving prior notice to the council or to local organisations that would be willing, and have the network, to support asylum seekers. In the course of my discussion with asylum seekers in my constituency, I asked what specific support they had received in making their applications. They said, “Nothing apart from an interpreter.” When I asked if they had been given access to legal aid, they said they did not know what it was. The Home Office officials and the charity present said that legal aid information had been included in their induction materials, which are in several languages, but nobody had bothered to explain to them in their first language what legal aid meant, and no one had pointed out how someone could get access to legal aid in Southwark. Members should bear in mind that some of them were being told, especially when they first arrived, that they should not leave the premises. Access is a crucial point.
If the Home Office actually bothered to get out of bed and talk to local authorities before making such impositions on local communities, it would find that there is a willingness to better co-ordinate support and to help. There are some brilliant organisations, such as the Southwark Law Centre and the Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers, which are there, willing and able to support those asylum seekers—if the Home Office just bothered to communicate. Instead, we have a more expensive system, with duplication and the Home Office imposing new contracts, commissioning new services and ignoring networks and systems that are already there, at substantial cost to the taxpayer—something that the Government seem to ignore. That is the context of clause 16: people do not have access to sufficient support to make the best application possible at the first point.
Mr Goodwill
Does the hon. Gentleman accept, however, that there will be cases where the reason evidence is presented late is that the initial reason for an asylum claim was exposed as a complete pack of lies, and therefore the claimant, maybe following the advice of people who understand the system, casts around for another reason why he or she might want to make an asylum claim?
Neil Coyle
I think the right hon. Gentleman makes the point that I am making, which is that we need a fast, fair and effective system up front. If we had such a system, those bogus claims would be weeded out pretty early on, and we would not have a Government desiring to implement a new set of impositions on children who have gone through trauma. The Government’s own statistics show how many cases are actually proven and upheld, so he does an injustice when he suggests that there might be some volume to the level of the claims he described.
I want to come back to the point about legal advice. It is poor legal advice, in addition to trauma, and an inability, not through any deliberate purpose but just through a lack of understanding, that lead—I am trying to find my place.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I just want to support the incredibly powerful contribution that my hon. Friend is making, following our hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. As we have heard, it is often those who have been subject to the most trauma and who are most deserving of sanctuary who will take the longest to disclose. Those are the people who will be really negatively impacted if we allow these provisions to go ahead.
Neil Coyle
My hon. Friend is not only right; she is also a jolly good egg for helping me out.
All too often with asylum-seeking children and young people, poor legal advice, in addition to trauma, can lead to an inadequately prepared case and the rejection of their claim—in the small number of cases that are rejected. Having a good solicitor can make all the difference in enabling young people to give instruction, and to anticipate a thorough and full asylum claim, which negates the need to present at later stages.
In the hostel I visited yesterday, I was told that there is a Home Office list of legal aid providers that can be used. It would be really helpful if the Government agreed to publish the list so that it could be expanded and improved. Other local organisations that do this—often on a pro bono basis but obviously with professionals—could provide the best advice up front, so that we do not end up with lengthy cases, with stuff added later that could have been added up front, and the individuals could then have the best support possible. I think we should be committed to having a first-class, up-front service.
I will give one example, provided by the Children’s Society, of a child who went through the process:
“My solicitor did nothing, it was horrible. They didn’t even prepare a witness statement for my interview. I had to do everything myself. I had my social worker but she didn’t know how to help me with my asylum case. The interviewer told me she had no information and that I had to tell her everything”.
Of course, we have had a decade of legal aid funding cuts, with many asylum-seeking children and young people struggling to access quality legal advice. The availability of high-quality legal advice under the legal aid contract or on a charitable basis is both patchy and frequently limited. We are very fortunate to have some excellent organisations in Southwark but I know that that is not the case across the country, where there is a dearth of legally aided advice for asylum seekers. That is the system that exists and that has been attacked for a decade because the failure to provide up-front support necessitates further stages. Clause 16 will make that worse.
Another example from the organisations that have briefed us is the fact that many asylum seekers change solicitor. That is not because they have hundreds of thousands of pounds in their pocket and are looking for a different lawyer who might get a better result but because of the process. It is because the Home Office has moved them and because they rely on free legal aid contracts. They do not have the funds to stick with one solicitor and visit them by train if they move from city to city as part of the accommodation process that the Home Office requires. The Home Office is not doing this because it is deliberately trying to upset the legal support but because it is moving people and takes too long to make decisions. If it committed to a timeframe to make decisions up front, perhaps we would be in a stronger position and would be more supportive of legislation that makes such demands, though I doubt it very much in this case.
Last week, I asked the Minister about the extension of legal aid and I did not get a particularly precise answer, if I may put it delicately. I also tabled a named-day question––I think it was 58412––to the Ministry of Justice because the equality impact assessment suggests that legal aid will be extended. I asked the Minister whether it would be and I did not get an answer last week. Nor is there a commitment to extended legal aid for these cases in the answer from the Ministry of Justice, so I am confused and surprised. There must be a cost attached to this. The Department must have some more information, which I hope the Minister can share today, on how this new extension for legal aid will be paid for, where exactly it sits and who is delivering it. Is the Home Office again going to seek to extend its empire and build new services and contracts rather than working better with the Ministry of Justice? Councils often get dumped on by the Home Office rather than being supported and worked with. They have contracts with legal aid solicitors and experts on the ground who could provide a valuable service that speeds things up and cuts costs for the Home Office, rather than having the Home Office suddenly impose a new contract. I hope that the Minister can shed some light on that.
I am concerned about the clause’s potential cost and damage to the UK’s reputation, and about the potential breach of Home Office duties. Hon. Members have already touched on this, so I shall just whizz through. The Secretary of State bears a duty
“to safeguard and promote the welfare of children”
under section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. It is through section 55 that the spirit of the UK obligation to the best-interest principle set out in article 3 of the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child in respect of asylum-seeking children has been translated into UK law.
The Home Office’s own casework guidance for assessing claims from asylum-seeking children makes it clear that decision makers are to take account of what it is reasonable to expect a child to know or relay
“in their given set of circumstances.”
That is crucial to the children we are discussing. It is inappropriate for authorities to question the credibility of a child’s claim if they omit information, bearing in mind the child’s age, maturity and other reasons that may have led to those omissions, which may be many, given the people we are talking about. The guidance sets out distinct factors that decision makers are to take into account, including age, maturity, the time of the event, the time of the interview, mental or emotional trauma experienced by the child, educational level––bearing in mind that many children will have had a fractured education––fear or mistrust of authorities given the experience many of them will have come through, and feelings of shame and painful memories, particularly those of a sexual nature.
Once again, we look set to have a Government, who have already been found to be acting unlawfully, failing to take into account the best interests of children. We have had that in the High Court. The Government want to spend hundreds more millions of pounds going through legal cases. Let us not do that. Let us get the system right and ensure that first-class legal aid and support are there for children at the soonest point rather than requiring them to fail because they do not understand the system and because no legal aid is there, and then punishing them for their failure, which is actually a state failure.
I have one more example from the Children’s Society—again, from a child:
“My first court hearing was horrible, my solicitor advised me to not answer every time anyone asks you any questions. However, when I got the refusal letter from the judge, it said it was because I hadn’t answered any of the questions. As soon as I changed solicitor, my solicitor told me to appeal, prepared an expert report and told me to speak in court this time round and finally my case was accepted.”
The Chair
Before I invite the Minister to respond, I need to clarify something. At the start of his remarks, the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark indicated that there had been a lack of time to consider the Bill. I cannot recall whether he was a member of the Programming Sub-Committee, which I chaired, but the programme motion was agreed by its members, from both sides of the House. The motion was then put to the whole Committee at the start of the first evidence session, and was again agreed without dispute. I am sure that no criticism of the Chair was intended, but I think it is necessary to clarify that.
Let me also make it absolutely plain that this Chair, and I am sure Ms McDonagh, is at the service of the Committee, as are the Officers of the House. It may be unpalatable, inconvenient or undesirable, but if it is necessary for the Committee to sit late into the evening, or even into the night, and that is what the Committee desires, then we are at your disposal. Clearly, we have to expedite the business, and believe me that this Chair, at least, understands the difference between a filibuster and a contribution, and I will say so, but no Member on either side of the Committee should feel constrained by time. We have an important job to do, and it is vital that we do it thoroughly. I hope that is absolutely clear.
Tom Pursglove
Thank you for that clarification, Sir Roger. I thank hon. Members for raising these important issues. I will start by addressing amendments 36 and 37.
We all recognise that young or particularly vulnerable claimants, sufferers of trauma such as sexual violence or ill treatment on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and survivors of modern slavery or trafficking need to be treated with care, dignity and sensitivity. It is important that they are able to fully participate in the asylum process so that, in the case of a genuine applicant, their claim for protection can be recognised and their status settled at the earliest opportunity. That is in the best interests of the claimant and the overall functioning of the asylum system.
At the same time, we recognise that it may be harder for some people to engage in the process. That may be because of their past experiences, a lack of trust in the authorities, or because of the sensitive and personal nature of their claim. That is why clauses 16, 17 and 23 provide for good reasons why evidence might be provided late. What constitutes “good reasons” has not been defined in the Bill, as that would limit the discretion and flexibility of decision makers to take factors into account on a case-by-case basis. It would be impractical to legislate for every case type where someone may have good reasons for not previously disclosing evidence in relation to their protection claim.
Good reasons may include objective factors such as practical difficulties in obtaining evidence. That may be where the evidence was not previously available or there was a lack of availability for an expert report. Good reasons may also include subjective factors, such as a claimant’s particular vulnerabilities relating to their age, sexual orientation, gender identity or mental health. Decision makers, including the judiciary, will be better placed to identify and assess those factors on an individual and case-by-case basis.
Rather than facilitate engagement in the process, amendments 36 and 37 would exclude claimants from it. They would artificially limit the circumstances in which the evidence notice would apply, favouring certain groups above others, who may have genuinely good reasons for providing late evidence. The amendment could create a perverse outcome, whereby it takes longer for the particulars of a genuine claim to be surfaced and to receive favourable consideration. Furthermore, this would create a situation in which unscrupulous claimants could cynically abuse the process by falsely claiming to be within one of those categories. That would tie the hands of decision makers, who are able to look at the facts of a case in detail and make an appropriate decision based on the facts before them. That would perpetuate the issues that the clauses are designed to address, to the detriment of genuine claimants.
Neil Coyle
I did point out earlier that 23% of these applications come from children. Is the Minister suggesting that they are making bogus claims and are cynical? Those are the words he is using. I urge him to distinguish more carefully between children and adults, and would make the case again that children should be exempt, specifically because of their age.
Tom Pursglove
I will develop my remarks a little further. I will come back to some of the points raised in the debate, but to start with I want to get through the rationale behind our thinking on the various amendments before the Committee.
Amendment 37 also fails to fully understand the remit of clause 16. The evidence notice applies solely to evidence in support of protection and human rights claims. The new slavery and trafficking information notice, covered in clause 46, will require a person to provide any information relevant to their status as a victim of modern slavery or trafficking.
On amendment 153, the Government take their responsibility towards those seeking international protection seriously. We recognise that particularly vulnerable claimants and survivors of modern slavery need to be treated with care, dignity and sensitivity. Individuals may be particularly vulnerable as a result of their age, their health, the experiences they have lived through or a range of other factors. It is because these factors can be so wide ranging that I am resisting this amendment.
Clause 16 and the new evidence notice will require those who make a protection or human rights claim to provide evidence in support of their claim before the date specified in the evidence notice. This clause works in parallel with clauses 17 and 23. Where evidence is provided late, claimants will be required to provide reasons for that. Where there are no good reasons for the late provision of evidence, this should result in damage to the claimant’s credibility, and decision makers must have regard to the principle that little weight should be given to that evidence.
By introducing a statutory requirement to provide evidence before a specified date, clause 16 will contribute to the swift resolution of protection and human rights claims, enabling decision makers to consider all the evidence up front and, where appropriate, grant leave. However, we recognise that it may be harder for some people to engage in the process. That may be as a result of trauma they have experienced, a lack of trust in the authorities, or because of the sensitive and personal nature of their claim. That is why clause 16, together with clauses 17 and 23, allows for good reasons why evidence might be provided late. As I say, what constitutes good reasons has not been defined in the Bill. It would be impractical to legislate for every case type where someone may have good reasons for not previously disclosing evidence in relation to their protection claim.
Stuart C. McDonald
Nobody is arguing for an exhaustive list, but if we are all agreed that these are examples of good reasons, why not include them as a non-exhaustive list, just to make sure that these people are protected?
Tom Pursglove
Of course, the situation will be set out clearly in guidance. We think that is the better approach, because it allows greater flexibility on the sorts of factors that might be relevant to the disclosure of late information, and obviously on matters that are relevant to individuals circumstances.
We tend to think that taking a less prescriptive approach than what the hon. Member is suggesting is the best way to address that, because we want to focus on individual cases and on ensuring proper consideration on a case-by-case basis, which is very difficult to capture in the circumstances being suggested here or by adopting the approach necessary to achieve that. That is why clause 16, together with clauses 17 and 23, allows for good reasons why evidence might be provided late.
As per the amendments directly commented on, rather than facilitate engagement in the process, amendment 153 would exclude claimants from it. This would have the perverse impact of some vulnerable claimants facing different evidential requirements simply because their particular vulnerability was not included in the list of exceptions. In addition, the amendment could create a situation where individuals who do not fall into one of the categories identified by the amendment were able to abuse the process by falsely claiming that they did. This would perpetuate the issues these clauses are designed to address to the detriment of genuine claimants, undermining their usefulness.
I am mindful that a number of detailed points were raised during the debate that I want to come to. The issue of deviation from the Home Office’s existing policy was raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. I would not accept that depiction. I would say that the Home Office will have discretion over who is served an evidence notice and the extent to which credibility is damaged by late evidence. Where there are good reasons for late evidence, credibility will not be damaged. There is nothing automatic about this. Credibility is also not by itself determinative.
Building on that point, there are various safeguards in the clauses that mitigate a decision that could lead to removal in breach of the rights afforded by the conventions. First, claimants who raise matters late will have the opportunity to provide reasons for that lateness—and where those reasons are good, credibility will not be damaged. Decision makers will have the discretion to determine the extent to which credibility should be damaged, and that determination need not by itself be determinative of a claim, as I have already said.
The point was raised, understandably and quite rightly, about how we intend to deal with potential victims of trauma. Of course, how decision makers reach decisions is important in all this, and they should treat claims from vulnerable people in accordance with the guidance that we will set out. Extensive training will of course be put in place alongside that. Decision makers are already accustomed to ensuring that complex factors relating to trauma are properly considered.
Neil Coyle
How will this training operate in practice, given the points already made about how long it can take for PTSD symptoms and impact to emerge? No training on the planet can force those symptoms to emerge sooner, unless the Home Office is developing a particularly pernicious system.
Tom Pursglove
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s latter point. I would expect there to be extensive training for decision makers on guidance when it is issued. Again, I make the point that the approach we are adopting is intended to be responsive to individual circumstances, and cases should be considered on a case-by-case basis. That is the entire approach we are taking here.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate, raised the issue of refoulement, and I just want to be clear on this point. Again, individuals will not be removed if there is a risk of refoulement, and the provisions are drafted to ensure this.
On the point made by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark about legal aid, it is generally not available to individuals who are seeking advice or assistance with citizenship applications or on nationality matters. That is because it is not an issue within scope of the legal aid scheme—in other words, it is not an issue that Parliament has expressly provided for in statute as something for which legal aid can be provided.
For any issue where legal aid is not available, individuals can apply for exceptional case funding. The test for this is whether, without legal aid, an individual’s human rights might be breached. The only group of people who can routinely receive advice on nationality and citizenship are separated migrant children, as that is provided for in statute. We will come on to later clauses in which the legal aid provisions in this Bill, which relate to priority removal notices, will no doubt be debated as part of our consideration.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me whether a child rights impact assessment has been carried out on clauses 16 to 23. As part of our obligations under the public sector equality duty, equality impact assessments have been completed in respect of these clauses, and those assessments incorporate a consideration of the impacts on children.
Bambos Charalambous
Having looked at the amendments, I think amendment 153 is more substantive than my amendments 36 and 37. On the understanding that the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, will be pressing amendment 153 to a vote, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
I have had no notification that amendment 153 is going to be pressed to a vote, but, in the spirit of the Committee’s operation, if the hon. Gentleman wishes to move it perhaps he would like to say so now.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank you for your indulgence, Sir Roger.
Amendment proposed: 153, in clause 16, page 20, line 8, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must not serve an evidence notice on a person—
(a) who has made a protection claim or a human rights claim on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) who was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom;
(c) who has made a protection or human rights claim on the basis of gender-based violence;
(d) who has experienced sexual violence;
(e) who is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(f) who is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(g) who has been a victim of torture;
(h) who is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(i) who is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”—(Stuart C. McDonald.)
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from serving an evidence notice on certain categories of people.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I rise to speak to amendment 27, in clause 16, page 20, line 9, leave out “requiring” and insert “requesting”.
Under this amendment, evidence notices would “request” (rather than “requiring”) the provision of supporting information for a protection or human rights claim.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 28, in clause 16, page 20, line 14, leave out “must” and insert “may”.
This amendment would remove the obligation for applicants to provide supporting information for a protection or human rights claim.
Amendment 40, in clause 18, page 22, line 4, leave out “requiring” and insert “requesting”.
Under this amendment, priority removal notices would “request” rather than “require” the recipient to provide information.
Stuart C. McDonald
We have had an extensive debate on these clauses, so I can be brief. Amendment 27 would cast the evidence notices that we have just debated in the form of a request, rather than a requirement. Amendment 28 would mean that an explanation for late evidence could be provided, rather than it being mandatory, so that we were explaining these rights and responsibilities instead of imposing inappropriate penalties. Amendment 40 would provide for similar changes to the priority removal notices instituted by clause 18.
The previous debate was essentially about whether those notices should extend to various groups of people, but in this group of amendments we are attempting to challenge the principles behind them.
Like other hon. Members, we agree that this is just a rehash of the one-stop process, which will achieve little and risk harm to claimants who need refugee protection. It is a distraction from the real issues that the Home Office needs to get a grip of. People who are at risk of persecution are generally desperate to provide evidence if they can, and if they are aware of and understand the processes that they are involved in. There is no advantage to them in providing evidence late, but there are often very good reasons why that happens. On the other hand, if evidence is provided late, it is still ultimately going to have to be looked at; if it proves someone is a refugee, it will have to be recognised, so it is time for the Home Office to get on with fixing the real problem in the asylum system, which is the appalling delays and backlogs in that system. That is why we have tabled these amendments. However, rather than putting them to a vote, I beg your leave to withdraw them, Sir Roger. I will vote against the clause standing part instead.
The Chair
That is unusual. The amendment cannot be withdrawn, because it has not been moved.
Question put, That clause 16 stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 39, in clause 17, page 20, line 22, at end insert—
‘(1A) For subsection (1) substitute—
In determining whether to believe a statement made by or on behalf of a person who makes an asylum claim or human rights claim, a deciding authority shall take into account any behaviour to which this section applies.”
This amendment would mean that – whilst attempts to conceal information, mislead, or delay the processing of a claim would still be taken into account – it will be for the deciding authority to assess what impact this has on the claimant’s credibility.
Section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration 2004 is hugely controversial, both on a point of principle and in its practical effect. It tells decision makers, whether at the Home Office or an independent judge, that if an applicant behaves in a certain way that must be taken as damaging their credibility. Clause 17 adds to the list of behaviours.
Amendment 39 would take us back to the point of principle by saying it is not for Parliament to tell decision makers, judges of fact, what to think about evidence that they have seen and we have not. Are the Government saying that they do not trust them to do their job properly? If we take a step back, the clause would represent the Home Office using legislation to tell decision makers what to think about evidence, in a dispute that it is party to itself. In that light, it is an outrageous principle.
The amendment would mean that those decision makers are asked to take into account the behaviour, rather than being told what to think about it. It is up to them to decide what they should read into late provision of evidence. What if the late provision of evidence is not the claimant’s fault? What if the lawyer made the mistake? What if a medical expert took too long to finalise a report? Ultimately, decision makers have to decide whether the person is at real risk of persecution. If late evidence provides compelling proof of that, they need to be recognised as refugees. Again, get on with fixing decision-making times and quality. From the point of view of principle, we should leave decision makers to weigh up the evidence themselves, without direction from legislators. It is as simple as that.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that this will also be considered a clause stand part debate.
Bambos Charalambous
As with clause 16, the Opposition are deeply concerned that clause 17 will contribute to a culture of disbelief that will harm vulnerable people who deserve our support. We will oppose the clause because we do not believe there is any way that it can be amended to be more reasonable. Clause 17 builds on the false premise established by clause 16 that evidence given after a certain date lessens the weight and, in turn, the credibility of the claimant. Clause 17 would extend that to the possible use of evidence in appeals.
Before I go further, I would like to draw the Committee’s attention once again to the startling statistics I referred to in the debate on clause 16. I do not believe they can be stated enough to illustrate the fallacy inherent in the culture of disbelief being pushed by the Government. Let me state again for the record: the proportion of successful asylum appeals allowed in the year up to March 2021 was 47%, and that has been steadily increasing over the past decade.
That is in a context where legal aid has been decimated. The Home Office is notoriously floundering with delays and a sclerotic process within the context of the hostile environment encouraged by the Government. If with those factors, nearly half of appeals are successful, how on earth can the Minister think it is fair to introduce another arbitrary hurdle for vulnerable people? What kind of civilised society implies that people who have escaped the most horrific situations imaginable are likely to be acting in bad faith? Clause 17, along with clause 16, will shame us and UK values if it reaches the statute book.
All the arguments that apply to clause 16 apply once again. As Ministers well know, there are many reasons why people who are escaping sexual abuse, gendered violence, torture and trauma cannot produce evidence by a particular date. Well-known psychological processes, such as dissociation, PTSD and denial of sexual trauma, militate against the so-called efficient delivery of evidence. That is before we get to the dysfunctional lack of legal aid and advice available, and the broken nature of the asylum system as a whole, as we discussed with reference to clause 16. Again, the Government seem to want to blame their own failings on vulnerable people, and scapegoat them for 11 years of a broken asylum system.
I will give an example of how unfair clause 17 is, and why someone’s credibility is in no way contingent on their ability to provide evidence by an arbitrary date. The example, concerning someone I will call “Gloria”, is a real case that was described to me by the excellent organisation Women for Refugee Women.
Gloria and her husband were supporters of the Opposition political party in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When the Government started to suspect that her husband was talking to journalists about human rights abuses, they targeted both him and Gloria. Gloria was raped by soldiers and taken to prison. Upon release, she and her husband fled the Congo, but they were forced back into the DRC and targeted by the Government again. Gloria was violently raped again by several soldiers and held in a detention centre from where she was trafficked to the UK.
When she arrived here, Gloria was detained in a house and forced to have sex with several men for weeks, until a cleaner helped her to escape. This woman encouraged her to claim asylum, but Gloria was too scared to talk about her traffickers in the interview, so she could not explain why she had not claimed asylum earlier. Her male interpreter at the interview did not speak Lingala fluently and got angry with her when she tried to clarify points. She had no mental health support so was unable to discuss the extreme sexual violence she had experienced, and her lawyer never explained to her that the experience of being trafficked was relevant to her claim.
Gloria was refused asylum and taken to Yarl’s Wood, which she found highly traumatic, given her previous experience of incarceration in the DRC. She was released from Yarl’s Wood and then came to seek help from Women for Refugee Women, as she was homeless. She joined one of the organisation’s creative projects and, over time, began speaking about her story. Gloria now has a positive reasonable grounds decision and is preparing further submissions for a fresh asylum claim. Under clauses 16 and 17, Gloria could be prohibited from presenting evidence of the violence that she faced, with the ultimate risk of being returned to her persecutors. Gloria continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts.
Surely when hearing of cases such as Gloria’s, Ministers must pause and realise that provisions such as clause 17 are inappropriate. Worse than that, calling into question the credibility of people who are traumatised is severely harmful. As discussed with reference to clause 16, the ultimate risk of undermining the credibility of applicants and denying the validity of their evidence is refoulement and is in contradiction of the refugee convention.
The one-stop process being proposed in the group of clauses that include clause 17 would force traumatised women to raise all the reasons why they need protection at the outset. If they fail to do so, their credibility could be damaged, according to the clause. It is worth stating again that, as with clause 16, this goes directly against the Home Office’s guidance, which states that late disclosure should not automatically prejudice a woman’s credibility.
As highlighted, moreover, many women do not realise that their experiences of gendered violence may constitute an asylum claim. Poor legal advice compounds that problem, so women do not raise these experiences in their initial claim. Clauses 16, 17 and 23 will result in more women being wrongly refused protection and so becoming liable for detention.
Clauses 16, 17 and 23 create a mechanism that forces people to produce relevant evidence by a fixed date. If that deadline is missed, the evidence could be given “minimal weight”, which will impact on a decision maker’s assessment of an applicant’s LGBT+ status and/or whether they have a well-founded fear of persecution. That would be acutely detrimental to LGBT+ people because of the difficulties in gathering and providing evidence that helps to confirm their sexual orientation or gender identity. Many LGBT+ people may have spent a long time trying to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity from other people not only in their countries of origin, but in the UK. Further, it can be an enormous challenge, if not impossible, to obtain supporting evidence from former partners, friends or family members in their country of origin, who can be too afraid to write a witness statement. For trans people specifically, many are unable to access healthcare in their countries of origin and to receive timely support in the UK, and, again, struggle to offer supporting evidence as a result.
If LGBT+ people get evidence such as letters from those who can testify to their sexual orientation or gender identity, proof of membership of LGBT+ organisations or photos at Pride, it may not be until they are more comfortable and confident in being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity, and therefore easily after any deadlines for evidence are imposed by the Home Office.
Clauses 17, 20 and 23 direct or encourage decision makers, including immigration judges on appeal, to exclude evidence or reject the credibility of a claimant. That exclusion or rejection is arbitrary. It is not on the basis of the decision maker’s assessment of the relevance or probity of the evidence or truthfulness of the claimant. It is not on the basis of any individual assessment of all the relevant material and circumstances.
The Chair
The Chair has no desire to curtail comment, particularly from the Front Benches, but we do have to remain within the scope of the matter under discussion. I am conscious that that is difficult when there are related clauses, but the hon. Gentleman has strayed into referring to clauses 20 and 23. The Chair will bear that in mind when we come to those debates; I would not expect repetition on the subject.
Tom Pursglove
Amendment 39 would render clause 17 inoperable. Clause 17 introduces two new behaviours into section 8 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004. That section provides that a decision maker shall take account, as damaging the claimant’s credibility, of the behaviour to which the section applies. Without the consequent amendment to section 8, which amendment 39 seeks to remove, there is no penalty for late evidence or not acting in good faith, which would make such a measure inappropriate for primary legislation and would also render it pointless.
Clause 17 is not prescriptive as to how decision makers, within both the Home Office and the judiciary, determine credibility or the claim itself. It has always been the case that decision makers must consider egregious conduct by the claimant. It is then open to the Home Office or the courts to decide the extent to which credibility should subsequently be damaged. Amendment 39 simply seeks to do away with that well established principle.
Let me build on the point about the judiciary and the point that was raised by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. He asked, “Aren’t judges best placed to determine the credibility that evidence should have? Why be prescriptive?” The point that I will make in response is that clause 17 is not prescriptive as to how judges determine credibility or the claim itself. It adds two new behaviours to the existing section 8 of the 2004 Act. That section provides that a decision maker shall take account, as damaging the claimant’s credibility, of the behaviour to which the section applies. I think it is important to clarify this. It should be noted that clause 17 applies to all decision makers. That includes Home Office staff who make the initial decision on protection and human rights claims. Clause 17 adds new behaviours to the existing behaviours that should already be taken into account as damaging to credibility under section 8 of the 2004 Act. The concept that certain conduct should be damaging to credibility is nothing new. It has always been the case that decision makers must consider egregious conduct by the claimant. It is then open to the Home Office or the courts to decide the extent to which credibility should subsequently be damaged.
Clause 17 will also not be determinative of a claim. Decision makers will still be required to consider the claimant’s credibility in the round, as they would currently as part of their decision-making processes.
Neil Coyle
Clause 17 further compounds the damage potentially arising from clause 16. When answering the question about a child rights impact assessment, the Minister seemed to talk about an equality impact assessment. I wonder again whether a child rights impact assessment, as developed by his colleagues in the Department for Education for schools, would benefit the Government, to prevent them from imposing conditions that fall foul of other Government legislation—
The Chair
Order. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but we have gone past clause 16; we are now on clause 17.
Neil Coyle
But having a child rights impact assessment would prevent the Government from implementing clause 17 in a way that harms children and causes the Government to lose legal cases further down the line, so I believe it is relevant, Sir Roger.
Tom Pursglove
Thank you, Sir Roger. I want to pick up on a couple of other points that were raised in responding to amendment 39. I should clarify that clauses 17 and 23 do not apply to consideration of modern slavery referrals. Claims are considered holistically, and credibility is not by itself determinative of a claim. It is important to emphasise that point. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate raised the case of Gloria. Obviously, I am mindful of talking about individual cases because of the difficulties associated with that, as I am sure that he will appreciate, but clauses 17 and 23 do not prevent someone from providing late evidence. Late evidence will still be considered in full. Where there are good reason for lateness, a person’s credibility will not be damaged and clause 23 will not apply. I wanted to provide clarity on that point. With that, I ask that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East withdraw amendment 39, and that the Committee agree that clause 17 stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
As a point of principle, I object to Parliament telling decision makers what to think, but having made my point I am happy to leave it there for now, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question put, That clause 17 stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
I beg to move amendment 60, in clause 18, page 22, line 26, leave out “10(1) or (2)” and insert “10”.
This amendment is consequential on clause 43 of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 61.
Clause stand part.
Tom Pursglove
It is often the case that those facing removal or deportation from the UK raise late protection or human rights claims that could have been provided at an earlier juncture. That causes unnecessary delay and expense to the taxpayer. The clause strengthens the existing one-stop process by establishing a priority removal notice, or PRN, which may be issued to a person who is liable to removal or deportation from the UK. The PRN will require a person to raise any new or additional grounds for why they should remain in the UK before the date specified in the notice. That includes information relevant to whether the person is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking. Any supporting evidence must be provided at the same time. That will ensure that all claims can be considered sufficiently in advance of the person’s removal, reducing the extent to which removal can be frustrated, and allowing those in need of international protection to be identified and supported as early as possible.
Factors that may lead to a person being issued with a priority removal notice will be set out in guidance and will include, for example, where a person has previously made a protection or human rights claim. Where information or evidence is provided on or after the PRN cut-off date and without good reason, it should be damaging to the person’s credibility. Those reforms will drive efficiencies across the system, decreasing the cost of unnecessary litigation and failed removal attempts, while maintaining fairness, ensuring access to justice and upholding the rule of law.
Amendments 60 and 61 are minor amendments to reflect a change to clause 43 and to remove a superfluous paragraph in subsection (7) of the clause that has no material impact.
Health and Care Bill (Seventeenth sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Good afternoon. It is lovely to see everyone again. I must remind you of various things before we start. Please switch electronic devices to silent. No food or drink apart from water is permitted. Please wear masks when not speaking, as per the Government and House of Commons Commission guidance, unless there is some obvious reason not to do so. It would be helpful if any speaking notes could be e-mailed to hansardnotes @parliament.uk. I am also asked to remind people that they can have lateral flow tests twice a week if they are coming on to the estate.
Clause 120
International healthcare arrangements
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 120, page 101, line 15, at end insert
“but does not include a Scottish Minister, a Welsh Minister or a Northern Ireland Minister”.
This amendment removes devolved Ministers from the definition of a “public authority” on which the Secretary of State could confer functions, or to which the Secretary of State could delegate functions, under this section.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 111, in clause 120, page 101, line 22, at end insert—
“(5A) In section 5 (Requirement for consultation with devolved authorities) in subsection (1), for ‘consult’ substitute ‘gain the consent of’.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to obtain the consent of devolved governments before regulations under section 2 of the renamed Healthcare (International Arrangements) Act 2019 could be made.
Amendment 146, in clause 120, page 101, line 22, at end insert—
“(5A) In section 7 (Regulations and directions)—
(a) in subsection (4), after ‘under’, insert ‘section 2 or’;
(b) after subsection (4), insert—
‘(4A) A draft instrument which contains regulations under section 2 may not be laid before Parliament under subsection (4) unless a document containing a proposal for such regulations and an impact assessment of the costs and the demand placed on the NHS have been laid before Parliament.’”
This amendment would make regulations giving effect to a healthcare agreement subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, and would require a proposal for such regulations and an impact assessment to be laid before Parliament before any such regulations could be brought forward.
Clause stand part.
Dr Whitford
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.
The amendment brings us back to a knotty problem I have raised previously: although the Bill was brought forward as predominantly a Bill for England, it does have an impact on the devolved Governments, who saw it the day before it was launched. There is absolute support in Scotland, and I am sure across all the devolved nations, for strong healthcare agreements with other nations outwith the EU, particularly Switzerland and the European Free Trade Association countries, which are not currently covered, but it has to be remembered that the delivery of healthcare is a devolved issue. We are trying to ensure that that is recognised in the Bill, so that the UK Government, who absolutely have the right to negotiate international agreements, work much more closely than we have seen them do so far on how the technicalities should work in the devolved health services.
Amendments 110 and 111 relate to the same issue: the fact that the devolved nations, and certainly the Ministers concerned, were not involved in the development of these clauses. There is no mention of them, and no mention of how they will be involved in shaping any healthcare agreements or health insurance card. That is what we are now calling for.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I shall speak in support of amendment 146, which stands in my name and the name of other Opposition Members. There is a temptation to get teary-eyed and reminisce about the 2017-19 Parliament; it is almost overwhelming, but I will resist and battle on.
What we are discussing in this clause amounts to a significant amendment to the Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Act 2019, on which I had the pleasure of leading for my party, opposite not one but two of the Minister’s predecessors. I hope that the same fate will not befall this Minister as befell his predecessors who dealt with this legislation—although one of them actually got a promotion. Clause 120 renames that Act the perhaps more snappily titled Healthcare (International Arrangements) Act 2019, which is what the original Bill was called until Parliament, in its wisdom, decided that as this was a Brexit Bill, it was better to have it deal with matters associated purely with Brexit, and not to slip in wider powers almost wholly unrelated to our decision to leave the EU.
The clause gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations to pay for healthcare provided outside the United Kingdom where the payments give effect to a healthcare agreement. In the context of what has come before, that is no surprise, and it is certainly something we would expect to be pursued. It also means that the Secretary of State will be able to make regulations on the payment of healthcare provided in another country where the healthcare is outside the scope of healthcare agreements if he thinks that payment is justified by exceptional circumstances and the healthcare is provided in a country with which the UK already has a healthcare agreement. This discretionary power could, for example, be exercised to pay for a specific treatment that falls outside the scope of an existing healthcare agreement.
Not content with giving himself the power to enter into further healthcare agreements outside the EU, by doing this, the Secretary of State effectively gives himself another power to make further payments if he later discovers that there was another matter that he thinks we should have been paying for that had not been covered by those agreements. It may be that that situation would only arise in exceptional circumstances, but the whole genesis of the original Bill was that it was considered sensible to retain reciprocal healthcare arrangements with countries in the EEA, whereas the clause implies that things may not be quite so reciprocal in future. I wonder what the dynamic will be in negotiations with third countries if, on our side at least, we can just authorise further payments outside any agreement anyway.
These are potentially extraordinarily wide powers, and the regulations would be subject only to the negative procedure. Our amendment is not only consistent with the importance of parliamentary scrutiny, but would ensure value for money. The original Bill contained a similar power to that in the clause and was considered by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place. It set out clearly the power’s potential impact:
“If, without such amendment, the Secretary of State wished to fund wholly or entirely the cost of all mental health provision in the state of Arizona, or the cost of all hip replacements in Australia, the regulations would only be subject to the negative procedure.”
[Interruption.] The Minister is chuckling. He may well know that I have used that quote before, because it highlights the extreme examples that are possible under the Bill. The Committee continued:
“Of course, these examples will not be priorities for any Secretary of State in this country.”
We should hope not. While the Minister may be able to rule out those two specific examples today, we have to consider how the powers could be used, and not just how they might be expected to be used.
The concern that this is a very broad power has been further strengthened by the inclusion of the power to make payments outside healthcare arrangements. We have to ask what the Secretary of State is trying to solve by giving himself these additional powers. Let us look at what the powers do. There is no limit to the amount of payments he can make. There is no limit on who can be funded worldwide. There is no limit to the type of healthcare being funded. Such powers without qualification or any criteria being applied in the Bill are simply unacceptable, so a resolution of both Houses should be required, alongside an impact assessment of the costs and demands any regulations might place on the NHS.
On the costs, there is no limit on what the Secretary of State might pay. If we are to assume that this will come out of existing departmental budgets, who will receive less? I mention this not just in the context of extra payments that the Secretary of State may make for things not covered by agreements, but in terms of the burden on the NHS of delivering any new obligations, because, to be blunt, cost recovery has been suboptimal. As the Law Society of Scotland said:
“As the NHS has never been very effective in reclaiming the fees owed to it by overseas visitors to the UK, the UK may find itself substantially worse off financially when new arrangements for funding cross-national use of health services are put in place.”
The Government need to raise their game on cost recovery, and if there is an additional administrative burden on the NHS in setting up new systems of cost recovery because of new agreements reached, we need a commitment from the Minister to adequate resources to ensure that those services are delivered and the cost recovered.
We support the concept of reciprocal healthcare arrangements. They are a very good thing for our citizens and for visitors to the country, but it cannot be right to give the Secretary of State such a blank cheque. Amendment 146 will ensure transparency, accountability and a proper assessment of the obligations entered into by virtue of regulations under the clause.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
The hon. Gentleman alluded to being shadow Minister during the passage of the previous piece of legislation, and that reflects once again his longevity in his post. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire for amendment 110, and for bringing the issue before the Committee. It is right that we debate and air it in this forum. I am aware of the concerns, which she expressed extremely clearly, about the Secretary of State’s ability potentially to confer functions on, or delegate functions under the 2019 Act to, Ministers from the devolved Administrations. She highlighted the perfect example: the challenge that we inevitably face with elements of the devolution settlement. Delivery may rest with the devolved Administration, and is therefore a devolved power; concluding international agreements is a reserved matter and therefore one for the UK Government.
Understandably, the point of principle on both sides is not to concede consent but, from our perspective, to consult. I will come on to that in a minute. I appreciate the perspective brought by the hon. Lady and her colleagues in the Scottish Government. Let me reiterate the UK Government’s strong commitment to meaningful and ongoing engagement with the DAs on reciprocal healthcare. There is already a statutory obligation under section 5 of the 2019 Act to consult the devolved Administrations before making any regulations under the Act in areas within the competence of the devolved legislatures.
We are working with officials in the devolved Administrations on the development of a memorandum of understanding setting out how we will fulfil that duty in practice. Indeed, the memorandum goes further in undertaking to engage and consult the devolved Administrations, not just at the end of the implementation stage but from a much earlier stage. I appreciate that the hon. Lady may say that, although that is progress, it does not go far enough. I believe that good progress is being made, but I suspect that on Report, I will have to report back on where we have got to, and whether we have managed to find a way forward. The work continues to be done.
Turning to amendment 110, the regulation-making powers in HEEASAA—I was going to say that was a shortened version of the Act’s title; I might just refer to “the aforementioned Act”, which may save us a little time—are important as they provide the UK Government with the ability to implement international reciprocal healthcare agreements. The Government fully support the devolution settlement and, as I say, we would not normally confer functions on the devolved Administrations under the Act without their agreement and consent.
To date, we have used the power only to ensure that Ministers in the devolved Administrations can have a role in authorising planned treatment applications if they wish, but we need to ensure that when negotiating agreements and committing to international obligations we can be confident that we can implement them. Further, we are keen to ensure that Ministers in the devolved Administrations can continue to have a role in devolved planned treatment applications. I reassure the hon. Lady that we continue to explore the issue with the DAs. I do not want to pre-empt what may emerge from that. For that reason, I encourage her not to press the amendment to a Division at this stage. She may reserve her right to do so at a subsequent stage in the passage of the legislation.
Amendment 111 would introduce a duty to seek the consent of the DAs before making regulations relating to international reciprocal healthcare agreements that contain a provision within a devolved competence. Reciprocal healthcare agreements benefit all our residents across the UK, providing safeguards and support for our most vulnerable, as well as greater opportunities to travel, for work or leisure. Where an agreement is in place, those living in the UK can access affordable healthcare when they need it when travelling abroad.
As I have said on multiple occasions, we recognise the need to work with our friends in the devolved Administrations, but we cannot include a statutory consent requirement. That would risk the UK Government not being able to comply with our international obligations, and it would, in a sense, give the devolved Administrations a veto over a reserved matter. I do not understate the complexity of the way the constitutional settlement works in this context.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I would like to live in the Minister’s world sometimes. What I am struggling to understand from him before he finishes—
Karin Smyth
It looked like he was finishing. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston referred to the suboptimal collection of payments in the health service where they are due. When I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee, it reported on this issue, generally in the context of treatment for overseas patients. I am struggling to understand how the Government expect the NHS to manage this operationally, given how suboptimal overseas payments have been—prescription charge recuperation, for example. This strikes me as an incredibly complicated issue. When we talk about impact assessments, perhaps the Minister could tell us what work has been done in the Department to understand the impact on the service, and how people who are providing treatment are to understand where we have reciprocal arrangements and where we do not, and who is entitled to that treatment.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We have made significant strides forward in making this easier and clearer for the NHS in recent years, recouping money where appropriate to help fund our NHS. We regularly update the guidance to trusts, which—as the hon. Lady will appreciate—are responsible for recouping funds where a patient is chargeable. They are increasingly consistent in how they apply those rules.
I concede to the hon. Lady, quite reasonably, that there are occasions when trusts do not apply the rules in a fully consistent manner. That is why we have taken steps centrally with NHS England to ensure that we pass very clear guidance to them; we do not believe that this will impose any heavier burden on them than is currently the case. Similarly, in the implementation of the agreement with the EU—again, it would be churlish not to admit it—we have faced some challenges in making sure that other countries understand their obligations to British citizens abroad under that agreement. That is in the nature of the early days of a new agreement.
Anecdotally, I receive correspondence on this issue from right hon. and hon. Members, and there was an increase in that correspondence at the very start of the year: Members were either saying that they had constituents who went abroad and did not receive the free healthcare they should have received, or were taking up the cases of people who visited this country who were charged and did not think they should have been, or vice versa. That correspondence has significantly dropped off in recent months, so with that caveat about it being anecdotal, I suggest that the new agreement has bedded in fairly efficiently. I have not had any responses from trusts saying that the way in which the agreement works has imposed any additional burdens on them that they cannot cope with.
Of course, there are other countries with which we already have different bilateral agreements, so I am confident at the moment that the administrative processes will be an effective extension of current processes but, as with all these things, I keep the issue under review. The hon. Member for Bristol South will know from her time in the NHS that if a trust found that the burden was significant or increasing, it would not hesitate to tell me. Equally, we are looking at reciprocal healthcare agreements here—we are not looking at a whole load of agreements, but dealing with them bit by bit, as we negotiate them, and we are allowing them to bed in. That was a long answer, but she made an important point.
It is time for the Government to build on our significant success in negotiating the agreement with the European Union and our new relationship, and to turn our attention to the UK’s relationship with countries outside the EU, as another strand of our global Britain strategy. That is why we are extending the geographical scope of the 2019 Act beyond the EEA and Switzerland and renaming it, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said, the Healthcare (International Arrangements) Act 2019.
Outside Europe, we have limited healthcare agreements with a number of countries, which support people from the UK in accessing medically necessary healthcare. These agreements do not always provide comprehensive cover to those who need it; for example, a person suffering from kidney failure may be able to access emergency treatment if something happens to them while abroad, but they would likely have to pay for their ongoing dialysis needs privately.
The clause will enable the Government to implement comprehensive reciprocal healthcare agreements with other countries around the world by allowing for the reimbursement of healthcare costs and the exchange of data to facilitate this reimbursement. By implementing such agreements, we can better support people when they are abroad. Comprehensive reciprocal healthcare agreements can help people to access necessary healthcare services when they are travelling for leisure or business. Importantly, they can particularly benefit those with chronic health conditions, for whom travel insurance is very costly—or in some cases, sadly, completely unaffordable. Furthermore, agreements usually reduce the burden on NHS trusts, which would otherwise have to pursue individuals to recover overseas charges, as there is normally state-to-state reimbursement built into the agreement. Hopefully, the provisions will mean that we can reduce the debt owed to the NHS in an administratively unburdensome way.
Finally, reciprocal healthcare agreements can strengthen our relationships with countries around the world and foster greater healthcare co-operation, including on health security and research, the importance of which hon. Members on both sides of the House would acknowledge has been illustrated by the recent pandemic and the research around that.
The clause will enable the Government to implement more comprehensive agreements where that is to the benefit of the whole UK. We will also be able to improve arrangements to make them more effective. Our ambition is for new and improved agreements to be brought under the umbrella of the new UK global health insurance card, which will bring our EU and rest-of-the-world agreements together into a cohesive and visible service for UK citizens, and ensure that people can take advantage of their rights under these agreements.
During the 2019 Bill debates, which I confess to having read, the Government were asked to review the breadth of powers in that Bill after the conclusion of the EU exit negotiations. We have listened to the concerns expressed by the House, and our amendments to this Bill remove section 1 of the 2019 Act, which provided for a free-standing payment power and enabled the Secretary of State to make unilateral payments for healthcare in the EEA and Switzerland—a point to which the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston alluded. This power is no longer needed now that the withdrawal agreement and the trade and co-operation agreement are in place to protect the healthcare rights of UK nationals living in EU member states.
We are replacing that broad payment power with regulation-making powers. These can provide for payments to be made in two circumstances: first, to implement healthcare agreements, and secondly in countries where there is a healthcare agreement in place but the healthcare falls outside the scope of the agreement, and the Secretary of State determines that there are exceptional circumstances that justify payment. This latter element prevents a cliff-edge loss of rights in marginal cases.
As demonstrated in recent months, healthcare co-operation between countries is vital in our globalised world. Reciprocal healthcare provides safeguards and support for those who might find themselves in a vulnerable position, and supports greater opportunity for travel for those with healthcare conditions. As we move into the post-EU-exit world, we are excited to seize these new opportunities for global Britain. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Dr Whitford
I welcome the drive to set up these reciprocal arrangements. One of the big losses of Brexit threatened to be the loss of the European health insurance card, and I am glad that arrangements have been reached with most European countries, although obviously not in some of the EFTA countries; that is still to be dealt with. I appreciate that the Minister recognises the particular importance of that for people on dialysis, who were unable travel under that scheme, as they require dialysis three times a week. The majority simply could not pay for it themselves, nor would insurance ever be likely to cover it, so I welcome the aim on that. It simply comes back to the need for genuine consultation with the devolved authorities, which would be delivering healthcare for those from the reciprocal countries arriving in the UK.
The Chair
Does the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston wish to press amendment 146?
Justin Madders
I thought at one point that the Minister was going to accept the amendment, given the way he was talking about the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and impact assessments. He will not need to be reminded that on a number of occasions in the past 18 months the Department has not produced those impact assessments when regulations have been produced. As he has clearly become a full-blooded Brexiteer, given his comments today, I am minded to press the amendment to a vote because it is about Parliament taking back control.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment 145, in clause 121, page 102, line 40, at end insert—
“(11A) When conducting a review under subsection (1), the Commission must ensure the direct involvement of both users and providers of services.”
This amendment creates an explicit requirement for service users’ and providers’ involvement in the reviews and assessments that the new Part 46A creates.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 60—Default powers of Secretary of State in relation to adult social care.
Government new clause 61—Care Quality Commission’s powers in relation to local authority failings.
Clause stand part.
Alex Norris
We have been at this now for the best part of a couple of months. This is our 16th session. Some of the faces have changed but largely it is the same group of people. We have reached clause 121 of the Health and Care Bill and we have finally found the bit that is about care. It is amazing—you had to not blink or you might have missed it. But I would not get too excited; it is only two clauses, and neither comes anywhere near addressing the problems we face in our nation’s social care.
The national Government’s cuts to local authorities over the past decade have had a devastating impact, particularly around social care. They have led to rationed care and poor quality care. They have led to care being devalued as a profession and to providers being unable to retain their staff. As a result, we see short visits and a constant changing cast of carers, and we know that is bad for all those individuals receiving support. That is the story across all our communities, and it is worsening as we go.
Clause 121 proposes that the Care Quality Commission will now make a general assessment of the quality of a local authority’s offering for those needing care. Once those reports start coming back, I have no doubt they will make very difficult reading for many parts of the country, if not all, because they will lay bare the issues that I talk about. I do not have any problem with inspection and public assessment of the quality of care services. I do not have any problem understanding this at a local authority level rather than provider by provider. My constituents, and people across the country, deserve excellent services, and I can see how these things work in support of that goal. What I do worry about is that this will be just another way for the Government to passport blame to hard-pressed local authorities that are doing their best but are simply not adequately funded to do their job. That is the reality in this country today.
Amendment 145 seeks to improve clause 121 a little, in line with our broader efforts throughout the Bill, because we want to see service users at the heart of the health and care system as genuine shapers of what happens to them in their lives and their community. We want to make sure that those with the greatest stake and the greatest expertise by experience have the chance to be part of the process, as set out in clause 121, and to talk about their experiences in their community and about how things might be done better, because they hold so many of the answers to the challenges we face. That is a moderate but important ask and I hope the Minister will support it in the Bill or make a commitment that it will follow in the guidance that will be issued to the Care Quality Commission.
Similarly, we should seek the voice of providers, for a couple of reasons. First, they know what the successes and challenges are in their local system, and they know about the hard conversations they have with commissioners, which ought to be conversations about an individual’s needs but are, inevitably, rationing decisions. Secondly, and this them gives a special insight, many if not most—probably the vast majority—of these providers work across multiple local authorities, giving them a rich picture of the differences in approach, availability of care and similar. That is a rich contribution. We strongly think that those two voices should be heard, and the amendment is a good way of doing that.
Turning to Government new clauses 60 and 61, I express my gratitude to the Minister for his correspondence on them to give the Committee a sense of where the Government seek to go, but he was not quite able to provide comfort. New clause 60 is a mess constitutionally. It allows the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care greater powers over local authority social care functions, including giving him powers to talk about failures and directions. First, local authority accountability is to its public. We know that, every four years, we have elections. Beyond that, exceptionally and rarely, the Secretary of State who leads for local government—I know they have taken “local government” out of the name, but there is still one in whatever the Department is calling itself now—can take action in instances where the local authority is deemed to be failing in its duties to its population. The Secretary of State can put in directions, support and, as we have seen, even commissioners. That is a well-established process, but the clause inserts the Secretary of State for Health and Social and Care into this arrangement, which is a considerable overreach. It gives the Secretary of State a power to impose themselves on local authorities in a way that I do not think is welcome. At the bare minimum, it ought to be something that is exercised by the colleague of the Secretary of State who leads on local government in ways that are already well established, rather than creating another actor in the piece.
That leads us to the continued pattern that we have seen throughout the Bill. I am afraid that integration is a bit of a myth, but where there is any, it is largely that the health service ought to have more power and, more importantly, that the Secretary of State ought to have more power over telling local government what to do. There is no equivalent or supporting ability for local authorities to impact on the decisions taken by the Secretary of State. That creates a mismatch, which is really undesirable. I am keen to hear from the Minister why it was decided that the Secretary of State needed direct access to do that, when they could perhaps have worked better through their colleague, who does it more conventionally on a day-by-day basis.
New clause 61 dispenses with the Care Quality Commission’s ability to issue a notice of failure to a local authority in England. Again, when taken with new clause 60, my suspicion is that that is because the Secretary of State is in charge now. The commissioners and inspectors may be there to give some helpful evidence but, in reality, it is the Secretary of State who will command and control the system. That might be deemed adequate by the Government with regards to the health service, but I do not think it is adequate in local government, given the mandate that our councillors get from their population.
We cannot support the new clauses. We will not oppose clause 121, because there needs to be some oversight in the new environment that the Government are seeking to create, but I have no doubt that we will have to find a better way to do that in years to come. In the meantime, I hope that we can at least enhance that with amendment 145.
Dr Whitford
I rise to support amendment 145 but also to echo the comments of the Labour Front Bench about how far we have to go into the Bill, which is called a Health and Care Bill, before we hear anything about care. I think that all of us with any interest in social care have recognised the challenges within the sector over the past 18 months, which have been laid bare by the pandemic. What needs to come out is a much more radical approach to social care, including closing what is thought to be between a £6 billion and £8 billion funding gap in England every year.
In Scotland, we spend over 43% more per head on social care than in England, and that provides free personal care to people who are resident in Scotland. We fund the real living wage, which helps to begin to tackle the workforce issues, but the deeper issue facing all four nations is that we need a different approach to social care. The Feeley review, which the Scottish Government commissioned last autumn, highlighted the fact that we constantly talk about social care as a burden, and about how much it costs, instead of realising that almost half of those receiving care are people of working age. We must recognise the importance of social care for both younger and older people, recognise it as a human rights issue, and recognise it as funding to allow people to participate in the society in which they live. We need to turn that around, which means that we need to change the approach to the staff who deliver it.
Workforce is the biggest single problem. It is unfortunately much worse since we left the EU—certainly in parts of rural Scotland, where up to 30% of care workers were European citizens. We need to develop care as a profession. It is a registered profession in Scotland, but the staff need to be treated as professionals with career development, so that people come into social care for a lifetime, not just until they get a job on the checkout in Tesco. I appreciate clause 121, but it is not remotely radical enough. In something called the Health and Care Bill it is very small considering the mountain that has to be climbed.
Edward Argar
I do not think it is an entirely fair reflection to ask why it is taking so long to get to social care reform. We have already had debates about integrated care systems, integrate care partnerships and the integrated care board; a key element of that was about local government working with the NHS in the social care space, so that is a slightly unfair characterisation. Members will have heard the Prime Minister set out his ambitious plan to fix social care and waiting lists, with more to follow.
Clause 121 inserts proposed new section 46A into the Health and Social Care Act 2008, introducing a new legal duty for the CQC to review and make an assessment of the performance of local authorities in exercising certain regulated care functions related to adult social care. As part of the new legal duty, the commission will be required to publish a report of its assessment. The specific regulated care functions that local authorities will be assessed against will be set out in secondary legislation. These reviews will be informed by objectives and priorities set by the Secretary of State and will reflect indicators of quality and methodology devised by the commission and approved by the Secretary of State.
The commission may choose to revise the quality indicators and the statement describing the methodology periodically, or do so under the Secretary of State’s direction. In order to provide transparency, the commission must publish the objectives and priorities, the quality indicators that will inform assessments, and the statement describing the methodology. This new duty is crucial in increasing assurance and transparency about how local authorities are delivering critical adult social care responsibilities, on which so many people rely.
Amendment 145 would alter the proposed duty under proposed new section 46A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to require the Care Quality Commission directly to involve service users and providers when undertaking reviews of local authorities’ regulated care functions. I understand the spirit behind this amendment and sympathise with its aims. It is our intention that reviews by the CQC should draw upon a wide range of information and perspectives from the sector, including from providers and service users.
However, I do not feel this cause is best advanced through acceptance of this amendment. The views of people who use services, and the providers of those services, are already central to the way in which the CQC regulates. The CQC has a proven record of hearing a wide range of views since its creation over 10 years ago, both when it develops its methodology and when it assesses quality and safety in services. That is supported by section 4 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, which places a duty on the CQC when performing its functions to have regard to views expressed by or on behalf of members of the public about health and social care services, and to the experiences of people who use health and social care services, and their families and friends.
Reviews under proposed new section 46A are not due to commence until 2023-24. As the CQC designs its approach to reviewing local authority performance before then, it will work closely with people who use health and social care services, their families, health and social care providers and the organisations that represent them, as well as other key stakeholders to ensure that its regulation is properly informed by a diverse range of views.
More detailed information on how local authorities’ reviews will be undertaken will be provided in a method statement, which the CQC must develop and the Secretary of State will approve. Section 46A(8) requires the CQC to produce a method statement outlining the method that it proposes to use in reviewing local authorities. This statement is a more appropriate place to set out operational details such as when and how providers and service users will be involved—the shadow Minister made a point about whether it would be guidance and whether it should be in the legislation.
I would like to further reassure right hon. and hon. Members, given the CQC’s publication of its new strategy, “The world of health and social care is changing. So are we” and “A new strategy for the changing world of health and social care” in May this year. That sets out a bold new approach to regulation, underpinned by a focus on what good and outstanding person-centred care looks like, and smarter use of data and intelligence. The CQC consulted on the strategy earlier this year, receiving more than 790 responses from people who use services, the public and voluntary groups and almost 400 from commissioning bodies and service providers. For the reasons that I have given, I would encourage the shadow Minister to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Let me turn to the relevant clause. Demographic change has resulted in more people having care and support needs, and we expect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future. As social care affects a greater number of people at some point during their lives, it is important that there is a transparent system through which local authorities can be held to account by their populations for delivering the right kind of care—I take the point, which I think the hon. Member for Nottingham North was making, about democratic elections, essentially, forming a key part of that; I do not disagree, but I believe it is important that there is a mechanism to assess quality of care in this context, and the best outcomes within the resources available. The measure delivers on that aim by requiring that assessment of how local authorities are delivering critical adult social care functions.
I believe that this new level of insight will support local authorities to understand what they are doing well and what they could do better. It will also help the Department to understand what is happening, forming an overarching national picture alongside the local-level assessments. I do not believe it challenges the parallel strands, which we have talked about before—the different approaches in a national health service versus local authority social care provision. I do not believe it threatens democratic oversight, either.
Turning to Government new clauses 60 and 61, new clause 60 provides the Secretary of State with powers to intervene where local authorities are failing to discharge their functions under part 1 of the Care Act 2014 to an acceptable standard. This will form one part of a new approach to assurance and support for local authorities, which will underpin our efforts to improve outcomes for people receiving care and support. Our new power of intervention will sit alongside this statutory CQC assurance framework. Where issues are identified, our priority will be to support local authorities to lead their own improvement. However, where CQC assessment identifies a persistent and serious risk to people’s wellbeing and local authorities are unable to lead their own improvement, it is right that the Government have powers to step in and help secure that improvement.
We will intervene using the most proportionate and appropriate tools available. That might include requiring local authorities to report to an improvement panel or co-operate with improvement advisers nominated by the Department of Health and Social Care. We have ruled out the use of independent trusts, whereby services are removed from local authority control and transferred to an independent charity or a commercial organisation. We will of course engage partners in the sector to finalise our approach, with additional detail to be set out in the forthcoming White Paper. Where necessary, the new clause gives the Secretary of State, or an individual nominated by the Secretary of State, power to take over the exercise of specified adult social care functions of a local authority.
In the light of our new approach to assurance and support, we are making changes to section 50 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 through new clause 61. Where the CQC identifies failure, it may make recommendations to local authorities. It must also notify the Secretary of State of the failure and advise him on possible next steps to secure improvement. Because we are creating bespoke powers relating to adult social care services, we are taking adult social care functions under part 1 of the Care Act out of the scope of the existing powers of intervention under section 7D of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970.
Our intervention amendments are key to ensuring that people can expect high-quality care, regardless of where they live; without clause 121, we would continue to lack a strong understanding of local authority performance, good practice and pioneering approaches that can support local authorities to meet the needs of those who rely on them for social care. I therefore commend the clause and the Government new clauses to the Committee.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the contribution from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire. I completely agreed with her point that, fundamentally, the No. 1 basic issue is a complete lack of investment, as we have seen over the last decade. Everything else after that becomes just tinkering around the edges, and there has been too much of that in this legislation. I share the hon. Member’s enthusiasm for taking a different approach—to stop treating social care as a burden and to understand our responsibility to working-age adults, but also to older people, and the investment and the national good of investing to ensure that those people can live independent lives and can reach their potential and do what they want to do. That we do not prioritise that in this country is a profound sadness.
Perhaps I was a little glib in the point that I made about the two clauses, and I am conscious that the Minister thinks that was unfair. He talked about other examples in which carers feature in the Bill. The reality is that each time it is about how care affects and reflects on the national health service. It is never about social care; it is about what the health service needs with regard to social care. Those two things are not the same. The point is that the Bill, for better or worse—we are not very enthusiastic about it—has 120-odd clauses about reforming the national health service and two clauses about reforming social care.
The problem is that for 11 years, or certainly for my entire four and a half years in Parliament, the Government have been promising a social care Green Paper that never comes. It is in a desk. It has supposedly been written for many years, but it never sees the light of day. Our failure adequately to grasp social care is really bad for society and terrible for the health service. That is why I made that point. How many more health service Acts do we have to see before someone finally tries to grab hold of social care? The reality is that we will have to see a change of Government for that to happen meaningfully.
The Minister’s comments on amendment 145 provided great comfort, so I will not press it to a Division. On the point that he made about needing a mechanism in cases where a local authority fails, in the most exceptional cases I agree with that, but what do we do when national Government fails? National Government have failed on that point for 11 years. The answer is that we wait until the next general election and try to persuade people. We have failed to do that three times in that period. That is right, but it also applies to local government, so I would not want to see that overused. I think I have made my point on Government new clauses 60 and 61, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Edward Argar
I beg to move amendment 147, in clause 121, page 102, line 46, leave out “or”.
This amendment is consequential on NC59.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 148.
Government new clause 59—Care Quality Commission reviews etc of integrated care system.
Edward Argar
We tabled the amendments following the publication of recommendations by the Health and Social Care Committee on the Bill. The Committee recommended that the Care Quality Commission be given a role in assessing integrated care systems—the umbrella term, of course, for integrated care boards, local authorities and their system partners working collectively. We agree entirely; indeed, I thank the Committee for championing that agenda. The intention is for those reviews to provide the public and the system with independent assurance of how their ICS area is performing, and in particular the effectiveness of joined-up working and integration. Those reviews will be a valuable way to improve the services provided and encourage the effective joint working that the Bill enables.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
I welcome the involvement of the CQC in reviewing the work and impact of the new integrated care systems, but other parts of public service provision, particularly children’s services, are regulated by other bodies—Ofsted, in the case of children’s social care. Can the Minister reassure me, either now or at a later stage, that those bodies will be involved in the initial discussions about what the reviews will look like, and how Ofsted may be able to provide input to ensure that the review encompasses all aspects of regulation and inspection that will touch on the ICSs.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right that we must not at any point forget the interest of children and families in the context of the services being provided. I hope that I can give him the reassurance that he seeks. I certainly envisage that, as we draw up the system, and as what we are proposing becomes designed and operationalised, the process would encompass close co-operation with Ofsted and other relevant bodies to ensure that it does the job that it is intended to, and that no one falls through the cracks—for want of a better way of putting it—in that regime.
Our approach builds on the existing role of the CQC as the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, it already reviews individual providers of health and social care. This Bill expands its role, as under clause 121 it will also have a duty to review and assess the performance of local authorities in delivering their adult social care functions under part 1 of the Care Act 2014.
Alex Norris
I am glad to see this change added to the Bill. Since the publication of the White Paper, we have called for greater oversight of integrated care systems. We offered options in previous sittings around democratic accountability, which would be our preference, but we may have to settle for this change, which does represent progress. Integrated care systems—in particular integrated care boards, which will be the system in reality—will be powerful. They will hold billions of pounds in funds, and will author and manage care for the entire population—a lot of people. The quality of their work will go a long way to deciding the quality of local healthcare provision and, indeed, health outcomes in their communities.
It is right to have oversight of that work, to have a way to hold systems up against each other and understand where there is success and where there are greater challenges, and to use an established overseer with reputation, experience and a degree of independence—one that the public know how to engage with and contact. It represents the first bulwark against the system working in its own interests, rather than in the interest of population health, which is good news.
I have a couple of specific questions, but before asking them I want to make a general point to the Minister. I hope we do not lose one of the best things that local government does, and does much better than the health service, which is sector-led improvement. The idea is that as we have however many—150—local authority areas in England, they will develop an awful lot of great experience over time and can share it among them. I do not mean, “Here, read our manifesto—we’re wonderful,” but in a day-to-day supportive and developing way, which is better than just waiting for an inspection every four years.
Before I was elected to this place, I was a member peer, and I helped those in other health footprints on the exact point of integration, so I know that established people are already working in this field. I recall that it was at one of these sector-led, improvement-type activities that I first met my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. That was eight or nine years ago, when we were the future once in local government, or perhaps in politics in general—and look at us now! Nevertheless, the point is that there is loads of really good work going on in the LGA, and I really hope to hear from the Minister that that will be seen as an asset, and could now be developed for all these systems as something that would really complement an inspection regime.
I will make two quick points about the inspection regime itself. Proposed new section 46B(3)(a) in new clause 59 says that the CQC will have to establish indicators. Will the Minister clarify what he means by that? Is it about things we would conventionally understand —outstanding, good, requires improvement, adequate—or similar? Again, this needs to be something the public can easily understand, and we need to be able to understand what it is trying to tell us.
Under proposed new section 46B(6)(a)(i), it would be left to the CQC to determine the frequency of inspection. I feel that that is rather a function for the Department, as it commissions the inspector, than for the inspector itself. I seek at least a sense from the Minister of the frequency we are talking about. I understand that it might be different for different footprints—I think it was the hon. Member for Eddisbury who mentioned Ofsted—depending on how their ICSs are doing at a certain point, but what at least is the broad frequency we are talking about?
Those are important details, and I hope to hear greater clarity on them, but the basic principle that there is oversight is one we are supporting.
Edward Argar
I will be relatively brief. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, and I think that on this we are in broad agreement. He raised a few specific points, about which I hope I can reassure him. On local authority sector-led improvement, I entirely share his view; I think it is an asset. We are in the business not of excluding ways to improve, but of creating new ways to improve. If we have something that—he is absolutely right—does add value, I would hope it is looked to as an asset to draw on, rather than pushed to one side.
Let me discuss the hon. Gentleman’s other points. On indicators, yes, I entirely agree with him. While we must wait for subsequent developments to assess exactly how we characterise those—we will be doing a system assessment rather than an individual provider assessment, with complex moving parts—I entirely agree with his underlying point, which is that the indicators ideally need to be consistent with extant ones, to be easily understandable and to convey a clear message on performance—be it outstanding, good or whatever—as something that is meaningful to all our voters and to those using the systems.
On the hon. Gentleman’s final point about frequency, I may disappoint him a little in not being able to give quite such a clear answer. I am being cautious because I think it is right that the CQC—when it is given this power, subject to the passage of the legislation through Parliament—can take a step back and consider what it thinks. The ICSs will be at different stages of development in different parts of the country; some will be very much advanced because of where they are now, and some will not be.
It would wrong at this stage to be prescriptive about that frequency. I suppose I would say—we have seen this with Ofsted—that some are inspected very regularly because there is clearly a problem that needs to be addressed, but others that are doing quite well will be assessed at regular, but less frequent, intervals. That does not give the hon. Gentleman a clear statistical answer, but I would expect regular routine assessments, obviously with the facility for the CQC to do more frequent assessments where it thinks something needs bottoming out or where it needs to support such improvement. I hope that that, to a degree, answers the points he made, all of which are valid and important.
Amendment 147 agreed to.
Amendment made: 148, in clause 121, page 103, line 3, leave out “or”.—(Edward Argar.)
This amendment is consequential on NC59.
Clause 121, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 122
Provision of social care services: financial assistance
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
I will be relatively brief. The clause will expand the Secretary of State’s powers under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 so that payments can be made to all providers delivering social care services. It will also allow the Secretary of State to delegate the new power to special health authorities via directions.
The power in the 2008 Act excludes providers that operate for profit. Given that social care in England is largely delivered by private providers operating on a profit-making basis, the Secretary of State is unable to make direct payments to much of the sector under the existing power. Crucially, the power can be used only by financial assistance bodies engaged in providing social care services or services connected with social care services.
The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated the need for speed and flexibility in providing support to the care sector. Without the clause, our only means to deliver financial assistance to social care providers is via local authorities. We are clear that the power will not be used to amend or replace the existing system of funding for adult social care, whereby funding for state provision is funded via local authorities, largely through local income and supplemented by Government grant.
The new power will allow the Secretary of State to react to unforeseen and changing circumstances by directing financial assistance social care providers with greater speed and in a more targeted manner. That is one of the learnings that we are seeking to implement as a result of what has happened during the recent pandemic. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Alex Norris
I will be very brief, not least because we will not divide the Committee. However, I could not let us go past the clause without mentioning the heading. I must read it from the Bill because it gives me so much pleasure: “Provision of social care services: financial assistance”. Wouldn’t that be something in this country?
It is quite something to see the Government seeking to establish a mechanism to fund social care because we have been waiting 11 years for them to do so. During tomorrow’s Budget, we will listen with interest for news of support for social care. Given that most of the Budget has been leaked already, I dare say we will be disappointed. I feel a little as though the clause is the parliamentary equivalent of being threatened with a good time.
We do not have any issue with the establishment of such a mechanism, although our preference would be for that to be done by the Department that leads on local government, rather than by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, because we think that that is confusing. However, we do not oppose the principle behind the clause.
I can foresee the scenario in which this power would be desirable, but I would like the Minister to reiterate on the record that it will not lead to the routine commissioning of private providers outside the commissioning plans of the local authority. Each local authority puts incredible efforts into commissioning services in its community. The last thing local authorities want is someone doing a sideline arrangement on a different matter. To be clear, this is an exceptional power—almost an emergency power—and not one that we would expect to be used frequently.
Edward Argar
I think I can give the shadow Minister that reassurance. The clause is intended to reflect some of the learning from the pandemic. There are occasions when such intervention is necessary, but there is no intention, as I said in my remarks, to in any way go round or replace the current commissioning functions of the local authority. I have had discussions with the Local Government Association on exactly that point, so I hope I can give him the reassurance he seeks.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 122 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 123
Regulation of health care and associated professions
Dr Whitford
I beg to move amendment 112, in clause 123, page 105, line 13, at end insert—
“(f) after subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) An Order in Council under this section—
(a) which affects Scotland may only be made with the consent of the Scottish Ministers;
(b) which affects Wales may only be made with the consent of the Welsh Ministers;
(c) which affects Northern Ireland may only be made with the consent of the Northern Ireland Ministers.””
This amendment would require the appropriate authority to obtain the consent of devolved governments before orders under section 60 of the Health Act 1999 affecting the relevant territory could be made.
Obviously, we are discussing the regulation of healthcare and associated professions. I am concerned that what we see written is that the Secretary of State will have the power to abolish certain regulatory bodies, deregulate certain professions and specifically deregulate social care workers. Most registration and regulatory bodies for healthcare are UK-wide, but it must be recognised that people work and move between the four nations, so anything that happens at that level will have an impact on the devolved health services.
During the debate on the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, Members raised the issue that professional qualifications gained in any of the four nations must be recognised across all four. That makes absolute sense, but the debate was about teachers, and in England Teach First allows a degree holder to become a teacher within a matter of a couple of months whereas in Scotland and Wales, a postgraduate teaching qualification is required. That did not go ahead, but it highlights the issue.
We see new health professions developing—new grades, physicians and associates—and the devolved nations will have their own view on whether they would use such staff, how they think those staff should be regulated and registered, and where they would fit in their health services. We face the potential of new grades or qualifications being created that the devolved health services would have no option other than to recognise and accept, yet they would have minimal input, so we are back to the issue of genuine consultation with and consent from Health Ministers.
Earlier, when we were talking about the need to professionalise social care, I was surprised to hear the deregulation of social care workers mentioned. In Scotland, we are moving forward with the registration of care staff as the first step in that professionalisation, and we would not want to see it undermined. That is the same theme, unfortunately, that I have repeatedly put before the Committee. However, it is important to recognise that while the delivery of health and social care is devolved, some of the issues that we are debating would have a significant impact on the three devolved services, and it would be wrong for their Ministers to have these decisions forced on them by the Secretary of State with no significant input or consent as to how to take things forward.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
I shall be brief. I support my hon. Friend on this matter. Clearly, systems vary from one country to another. Indeed, a long time ago, I was involved in teaching social care staff, and we were ambitious to register all staff whereas, as I remember it, 10% of staff in England were going to be registered at that time. Across the UK, there are different approaches to health provision. As I have said before in the Committee, the Labour Government in Wales have adopted a wellbeing approach for many years, and I think the requirements of implementing such a wellbeing approach might vary from one country to another.
I restate my support for my hon. Friend on this matter and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about it.
Edward Argar
Amendment 112 would place on the Secretary of State a duty to obtain consent from the devolved Administrations prior to legislating using section 60 of the Health Act 1999, where such legislation would affect the devolved Administrations. Before I turn to the substance of the amendment, I will set out the benefits of regulating health and care professionals on a UK-wide basis. It is important that we have UK-wide standards to ensure the same level of public protection across the UK and to allow healthcare professionals the flexibility to work across the whole of the UK. We value and will continue to work collaboratively with our devolved Administration partners on the regulation of health and care professionals.
Each devolved legislature, as has been alluded to, has its own devolved arrangements in respect of professional regulation, which are a mix of reserved and devolved or transferred powers. In practice, any use of section 60 affecting professionals in Northern Ireland is exercised only with the agreement of the Northern Ireland Executive. In Scotland, consent is required in relation to legislation concerning healthcare professionals brought into regulation post the Scotland Act 1998. In the case of Wales, the regulation of healthcare professionals is a reserved matter, so consent is not sought.
In practice, the UK Government always seek the agreement of the NI Executive when making changes to the regulation of healthcare professionals, and the Scottish Parliament’s consent is required in the circumstances that I set out previously. The amendment would add to that by requiring consent in relation to any changes to the regulation of healthcare professionals affecting the devolved Administrations. In addition, legislation requires that section 60 can be used only following public consultation and the affirmative parliamentary procedure.
The purpose of the professional regulation system is to protect the public. Regulating health and care professionals on a UK-wide basis helps to provide consistency across the four nations and ensures that we continue to work together with the devolved legislatures to align workforce policy. For those reasons, although I appreciate the point underlying the amendment, I ask the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire to withdraw it.
Dr Whitford
We have had a lot of debate over recent years about whether we are aiming for lowest common denominator or to achieve the highest standard. The concern is about delegating or creating new grades of staff who are not expected to have the same level of qualification or training as the people they may be replacing within the health service. That is not always to the benefit of patient safety. We are really calling for meaningful engagement, which is not what we have seen before. It is important to recognise the impact that it would have on the devolved nations.
I totally recognise that professionals need to be able to work across the UK, but it should be about aiming for people to have the training, professionalisation, standards and regulation that they require and which is comparative to the job that they are doing and the service they are delivering for patients. We spent the whole morning on patient safety. The standard of the staff who deliver the care is the most important thing for patient safety. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Justin Madders
I beg to move amendment 142, in clause 123, page 105, line 13, at end insert—
“(f) After subsection (2B) insert—
(2C) The regulation of health professions and social care workers must be used where possible to raise professional awareness of rare and less common conditions.”
This amendment would require professional regulators to support improved awareness of rare and less common conditions amongst health and care professionals.
May I clarify that there will be a debate on the substantive clause afterwards?
Justin Madders
I do so wish. I will not detain the Committee long on amendment 142. We are seeking to find ways of increasing awareness of rare and less common conditions among healthcare professionals. I readily accept that the amendment may not be a perfect vehicle for doing that, but the recent UK rare diseases framework included increasing awareness of rare and less common conditions among healthcare professionals as one of its four priority areas, partly due to the challenges that people within the community face in receiving accurate and timely diagnoses in primary care.
What mechanisms can be introduced to help to raise awareness of rare and less common conditions among healthcare professionals? Will the Minister consider introducing reforms to workforce training and resourcing to facilitate that because among the raft of the entire professional regulation process and a range of development issues, continuing development about and awareness of rare conditions is at the heart of proper and effective regulation?
Edward Argar
Amendment 142 would introduce a legislative requirement in section 60 of the Health Act 1999 for health and care professional regulators to raise professional awareness of rare and less common conditions where possible.
The purpose of regulating healthcare professionals is to protect the public. Regulators set the standards that registered professionals must meet; they also set standards relating to education and training. By ensuring that the standards are met, the regulators ensure that on an ongoing basis professionals have the right behaviours, skills, knowledge and experience to provide safe and effective care.
Section 60 of the Health Act 1999 provides powers to make changes to the professional regulatory landscape through secondary legislation. Each professional regulator has its own legislation that can be amended under the powers in section 60, which provides the framework for its establishment and remit. Although I have sympathy with the amendment’s aim and the points made by the hon. Member for Ellesmore Port and Neston about the need to ensure that health and care professionals are aware of rare conditions, I do not believe that writing such a requirement into section 60 of the 1999 Act is quite the right approach to achieve that.
All the healthcare professional regulators have the same set of objectives, which were placed on a consistent footing by the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015. Those objectives are to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public; to promote and maintain public confidence in the professions regulated under the Act; and to promote and maintain proper professional standards and conduct for members of those professions.
A key part of delivering those objectives is setting standards that require professionals to have the necessary skills and knowledge to practise safely. That includes knowledge and awareness of rare conditions where that is necessary for an individual’s practice. Regulators set the standards that healthcare professionals are required to meet in order to practise. Professionals have a duty to ensure that they provide a good standard of practice and care, which includes keeping their professional knowledge and skills up to date. That is set out in the guidance issued by the regulators.
For example, the General Medical Council’s “Good medical practice” sets out the standards required of a registered doctor. It specifies that a doctor must keep their professional knowledge and skills up to date, must be familiar with guidelines and developments that affect their work, and must recognise and work within the limits of their competence. That provides a clear framework that requires doctors to have knowledge of rare conditions where that is necessary for their practice.
The exact knowledge and skills required for each healthcare professional cannot be known or set by the regulator, but the current legislative requirements put in a place a framework that requires each professional to maintain the skills and knowledge needed to practise safely, including knowledge of rare conditions.
As experts in regulation, it is the responsibility of the regulators to determine what role they need to play in raising issues such as awareness of rare and less common conditions among their professionals. For those reasons, I encourage the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Justin Madders
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
The clause provides additional powers that will widen the scope of section 60 of the Health Act 1999 and enable the Privy Council to make additional changes through secondary legislation.
The powers will enable the abolition of an individual health and care professional regulatory body where the professions concerned have been deregulated or are being regulated by another body; the removal of a healthcare profession from regulation where that is no longer for the protection of the public; or the delegation of certain functions to other regulatory bodies through legislation which previously had not been allowed. The powers will enable the regulation of group of workers concerned with physical and mental health, whether or not they are generally regarded as a profession, such as senior managers and leaders.
The UK model of regulation for healthcare professionals is rigid, complex and needs to be flexible and to change to better protect patients, support our health and care services and to help the workforce meet future challenges. The case for reforming professional regulation has long been acknowledged. Stakeholders have long expressed concern that having nine separate professional regulatory bodies is inefficient and confusing to the public. Our 2019 public consultation response reflected the desire for fewer regulatory bodies to deliver benefits to the professional regulation system. In addition, an independent review of the regulatory landscape, in particular the existing roles of regulators, has been commissioned and is due to report by the end of this year.
The powers in clause 123 will enable future changes to be made to make the professional regulatory landscape more streamlined and work more flexibly. The powers will also make it easier to ensure that the professions protected in law are the right ones and that the level of regulatory oversight is proportionate to the risks to the public.
Justin Madders
As the Minister has told us, the clause seeks to amend section 60 of the Health Act 1999 in relation to making changes to the professional regulatory landscape through secondary legislation. It will simultaneously widen the scope of section 60 and extend the Secretary of State’s powers. Members may have picked up a theme by now: whenever there is a chance for the Secretary of State to seek more power, he uses this Bill to obtain it.
At the moment, the Government have powers to bring new professions into regulation or make modifications through secondary legislation, but can remove a profession from regulation only through primary legislation. This clause will enable the removal of a profession through secondary legislation and makes it clear that a profession would be removed from regulation only when that was no longer required for the purpose of protecting the public—but then I would hardly expect a statement from the Government about deregulating only where there is a risk.
While at one end of the spectrum one could argue that virtually all interactions with patients might have some element of risk, the more balanced view might be that while not all interactions carry the same risk, it is likely that all professions at some time undertake acts where the consequences of mistakes for the patient will be significant.
I am left wondering exactly what the yardstick will be and what criteria will be used to determine when there is no longer a need to protect the public. Is that the only criterion to be applied? Does professional regulation not also help to facilitate consistent common standards? What is lacking at the moment is any sense of the principles that will be followed to inform decisions to bring professions into regulation or to remove them. Will patient organisations, representative bodies and regulators be consulted on any new criteria to be applied?
I appreciate that, as the Minister said, section 60 of the Health Act 1999 already contains requirements that legislation should be published in draft, subject to a three-month consultation, specifically with affected professionals and service users, but it would be helpful if he confirmed that that is the absolute minimum. I have to say, though, that even if the answer to that is yes, it seems a fairly minimal procedure for abolishing an entire profession. I am not sure that will cut it in terms of Parliament, never mind the public being satisfied that due diligence has been done to assess the overall risk profile of any particular role in the system. I am concerned about where that would leave matters such as professional indemnity insurance, as well as about any knock-on effect on the reassessment of bandings under agenda for change.
The more one looks at this, the harder it is to see how it could be done properly in the timescales envisaged. There are just under 700,000 registered nurses in the UK. One can see how resource-intensive it would be if every one of them responded to a consultation to abolish their profession. I suspect the Minister will tell us that he has no plans to abolish professional regulation for doctors and nurses, but imagine if he did. This process would be wholly inadequate, which leads to the question: what exactly does the Minister, or more accurately the Secretary of State, have in mind when it comes to these powers? If we got some answers on that today, it might help us to decide whether these procedures were adequate and also whether the powers are necessary at all.
Moving the power to abolish professions to secondary legislation is not putting scrutiny and transparency at the forefront, and doing so without putting any indication on the record of which professions are being considered for derecognition under this power does not instil confidence that this power grab has been considered properly or is in fact needed at all. The implications for the devolved nations, particularly Scotland, are also important. There are differences in regulation and it is not clear what would happen if there were a difference of opinion between England and the devolved nations.
Clause 123(2)(d) inserts new subsection (2ZZA) into the Health Act 1999. I would welcome the suggestion that the scope of regulation could be extended to others who might not necessarily be regarded as professionals. It remains to be seen who or what this power will be used for, but I question whether the vehicle proposed is sufficient. More needs to be done. The 2019 Interim NHS People Plan states:
“It cannot be right that there are no agreed competencies for holding senior positions in the NHS or that we hold so little information about the skills, qualifications and career history of our leaders. A series of reports over the last decade have all highlighted a ‘revolving door’ culture, where leaders are quietly moved elsewhere in the NHS, facilitated by ‘vanilla’ references. These practices are not widespread, but they must end.”
I do not know whether this will be the right vehicle for tackling this issue, but it certainly needs tackling.
On clause 123(3) and the power to abolish regulatory bodies, the case has been made rather better—most notably by the Health and Care Professions Council, which sees this as an opportunity for some much needed modernisation, with a multi-professional regulatory model that would allow regulators to retain their individual identities and independence. That would see each regulator continue to operate its own register, oversee fitness to practise processes, liaise with relevant professional bodies and set its own educational standards relating to the professions they regulate, but there would be greater collaboration, with shared back-office services and other resources, which would presumably improve efficiency.
That approach has some benefits although I am also mindful of the evidence submitted by the Professional Standards Authority, which warned:
“Any mergers would be likely to lead to a period of turbulence of three-to-five years.”
It may be of interest that the authority also said that in the coming five or so years, it expected turbulence in the NHS and referred to the Bill as part of that turbulence. Of course, there are also the issues that we have discussed many times in this place about the pandemic’s impact.
On the overall impact of clause 123, I am sure that we can all agree on the need for robust, independent processes to ensure that any decisions made are in the public interest and based on a clear assessment of the risk of harm arising from practice. It is an obvious thing to do. It is important that individuals belong to a profession because that provides a framework of standards to uphold, encourages expertise and respect, and brings a higher level of professionalism, and, crucially, accountability to the public. However, it is far from obvious how the clause will assist those aims or why in going down the road of deregulation we would want to put those important principles at risk.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister. His points coalesce around a number of key themes that I shall seek to address. He highlighted his concern about why we would do this and the potential disruption of either a lack of regulation in some spaces were we to abolish regulators or of that caused by moving functions. The key point here is that this is about creating a power that enables flexibility in the system that is not currently there. It is not that we have any direct or immediate plans to do this but about creating, in the context of the opportunity provided by the legislation, a framework whereby we could move powers around. There are some points sitting underneath that which I shall try to address.
The current section 60 powers are limited in terms of the changes they can deliver in the professional regulatory framework. We can use secondary legislation to bring a new profession into regulation and create a new regulatory body, but we do not have equivalent powers to remove a profession from regulation or close a regulatory body and move functions without primary legislation. Widening the scope helps us to ensure that professional regulation delivers public protection more consistently and efficiently, recognising the dynamic, to a degree, nature of evolving professional regulation.
On his concern about abolishing regulators, I know the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there is no intention of doing that. But he rightly asks, “But what if?” It is the role of the Committee to look at that. Were a regulator to be abolished, that would not necessarily mean that the professionals they regulate would cease to be regulated. Current legislation allows a number of professions to be regulated by a single body, and that creates the mechanism to allow those movements and transfers.
To give an example that some might raise, would that mean that the GMC could be abolished? It is an extreme example, but hopefully it illustrates the point. The scope of the power to abolish a regulator covers all health and care professional regulators. However, the key point is that a regulator will be abolished only if the professions have either been moved to another regulator or removed, or deemed to be removed, from regulation altogether. Any use of this power is subject to existing legislative provision, namely a public consultation and the affirmative procedure. However, to take the example I gave, there are no plans to abolish the GMC, because clearly there would always be a need for continued regulation of medical practitioners. Therefore, given that the GMC regulates them, it would continue to do so.
Underpinning that concern is whether the removal of a specified profession entirely from regulation would increase in any way risks to public safety. Again, a profession would only be removed entirely from regulation following an assessment that showed the profession no longer required regulation for the purposes of public protection and that risks could therefore be safely managed, effectively and efficiently, outside statutory regulation. Given the nature of the professionals that we are talking about here, that would be highly unlikely in any of those spaces and I do not anticipate it. Any use of the power to remove a profession from regulation would be subject to consultation and, again, the affirmative parliamentary procedure.
The counterpoint could be why more professions are not included in regulation. From time to time we debate particular professions as new treatments, such as cosmetic treatments, emerge. Given the risks that some may pose, the question of whether there should be greater regulation then arises. Although statutory regulation is sometimes necessary where there are significant risks in the use of services that cannot be mitigated in other ways, we believe that it is not always the most proportionate or effective means of assuring the safe and effective care of service users. Therefore, each situation needs to be assessed carefully on its own merits. We have seen colleagues from the across the House making the case for regulating different aspects of professions, or service providers that have effectively become professional or are providing a service that is regularly used. Rather than a blanket approach, we believe that remains the right way.
Dr Whitford
I wonder whether, within this, there is a consideration of the issues within the cosmetic surgery and treatment field, particularly the use of Botox and the injection of fillers, which often result in side effects, and the fact that even cosmetic surgeons, as opposed to plastic surgeons, are not regulated in the same way. The problem is that whenever those medical terms are used, the public assume that they are dealing with a licensed medical professional who is both registered and regulated.
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) for her private Member’s Bill, which began putting a framework around Botulinum fillers and who could or could not access them, with age limits. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) was then the Minister responsible, but she was self-isolating and awaiting test results, so I had the privilege of speaking in that debate. As often happens on Fridays, it was an interesting and well-informed debate, rather than a political to and fro, as occasionally happens in the Chamber. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire highlights an important point.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) has taken a close interest in the issue, as have hon. Members across the House. I am due to meet her to discuss this more broadly in the context of this legislation. I do not want to pre-empt that meeting and the upshot of it, but I take on board the point made by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Justin Madders
I beg to move amendment 116, in clause 124, page 106, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) In subsection (4) in paragraph (e), after “examiners” insert “including the requirement to investigate stillbirths and deaths related to childbirth”.”
This amendment would extend the medical examiner remit to look at still births and maternity cases.
This place has come a long way in recognising, discussing and acting on the tragedy that is baby loss. It has taken us a long time to get there, and there is still a long way to go, but we hope that this amendment will help us to continue on that journey.
The Minister will be aware of the November 2017 announcement on the possibility of coroners being asked to conduct inquests into stillbirths and the subsequent consultation—I believe he was the Minister who initiated that consultation, which was needed. In 2017 the Court of Appeal highlighted the need for reform. It said that the law relating to coronial investigations of stillbirths had not changed since 1887, and:
“Still-birth is a tragedy that continues to befall many families in advanced societies but it was a phenomenon more common in the past… The public interest in establishing whether a child was or was not stillborn, and if it was not how it came by its death, is apparent and continuing.”
I am sure those words will resonate with all Members, who will recognise that during the tragedy of stillbirth, parents will want to know why it has happened to them. Although a coronial investigation is no guarantee that answers will be forthcoming, it may relieve the sense of loss that they feel and may help in some small way.
The Government response to the consultation has been delayed somewhat, and they have said that they are not seeking to replace the role of the NHS in investigating stillbirths, but coronial investigations would
“supplement and support those investigations and ensure that coroners can contribute to the learning and play a role in reducing the stillbirth rate.”
Any update on when the response to the consultation will be published would be appreciated.
In essence, the amendment seeks to build on the comments made by the Royal College of Pathologists, which stated when that announcement was made back in 2017 that medical examiners should in fact play a far greater role in investigating stillbirths, as
“medical examiners are ideally placed to identify trends relating to deaths”
and to highlight areas for further improvement. The Government’s roll-out of medical examiners so far has not included investigations into stillbirths. The purpose of the amendment is to get underneath the rationale for that and to press for the issue to be reconsidered. If we are to have a separate debate on clause stand part, I will leave my comments there in order for the Minister to respond.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving us, through amendment 116, an opportunity to debate and discuss this issue. Every stillbirth and death related to childbirth is a tragedy, and it is only right that we remain absolutely committed to supporting parents and families during such a difficult time. However, we are not convinced that this amendment is necessary in order to do that, and I will explain why in due course.
Following the passage of the Bill, the Secretary of State will make, in relation to England, regulations underpinning the medical examiner system, which will set out that the functions of medical examiners include confirming the cause of non-coronial deaths as stated by the doctor on the medical certificate of cause of death. The intention is that that will include confirming the cause of deaths of mothers in childbirth. As part of proposals to improve and digitise the medical certificate of cause of death, we are proposing the introduction of a new section on the certificate that will allow information relating to pregnancy at the time of death to be recorded. Recording information relating to pregnancy on the medical certificate of cause of death will provide a more accurate way to measure maternal deaths, and bring the certificate used in England and Wales in line with certificates used in other countries.
On stillbirths specifically, it is the case that between March and June of 2019, as the hon. Gentleman alluded to, the Ministry of Justice—I was in the Department at the time, as he set out—and the Department of Health and Social Care jointly consulted on proposals for coroners to investigate term or post-term stillbirths. The proposals are intended to improve the independence and transparency of reviews through independent investigation by coroners as judicial office holders outside the NHS. Work on analysing the responses to the consultation was delayed during the covid-19 pandemic, but the Government hope to publish the response to the consultation as soon as possible.
The Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019 also requires the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the preparation of a report on whether and how the law ought to be changed to require coroners to investigate stillbirths, and provides a power to make those changes within five years. At such a time as the response to the consultation on proposals to provide coroners with new powers to investigate term stillbirths is published, it will be appropriate for the position on medical examiners also, potentially, to be considered.
There are existing processes for investigations of stillbirths, including the perinatal mortality review tool, introduced in 2018, and investigations by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. I would like to highlight the importance of parents having the opportunity to be involved in the reviews and investigations. In early 2018 the perinatal mortality review tool was introduced to support NHS maternity and neonatal units in England, Wales and Scotland to undertake high-quality, standardised reviews of the circumstances and care leading up to and surrounding each stillbirth and neonatal death. The aim of the perinatal mortality review tool is to support objective, robust and standardised reviews to provide answers for bereaved parents about why their baby died, as well as ensuring local and national learning to improve care and, ultimately, prevent future baby deaths.
Since April 2018 the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has been responsible in England for all NHS patient safety investigations of maternity incidents that meet the criteria for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Each Baby Counts programme, of which there are approximately 1,000 cases each year. That includes all cases in which a term baby was considered to be alive and healthy at the onset of labour but the birth outcome was severe brain damage, intrapartum stillbirth or neonatal death, and maternal deaths, to identify common themes and influence system change.
Both the perinatal mortality review tool and the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch provide the opportunity for parents’ involvement in the investigation of stillbirths, which is essential to help provide answers for bereaved parents and to improve care.
I will not prejudge what the response might be to the consultation that we spoke about earlier, but I invite the shadow Minister to perhaps draw his own conclusions about my thinking on this, given that I believe it was my signature on the front of that document and I was the Minister who fought to be able to launch it. On that basis, I gently encourage him to consider not pressing his amendment to a vote on this occasion.
Justin Madders
In the light of the Minister’s encouragement, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
Clause 124 will amend the statutory medical examiner system in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 so that English NHS bodies may appoint medical examiners to scrutinise deaths, instead of local authorities. Appointment of medical examiners by NHS bodies will facilitate their access to patient information in order to scrutinise the proposed cause of death while remaining clinically independent of the case. The medical examiner system will introduce a level of independent scrutiny, improving the quality and accuracy of the medical certificate of cause of death and thereby informing the national data on mortality and patient safety.
The medical examiner system will increase transparency and offer bereaved people the opportunity to raise concerns. It will provide new levels of scrutiny to help identify and deter criminal activity and poor practice. New duties on, and powers for, the Secretary of State to ensure enough medical examiners are appointed by English NHS bodies and are provided with sufficient resources and monitoring will help to facilitate and develop this system. As a result of the introduction of the medical examiner system, all deaths would be scrutinised by either a medical examiner or coroner, irrespective of the decision to bury or cremate, thus bringing the system on to an equal footing. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Justin Madders
As the Minister has outlined, the purpose of medical examiners is to provide greater safeguards to the public by ensuring proper scrutiny of all non-coronial deaths; to ensure the appropriate notification of deaths to the coroner; and to provide a better service for the bereaved and, importantly, give them an opportunity to raise any concerns to a doctor who was not involved in the care of the deceased. It will also hopefully improve the quality of death certification and mortality data. These are all worthy aims that we can support, so the challenge for the Minister is to set out how the Government will benchmark the success or otherwise of medical examiners in achieving those aims. For example, can he tell us what improved quality of mortality data will actually look like? Does he envisage this leading to further system changes down the line, or is it too early to tell?
Another area I would be grateful for a little more detail about is set out in proposed new section 19(A3) of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which gives the Secretary of State the power to
“give a direction to an English NHS body—
(a) requiring the body to appoint or arrange for the appointment of one or more medical examiners,”
setting out the funds and resources that should be made available to such employed medical examiners, or setting out the means and methods that may be employed to monitor the performance of those medical examiners. Can the Minister tell us exactly who that body might be? Does the Secretary of State have a view on how many medical examiners might be needed, and what the appropriate level of funding might be?
I also want to ask about clause 124(8), which amends section 20 of the 2009 Act. That section provides a power to make regulation to require a fee to be payable in respect of medical examiners’ confirmation of cause of death. The clause will require any such fee to be payable to an English NHS body, rather than a local authority. Does the Department have a position on fees? Are they desirable? Has a level been set for them? What consultation has taken place about that level, and indeed the principle of charging a fee? It would be a shame if medical examiners were not accessible to the majority of people because of a barrier being created by a fee. If the Minister could answer those questions, it would be appreciated.
Dr Whitford
The recommendation to introduce a medical examiner system was one of the strongest recommendations from the Shipman inquiry, and Shipman was convicted in 2000, over two decades ago. As a professional, we saw an entire industry of appraisals and various other systems introduced to the NHS that took up hours and hours of clinical time, whereas there was nothing to actually review death certificates—either their accuracy or who was issuing them—and to spot unusual patterns. Obviously, it can be the case that a GP practice covers a hospice or some other setting where there are likely to be increased numbers of deaths and, therefore, death certificates, but it has taken an awfully long time to get to this point. Scotland introduced its medical examiners six years ago, in 2015.
The Minister has talked about all certificates being reviewed, but I would be interested to know the degree of depth to which they are going to be reviewed. It is unlikely to be possible to have a detailed inquiry on every death certificate, so in what way will they be streamed for further intervention, review or interaction with clinicians to understand what happened? That may not be clear from just looking at the certificate. Clearly, patterns of certification and patterns of death would become obvious to a medical examiner and may produce very interesting and useful information.
Edward Argar
A number of points have been raised. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, asked whether we would envisage this leading to system change if a pattern was identified and whether it could be a catalyst for that change. Absolutely—that is part of what we hope would come out of this. I am pleased that we are legislating now on this issue, but the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire is right about the time it has taken. I acknowledge the example from Scotland; I do not always agree with everything done in Holyrood, but to give credit where it is due, I recognise the progress that Scotland has made in this space.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston made a number of points generally revolving around resources, fees and similar issues. I hesitate to put a figure on exactly how many medical examiners or what level of resource would be needed at this stage, but I will seek to address his point about fees and resourcing in broader terms. He will know that, in the non-statutory system, medical examiners are funded through the existing fee for completing medical cremation form 5, in combination with central Government funding for medical examiner work not covered by those fees. With the temporary removal of cremation form 5 as a provision of the Coronavirus Act 2020, all costs are currently covered by central Government, but that is temporary. The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 includes provisions for making regulations to introduce a new fee for the service provided by the medical examiner, and any such regulations will be subject to further parliamentary debate and scrutiny before their passage.
On the overall cost, the reality is that our estimated cost will be informed by the impact assessment published in 2018 and the data gathered from the non-statutory medical examiner system introduced in the NHS in 2019. We have seen a slightly atypical year or 18 months, so I hesitate to put an exact figure on this, but we have a broad evidence base from which to extrapolate. It predates the pandemic but it probably still has relevance. I am sorry that I cannot give him more direct data, but I would not want to pluck out a figure for him and then, quite rightly, be held to account for it in due course. I cannot do that but I hope that I have given him and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire some reassurance on those points.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 124 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 125
Advertising of less healthy food and drink
Dr Whitford
I beg to move amendment 113, in clause 125, page 107, line 12, at end insert—
“(2) Regulations made by the Secretary of State under any section of the Communications Act 2003 inserted by Schedule 16 may only be made with the consent of the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Northern Ireland Ministers.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to obtain the consent of the devolved governments before the powers granted by Schedule 16 clause are exercised.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Amendment 139, page 216, line 5, in schedule 16, at end insert—
“(da) a drink product is ‘less healthy’ if it is an alcoholic product in accordance with the Department for Health and Social Care’s Low Alcohol Descriptors Guidance, published in 2018, or future versions of that guidance;”
This amendment ensures that alcohol is considered a “less healthy” product and therefore liable to the watershed proposed for TV programme services.
Amendment 140, page 217, line 3, in schedule 16, at end insert—
“(da) a drink product is ‘less healthy’ if it is an alcoholic product in accordance with the Department for Health and Social Care’s Low Alcohol Descriptors Guidance, published in 2018, or future versions of that guidance;”
This amendment ensures that alcohol is considered a “less healthy” product and therefore liable to the watershed proposed for TV programme services.
Amendment 141, page 218, line 27, in schedule 16, at end insert—
“(fa) a drink product is ‘less healthy’ if it is an alcoholic product in accordance with the Department for Health and Social Care’s Low Alcohol Descriptors Guidance, published in 2018, or future versions of that guidance;”
This amendment ensures that alcohol is considered a “less healthy” product and therefore liable to the online ban.
That Schedule 16 be the Sixteenth schedule to the Bill.
New clause 55—Nutrient profiling model—
“Before making any adjustments to the nutrient profiling model used for the purposes of regulations under the Communications Act 2003, or of any other enactment, the Secretary of State must undertake a full and open formal consultation.”
This new clause would insert a requirement for a consultation before any changes can be made to the Nutrient Profiling Model.
Dr Whitford
Basically, clause 125 is just schedule 16 —there is nothing very much in clause 125. I sat on the Health and Social Care Committee when we talked about trying to tackle obesity, which is a growing harm across the UK, giving rise to heart disease, diabetes and so on, and the difficulties of trying to regulate the advertising of unhealthy foods, particularly foods with high fat, salt and sugar. I welcome the fact that there is an attempt to tackle that issue in broadcasting, streaming and particularly online.
I have concerns that the exemption for small and medium-sized enterprises could be worked into a loophole at a later date by large companies simply employing multiple small advertisers or restructuring themselves to get away with still advertising. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that exemption, because unhealthy food is just as unhealthy whether made by a small or a big company.
Broadcasting and online regulation are clearly reserved matters, and I totally respect that, but public health is devolved, so I would welcome clarification from the Minister on exactly how the devolved Ministers will be involved, how their public health policies will be respected, and how they will be consulted.
Proposed new section 368Z20(3) of the Communications Act 2003 gives power to amend by regulation Acts of the devolved Parliaments, and proposed new subsection (4) states that the Secretary of State can consult who they think appropriate. I am surprised that at that point there is no mention of consulting the devolved Governments. I totally accept that it would not be a matter of consent, but yet again there is absolutely no mention of consultation with or involvement of the Public Health Ministers in the devolved nations.
Alex Norris
It is a pleasure to speak to this important clause, which sets out restrictions on advertising less healthy food and drink. I echo what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said about its importance and the general commitment to it across the House. Importantly, it also gives me an opportunity to put on the record a message of thanks to the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) for all the work she did in this area while a Health Minister. She has moved to a new post during the Bill’s consideration, but she championed this provision for a long time and fought very hard for it, so I have no doubt that she will be glad to see it included in the Bill.
These measures form part of the Government’s obesity strategy, which is coming through the system bit by bit. The strategy has largely come through in secondary measures, so I welcome the fact that this provision has been included in the Bill, because it gives us an opportunity to propose improving amendments. Is the Minister able to explain why other provisions in the strategy have not been brought forward in this way? For example, we have considered a statutory instrument on showing calories on menus, which I dare say all Members will have received something about in their mailbags, because it is a contentious and emotive topic, with many shades of grey. That provision would have been improved if we had had a chance to amend it, so I am sad that we instead got a “take it or leave it” measure. I do wonder why the entire obesity strategy was not put through in this way.
Turning to what is before us, ensuring that we do not see the aggressive promotion of products high in fat, sugar and salt, particularly to our nation’s children, is an important step in reducing the obesogenic environment we live in. We know that one in three of our children leave primary school overweight and one in five are obese, and we know the lifelong impact that that has on physical and mental health, such as the links to diabetes, musculoskeletal ailments and depression. We also know the impact on children’s education, as they go to secondary school and beyond, and on their prospects in the world of work.
It is a well-established and long-standing precedent in this country that we try to protect children from exposure via the television by using a watershed, so it makes sense to consider these products within that scope. Of course, the nature of the content we all consume—children are no exception—has changed beyond all recognition in my lifetime. The explosion of the internet and its pre-eminence in our lives has provided new advertising space for traditional means—banner ads, pop-up ads and similar—but there is also a much broader platform. Today is probably not the day, certainly not in the witching hour of this Committee, to get into the influence of culture and how the entertainment landscape is changing—not least because I feel woefully underqualified to talk about it—but the point is that there are extraordinarily novel ways of connecting with people, especially young people. It is therefore right that we in Parliament enter this space to try to create the safest possible environment.
I will say, alongside this, that I am surprised that we have not yet seen the online harms legislation—it seems to have been coming through the system for a very long time indeed—because it would sit very neatly with this. I hope there will be a sense of trying to weave this in with that in due course.
The Government’s answer here goes beyond a watershed and into full prohibition. I hope that the Minister will take us through how that decision was reached. I understand from my conversations with industry, particularly those working in digital media, that they have offered a solution that would act as a de facto ban for children without being an outright ban. Given that we genuinely lay claim to being world leading in advertising in general, and in digital media in particular, we ought to listen if there are more elegant ways of doing that. I hope the Minister can cover the conversations being had with the sector and why this approach was chosen, not a slightly more nuanced one. Perhaps it was considered too complicated, but we need to know that.
As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire says, clause 125 inserts schedule 16 into the Bill. As that is where the meat is, I want to probe the Minister on a couple of points. First, on the fines regime, what are the sanctions in the Government’s mind? Secondly, the schedule provides for regulations to follow. I suspect we will see a full regime, but when are we likely to see it? How far along are we, and what sort of consultation will there be? Thirdly—again, this will be a matter for regulations, but I hope the Minister might be drawn on it now as a concept—who does the burden fall on? Is it the advertiser or the platform? It might be both, and obviously it could not be neither. That will be a very important point going forwards.
Adding to the case the hon. Member made about small and medium-sized enterprises, we supported that conceptually in the statutory instrument on calories on menus because there was agreement that it was reasonable to say that these things would be a significant burden for a small operator, which might have only one or two members of staff. I do not think that applies in the advertising space. Again, we would be keen to understand how the Minister and his colleagues reached the conclusion they did.
Amendments 139 and 141 deal with alcohol. One of the few parts of the obesity strategy where we have departed from the Government’s view is the curious decision to remove alcohol, particularly with regard to calories and labels. We all know that alcohol is a less healthy product—I may well be the billboard for that, certainly when it comes to weight—so why has it been left out? Our amendments are more probing than an attempt to actually change the Bill, because I hope that alcohol has already been covered. However, in the obesity strategy in general, it seems to have disappeared, which seems very odd. I hope that the Minister can explain his thinking on that.
New clause 55 seeks to protect the nutrient profiling model. According to gov.uk, the NPM
“was developed by the Food Standards Agency in 2004-2005 as a tool to help Ofcom differentiate foods and improve the balance of television advertising to children. Ofcom introduced controls which restricted the advertising of HFSS foods in order to encourage the promotion of healthier alternatives.”
So far, so good. We would say that that principle is sound today and will be sound going forward; that is why we are keen to see it in the Bill. It is crucial that we continue to uphold those standards, but we know that foods change. We know that our understanding of what different nutrients mean for us or our children changes over time. We know that the biggest prize in this space is about reformulation, as much as it is about anything else, which would put more stresses on the NPM. I am keen to hear a full commitment from the Minister today that before meaningful changes are made to the NPM, they will be put out to proper consultation and that industry and consumer groups will be properly engaged, along with anyone else who may have an interest.
I will finish with amendment 113, in the name of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire. I have made the arguments around engagement through consent, mutual good faith and co-operation from Ministers multiple times, and I hope to hear that in closing.
Clause 125 is very important, and we would like to know a bit more about schedule 16. I would be keen to hear that the issues raised in our amendments are covered elsewhere or at least to have a commitment to that. Finally, I would like to hear a bit about the nutrient profiling model.
Edward Timpson
Briefly, on clause 125 and schedule 16 in particular, I want to pick up where the hon. Member for Nottingham North left us, on the issue of obesity. I think we all share concerns that a rising number of children continue to leave primary school either overweight or obese. Much of the answer to tackling that lies in making physical education and sport part of the core curriculum in schools, but we need to look at all measures, including on what children look at and are exposed to in the changing and more digital age in which we live. I welcome measures to tackle that head on, particularly in primary legislation, although I recognise that regulation will flow from that.
Hywel Williams
I will not repeat the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire made about what is sometimes called the jagged edge of devolution—in this respect, that public health is devolved, but the regulation of broadcasting is not. I am not contesting that this afternoon, but I seek assurance that the Welsh Government, along with the Scottish Government, will be properly consulted, and their views listened to.
I will make two points on schedule 16. On the point that the hon. Member raised about small and medium-sized enterprises, in Wales, particularly rural Wales, food and drink businesses are overwhelmingly microbusinesses employing one, two or three people. It would be unusual indeed to have such a company employ more than 250 people, which I think is the definition of an SME. I therefore assume that those small producers will not be affected by the schedule, and will be exempt.
A point that has been made to me—perhaps the Minister could give me an answer to this—is that there are umbrella bodies that promote certain foods. The one that springs to my mind is Hybu Cig Cymru—the red meat authority in Wales—which promotes lamb and beef. It promotes red meats extensively, and advertises, particularly on S4C, the Welsh language channel, which I think helpfully has lower advertising rates. Would that particular umbrella or trade body, and others, be affected by the legislation?
Edward Argar
This is an important clause and set of amendments, so I fear I may detain the Committee on them for a little while. However, it is important that we air a number of points. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston and others, because when we talk about digital platforms, including in other pieces of legislation and, indeed, in democracies around the world, we are essentially grappling with whether they are platforms or publishers responsible for content. I think it is fair to say that that debate continues in legislatures around the world, which presents a fundamental challenge.
I will pick up on a few questions while they are fresh in my head, and I suspect that I will cover the others in my prepared remarks. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked why there is no watershed equivalent online, and how that might operate. The short answer is that it reflects the nature of online media: it is on demand, rather than linear, as with a terrestrial or satellite broadcast, though we see slight changes to that now, with Sky boxes—other online platforms are available for TV—the ability to record things, catch up, and so on. The situation is changing, and is not quite as binary as it used to be, but that is the primary reason.
If it is agreeable to you, Mr McCabe, I will discuss the amendments first, then turn to clause 125 and schedule 16. I hope that, with my extensive notes, I will be able to mop up and scoop up a number of the questions asked. If I do not, I will ask my officials to have a scan of Hansard, and I will endeavour to write to hon. Members prior to Report to cover any points that I omit. I will then address new clause 55, which relates to the clause and schedule.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss amendment 113, which would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to obtain the consent of the DAs before any of the regulation-making powers granted by schedule 16 of the clause were exercised. As I am sure members of the Committee will be aware, the provisions in clause 125 and schedule 16 on advertising less healthy food and drink will extend to the whole of the United Kingdom.
We consider the provisions in this part of the Bill to be primarily focused on online services and broadcast restrictions, which are not devolved realms of responsibility. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and her colleagues in the Scottish Government might have a different interpretation of the same point—it is in the nature of the constitutional settlement that such discussions occur—but telecommunications and internet services remain reserved matters under the devolution settlement. The UK Government have made it clear that the primary purpose of the provision on the advertising of less healthy food and drink on TV and internet services is to regulate content on reserved media, internet and broadcasting. On that basis, we hold to the view that it is reserved. The purpose is not incidental—hence our argument that it does not fall within the devolved provisions and the devolved remit—but I suspect that we may return to this debate in the coming months.
Dr Whitford
I totally recognise, as I recognised in my remarks, that this area is reserved, both as regards broadcasting and online, but obviously the nations consider taking different public health approaches. Given that this is a UK-wide approach, it is important that it is joined up. I totally accept that the Minister is not interested in accepting consent, but there is no mention in the clause of consulting. I would have thought it important that there be discussion of the public health approaches of the four nations, in order to ensure that centralised policy in this Parliament lines up and reflects policies across the UK.
Edward Argar
I take the hon. Lady’s point. Although we did not think it necessary to put “consult” in the Bill, I accept that a joined-up approach to public health matters across the four nations of the United Kingdom is beneficial. I expect close working at both official and ministerial level to continue, and I therefore expect consultation and discussion to be ongoing.
As I am sure members of the Committee would agree, the restrictions on advertising on TV and internet services are crucial in contributing to the Government’s goal of tackling childhood obesity, and I welcome what I think is cross-party support for that goal. Through these provisions, we have the opportunity to remove up to 7.2 billion calories per year from children’s diets in the UK. None the less, for the reasons that I have set out, the Government believe that amendment 113 is not appropriate in this context, so I hope the hon. Lady will withdraw it.
I am grateful for the opportunity to address amendments 139 to 141. As the Committee will know and as I have said, tackling obesity is a priority for the House, irrespective of which side one sits on. That has been brought into sharp focus throughout the covid-19 pandemic. Introducing advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink products is one of the many policies that the Government are bringing forward to tackle this issue. Following extensive consideration of the evidence submitted and comments made by stakeholders during the consultation exercise, we have announced that we will introduce a 9 pm TV watershed for advertising for less healthy food and drink products, and a restriction on paid-for advertising of such products online.
Amendments 139 to 141 would expand the definition of “less healthy products” to include alcohol, which would have the effect of making alcohol advertising liable to the watershed proposed for TV programme services, and to the online restriction of paid-for advertising. The UK Government are committed to ensuring that children and young people are suitably protected from alcohol advertising and marketing through a set of rules in the UK advertising codes. Restrictions and limitations laid out in the UK advertising codes provide that alcohol advertising may not be featured in any medium where more than 25% of the audience is under 18. Alcohol advertising must not be likely to appeal strongly to young people under 18, reflect or associate with youth culture, or show adolescent or juvenile behaviour—I make no comment there about the behaviour of the House on occasions. No children, and no one who is or appears to be under the age of 25, may play a significant role in advertising alcoholic drinks. The advertising codes apply to broadcast media and non-broadcast media, including online advertising. We do not believe it is necessary to consider alcohol a less healthy product in this context, or to apply the new restrictions to it.
As we will discuss in more detail shortly, clause 125 and schedule 16 are aimed at reducing the exposure of children to advertising for less healthy food and drink, and at reducing the impact of such advertising on child obesity. Less healthy food and drink products are unique, as they are not age-restricted at the point of purchase, unlike alcohol.
Dr Whitford
I do not plan to press my amendment to a Division, but I encourage the Minister to put in the Bill the consultation that is required. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 125 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 16 agreed to.
Clause 126
Hospital food standards
Alex Norris
I beg to move amendment 137, in clause 126, page 107, line 18, leave out “hospital”.
This amendment would make the power to impose food standards applicable to all premises within the remit of the Care Quality Commission, rather than just hospitals.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 138, in clause 126, page 107, line 28, leave out paragraph (c).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 137.
Clause stand part.
Alex Norris
It is a pleasure to speak on the important topic of hospital food standards. We very much support the substance of the clause, and its inclusion in the Bill. What we consume before, during and after we engage with a hospital can have a profound impact and long-lasting effects on the ailment that brought us there, and affects our experience while we are there.
Even prior to being in hospital, malnutrition is a feature in many people’s lives. It affects about 3 million people in the UK, and health and social care expenditure on malnutrition is estimated at more than £23 billion a year across the UK. Around one in 10, or 1.3 million, older people are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition, and older people are disproportionately represented in malnourished groups. Of course, malnutrition plays a significant role in hospital admissions; around one in three patients admitted to hospital are malnourished, or at risk of becoming so.
This is the right time to act on this issue. We ought to expect that a person’s time in hospital will be used as well as possible, and what a person consumes while they are there should be seen as part of their care, reablement and rehabilitation. It is a good idea to make sure that our hospitals promote that view, and we therefore support the clause. Our amendments 137 and 138 would improve it, and I hope to find the Minister in listening mode on this.
The whole point of the Bill is that while hospitals are one element of our health and social care system, there are many other places in the system that people are more likely to find themselves in. They may be in community-based care facilities, in step-up or step-down care, or a care home, which could be their permanent home. We argue that anything within the purview of the Care Quality Commission ought to adhere to the standards set out in the clause. The evidence bears that out. Somewhere between a third and 40% of patients admitted to care homes, and one in five patients admitted to a mental health unit, are at risk of malnutrition, so clearly they would need this sort of support.
For those in long-term care settings, nutrition is a vital part of their care. Research has shown the importance of good nutrition to people with dementia; it slows the loss of independence or functional decline. Research shows that nearly 30% of dementia patients experience malnutrition, and that is associated with a much more rapid functional decline over five years. It is really important that we make sure this provision is in place for them; it is fundamental to their life and their future.
Of course, the issue with the two amendments and the clause is resourcing. I am interested to hear from the Minister how the Government intend to resource the clause, because we do not want pressure on hospital settings—and settings in the community, if our amendments are accepted—to make cuts elsewhere. It would be a pyrrhic victory if the clause led to better nutrition but worse care. We need to see the measures as not only the right thing to do—of course, it is what individuals should expect when in the care of the state—but a good investment that will bring us a good return. This is an important issue, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Edward Argar
As matters stand, the enforcement of standards for food and drink in hospital is not on a statutory footing. That has resulted in variance in compliance across the sector. The clause will grant the Secretary of State the power to make regulations imposing requirements and improved standards for food and drink provided and sold on NHS hospital premises in England to patients, staff, visitors or anyone else on the premises. As the hon. Gentleman set out, providing good-quality, nutritious food is a cornerstone of patient care, and placing these requirements on a statutory footing will ensure a level playing field when it comes to compliance across the sector with nutritional standards in hospitals.
The Care Quality Commission will ensure that any requirements in regulations made under the clause are fulfilled, pursuant to its existing statutory powers of enforcement under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The clause demonstrates that we are committed to acting on a key recommendation from the independent review of NHS hospital food, published in October 2020, to ensure that hospital food standards are enshrined in law and sufficiently enforced .
To address amendments 137 and 138, as I have set out, the clause has been drafted specifically in response to the independent review of NHS hospital food, which was published on 26 October 2020. That independent review was announced in August 2019, following the deaths of six people linked to an outbreak of listeria in contaminated food in hospitals. The review’s aims were to improve public confidence in hospital food by setting out clear ambitions for delivering high-quality food to patients and the public. The review was intentionally limited to hospitals only because specific issues had been identified in relation to hospital foods that necessitated a prompt and meaningful response by the Government.
The report was prepared following considerable research, investigation, hospital visits and expert advice from within and outside the NHS specifically in relation to the provision of hospital food. The review recommended that ambitious NHS food and drink standards for patients, staff and visitors be put on a statutory footing. We support that recommendation and have included the clause in the Bill because we believe that giving the Secretary of State powers to place hospital food standards on a statutory footing sends a clear message about the importance of standards for the provision of good hydration and nutrition in the NHS. Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of good nutrition in recovery and rehabilitation, were such a reminder needed.
I reassure hon. Members that the Government are committed to the health and wellbeing of patients in all healthcare settings. Each setting presents unique issues and challenges. Although there may be some common themes, if the clause were to be broadened beyond hospitals, the provision of food in other healthcare settings would need to be researched, investigated and carefully considered in the context of those individual settings and in consultation with their service users and stakeholders to ensure that the legislation was fit for purpose and met their individual needs. Challenges affecting the provision of food in other healthcare settings were not considered as part of the scope for the independent review of hospital food. Therefore, although there are common themes, we cannot be sure that the amendment would adequately and fully meet their needs and requirements.
The recommendations from the review, and the introduction of the clause, form a key part of our policy to improve public confidence in hospital food. I commend the intention behind the amendments to expand the clause to capture all premises within the remit of the Care Quality Commission.
The CQC already has some important powers over other healthcare settings. The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 provide the CQC with powers to prosecute providers that do not provide people in their care with nutrition and hydration to sustain life and good health and reduce the risks of malnutrition and dehydration while they receive care and treatment. That power ensures that basic nutrition standards are provided.
The clause goes further and is not about basic provision. The root-and-branch independent review made recommendations on how NHS trusts could prioritise food safety and provide more nutritious meals to staff and patients. The clause is a key component of our plan to fulfil the recommendations of the review. I reassure hon. Members that the CQC remains vigilant about the provision of nutrition and hydration in other healthcare settings, as evidenced by the CQC’s powers.
For these reasons, I urge the hon. Member for Nottingham North not to press the amendments. Ultimately, the clause cements the Government’s commitment to patients in this regard and sends a clear message about the role that food plays in patient care and recovery. I commend it to the Committee.
Alex Norris
I appreciate the Minister’s response. I understand that the genesis of the clause was a hospital setting. The case that the Minister mentioned was exceptionally serious, and it is right that action was taken, but I feel that there is a slight lack of ambition to say that the activity must stop at hospitals—it is a slightly blinkered approach. I heard the point that extending the provision to broader care settings would take research and careful consideration. I probably support that principle, but I would like to have heard that that process is under way, and I did not hear that.
At the end of the day, the goalposts do not move that much. Basic nutritional and hydration standards are either being met or they are not. Taking the learning from hospital settings should have made it easier to widen the process, rather than harder. The point that the CQC inspects those settings is true and fair. It is also true of hospital settings. Setting some standards would probably have been prudent. I will not press the amendment, but I think we will return to the issue at some point. I hope the Minister and his officials will reflect on the opportunity to go further with the provision .
Edward Argar
I am always happy to reflect on the sensible suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 126 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 127
Food information for consumers: power to amend retained EU law
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Edward Argar
I can reassure the Committee that I will be a little briefer than in my remarks on clause 125.
Clause 127 amends the Food Safety Act 1990 to make provision for domestic legislation to modify retained EU regulation 1169/2011 concerning the labelling, marketing, presentation or advertising of food and the descriptions that may be applied to food. The current powers to amend the regulation are limited in scope. This power will afford the Government an additional necessary lever to introduce domestic changes that better suit and support consumer needs and priorities for food information. We know that consumers want transparency and clear information about the food and drink that they are buying, and such information can inform people’s choices. Scientific information and evidence on labelling and consumer needs continue to evolve. We want the ability to respond quickly to those changes and that changing evidence base as and when required.
Retained EU regulation 1169/2011 sets requirements on labelling and food information in the UK. It was designed to apply to EU member states. Now that we have left the EU, primary legislation is required to modify the retained legislation. Clause 127 will help us to settle this issue by conferring powers on the Secretary of State in England, and Ministers in Scotland and Wales, to modify requirements on food labelling using regulations. The regulations made under this power will be subject to the affirmative procedure, which will ensure that any changes introduced are debated and actively approved before implementation.
The clause will be vital in supporting the Government to deliver on a range of policies being developed as part of our obesity strategy, which includes commitments to consult on front-of-pack nutrition labelling and whether to mandate alcohol calorie labelling. The power will enable us to make improvements to food and drink information more effectively while retaining a level of scrutiny on any proposed changes. The clause can also help us to deliver on wider Government objectives, including options for the forthcoming food strategy White Paper, which sets Government ambitions and direction for food system transformation. I commend clause 127 to the Committee.
Alex Norris
The Minister and I have had these Brexit-type statutory instruments time and time again, so I am not going to get too involved in the conversations that we have had. As we said in the discussion on clause 146, we would like to see greater safeguards. We are glad about the use of the affirmative procedure but we do not think that there is a strong mandate for Ministers to march across the statute book. I hope to hear that this power will be used to the minimum extent necessary to implement the decisions that we have taken.
Edward Timpson
I want to put on record my support for the clause and for the opportunity that it presents for our domestic market and the promotion of locally grown produce, the high standards of animal welfare across the UK and our eco credentials. We do not want to make labelling too complicated for people––we want to make it accessible and simple to decipher––but this power is a chance to put that to the forefront so that consumers get produce that is good for them but also good for the UK market.
Edward Argar
I just want to give the shadow Minister the assurance he seeks that I believe that the powers under this clause would be used sparingly and proportionately.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 127 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 128
Fluoridation of water supplies
Alex Norris
I beg to move amendment 149, in clause 128, page 108, line 22, at end insert—
“(za) in subsection (3)(a)(i), after “Secretary of State” insert “or relevant local authority”;”
The Bill removes the ability of local authorities to commence fluoridation schemes and gives that ability to the Secretary of State. This amendment, together with Amendment 150, seeks to allow local authorities to commence schemes as well as the Secretary of State.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 150, in clause 128, page 108, line 26, after “Secretary of State” insert “or relevant local authority”.
See explanatory statement to Amendment 149.
Amendment 151, in clause 128, page 108, leave out lines 33 to 36.
This amendment would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to pass the cost of fluoridation onto another public body.
Clause stand part.
Clause 129 stand part.
Alex Norris
I am really pleased that we have reached clauses 128 and 129, on fluoridation of water supplies. This is something that I am personally very enthusiastic about, so I want to make a few points on it. Fluoridation is a very important venture. Oral ill health can be a hidden and very personal but insidious ailment. It is the single biggest reason for hospital admission among our children. A 2015 review of children’s dental health found that a quarter of five-year-olds have decayed teeth, with an average of 3.4 per child.
Dr Whitford
I wonder whether the hon. Member, like me, is surprised that the opportunity offered by this Bill has not been used to introduce a child dental health programme in England similar to Childsmile, which has existed in Scotland since 2007, or the scheme that Wales has had since 2011. Although there was agreement a couple of years ago to establish pilot sites across England, data on the impact in Scotland, where many areas had significantly poor dental health, has been available for four years. I am just surprised that something like that has not been included in this Bill, when we are talking improving the dental health of children and addressing the fact that, as the hon. Member mentioned, dental clearance—the removal of significant numbers of teeth—is the commonest reason to administer a general anaesthetic to a child. That is quite a shocking indictment.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that intervention; I was going to turn to that issue next. Not only have opportunities been missed over the last decade to invest in oral health, but we are actually going backwards. Supervised tooth brushing and other high-quality evidence-based interventions, such as the models that the hon. Member mentioned, have disappeared because of this Government’s cuts to the public health budget. Of course, the savings from those cuts are hoovered up very quickly by the costs that they generate elsewhere in the system. It is very sad, it results in a lot of pain and lost potential for the individual, and it is bad for the collective.
Fluoridation is one element in trying to put that right. Putting fluoride in our water is a really good, evidence-based intervention that is proven to work. For every pound spent in deprived communities, there are savings of nearly £13 within just five years, and of course every independent review of fluoridation has affirmed its safety. As a nation, we ought to be creating new fluoridation schemes targeted at the communities that would benefit the most. The current system does not work, as I remember well from my time in Nottingham. Currently, a local authority has to decide to enter into this space, build support, and then, with support from Public Health England and the Secretary of State, move to implementation. However, that generally fails for two reasons.
First, our political boundaries do not match up very accurately with our water boundaries, so where we would physically tip in the bag of fluoride does not fit with our political geographies. That creates issues between authorities such as mine, where the case would be very strong because of our oral health outcomes, and bordering authorities that would have less interest because they have better oral health outcomes. Secondly, this issue is contentious. Local authorities have an awful lot on, and it is very hard for a local council to make this the one totemic fight in its four-year term. There are only so many big things that a council can take on at once, and fluoridation gets beyond the bandwidth of local authorities.
We support the principle behind clause 128; bringing the Secretary of State into this is a very good idea. The position of the Secretary of State, once removed from the entire country, can make different geographic decisions sensibly align with water boundaries. He is perhaps also in a stronger position to help with some of the political issues, so in concept we support that.
Amendments 149 and 150 are a pair. Why are the Government keen to swap the current local system for one that is nationally driven, when we could have both? As I have said, we support adding the heft of the Secretary of State to the local expertise of our councils, but why remove councils from the process? Although clause 128 gives new powers to the Secretary of State, our argument is that local authorities should be able to retain their powers in the event that they might want to use them. This is a cost-free proposal. It merely expands the range of possible approaches and paths towards fluoridation, and it promotes local decision making.
Clause 128(2)(d), which inserts new subsection (6B) into section 87 of the Water Industry Act 1991, is a little bit naughty, and amendment 150 seeks to address it. According to page 43 of the Government’s community water fluoridation toolkit, if a local community can successfully get itself together to get a scheme going, Public Health England is required to meet the reasonable capital and operating costs. I presume that that responsibility ported to the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities when it came into force at the beginning of this month. However, subsection (6B) removes that provision and instead allows the Secretary of State to direct another body—I presume it will be the local authority—to pay for the scheme. Therefore, instead of being paid for nationally, the scheme will be paid for by a body chosen by the Secretary of State. That will be a barrier to the creation of a scheme.
I think that local authorities will be less keen to engage with the Secretary of State in implementing a scheme if they feel that they will have to pay for it. Their budgets are exceptionally stretched—I suspect they will not get much support tomorrow—and the benefits do not generally go back to local authorities. Of course, the benefit goes to the community in general, but in terms of organisations and cashable benefits, they would be health service benefits rather than local authority benefits. I do not think that the proposal promotes integrated thinking. The amendment seeks to address that, and I hope that the Minister will reflect on it. As I have said, I think that, broadly speaking, the clauses do the right thing, but their current effect will be to replace a locally led system with a nationally led one, when actually we could just have both.
To conclude, over the past year we have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Government in expressing to communities up and down the country that vaccines are not only safe but necessary. The objections that we receive come from those who argue in the face of evidence or who rely on conspiracy theories. The same is true of arguments against fluoridation. It is an evidence-based, safe and highly effective intervention. That is not to say that it is easy to do. It does not require behaviour change but it has a remarkable impact, so I am keen to hear from the Minister not only that the Government want to put this in the Bill, but that they want to get on with doing it in communities such as mine, which will benefit. If they do that, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them again, and I think it will be an exceptionally important breakthrough in oral health in this country.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in the points he makes about fluoridation and the parallels he draws with the vaccine. Although there have been times over the past 20 months when he and I, and our respective Front-Bench teams, have not necessarily agreed on every aspect of the response to the pandemic—that is appropriate, as the Opposition seek to challenge and question the Government—may I pay tribute to him and his colleagues in the shadow health team for what they have done to highlight the importance of the vaccine and to counter the misinformation that some have spread about it?
I will speak to amendments 149 and 150 together, as the former is consequential on the latter. They would allow for local authorities to bring forward proposals for new fluoridation schemes and to enter into arrangements with water companies. As has been set out, tooth decay is a significant, yet largely preventable, public health problem. In 2019-20, more than 35,000 people aged 19 or under were admitted to hospital for the extraction of decaying teeth. In the same year, the cost of hospital admissions for tooth extractions among that age group was estimated to be £54.6 million.
As we know, fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in water and some foods, and at the right levels it has been shown to reduce tooth decay. If five-year-olds in England with low levels of fluoride drank water containing at least 0.7 mg of fluoride per litre, the number experiencing decay would fall by 28% in the most deprived areas, and the number of hospital admissions for tooth extractions due to decay would reduce by up to 68%.
We have seen no new water fluoridation schemes implemented for the past 40 years. Both major parties in the House must accept our responsibility for that. That is not a fault of the NHS or local government, but because responsibility in our view has sat fundamentally at the wrong level for driving forward such a health intervention. Local authorities currently have the responsibility to initiate new water fluoridation schemes or to propose that existing schemes are varied or terminated. We have heard their frustration with the overly burdensome and complex processes in place for initiation and variation of schemes. The steps we are proposing to take through the Bill are intended to make it simpler to expand schemes. We all share the same ambition.
Transferring responsibility to central Government will allow us, for the first time, to move away from the limitations of local authority boundaries and to look more strategically across the country, to where oral health is the poorest. Subject to funding being agreed, we will be able to expand schemes across larger areas to make an impact on a bigger scale. We know it is less cost-efficient to operate schemes across individual local areas.Allowing local authorities to continue to bring forward schemes and to enter into arrangements with water companies separately would run counter to our ambitions to manage expansion at a higher level, again adding extra complexity, which we are eeking to remove.
We understand that some local authorities have begun the process to bring forward schemes, and we appreciate that they are passionate about their schemes and the benefits that they would bring to the populations they serve. I want to provide assurance that we share the ambition to expand schemes so that more of the population can benefit from water fluoridation, which we know is both safe and effective.
Any plans to expand schemes will of course take into account oral health across the country as well as areas that have already began to progress schemes. We want to engage and listen to local areas so that together we can make the biggest impact on oral health improvement that we know fluoridation will provide. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Nottingham North to consider withdrawing his amendment.
On amendment 151, we are taking powers in the Bill to remove the operational burden associated with bringing forward new schemes. Prior to 2013, both the NHS and local authorities had, at different times, responsibility for funding both revenue and the capital cost associated with fluoridation schemes. There are no current proposals for cost sharing, but given the cycle of legislation and the infrequency with which such opportunities present themselves, we have taken the decision to include such measures in the Bill.
We have discussed the provisions with both NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Local Government Association, and I can assure the Committee that should we bring forward any plans to cost share in the future, we would seek to fully engage with relevant groups at the earliest opportunity. Under the Bill, any plans to cost share with public sector bodies would be subject to regulations on which there is a requirement to consult.
A precedent has been set over the decades for the funding of water fluoridation schemes. We believe that, to move forward, it would be best to have the flexibility to work collaboratively across industry and the public sector to effect what could be the most significant improvements in oral health that we have seen to date. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Nottingham North to consider not pressing the amendment to a Division.
Clause 128 would transfer the power to initiate, vary or terminate water fluoridation schemes to the Secretary of State. The clause also allows for the Secretary of State to make regulations that will enable the sharing of costs for fluoridation schemes with water undertakers and/or public sector bodies that may receive benefit from such schemes. However, before making any such regulations, the clause imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to consult. The clause also requires the Secretary of State to consult water undertakers on whether any proposal for new fluoridation schemes, or whether any termination or variation of an existing scheme, is operable and efficient prior to undertaking any public consultation, for which there will also continue to be a duty.
The clause requires us to set out in regulations the process for consulting the public, for example on any new proposed schemes. That will ensure that those affected will continue to have a voice. In September, the chief medical officers for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland made a joint statement confirming that water fluoridation is an effective public health intervention for improving the oral health of adults and children. Such schemes have been in operation for more than 60 years, and no credible evidence that they cause health harms has emerged. It is time we take action that will enable us to reduce the oral health inequalities across the country, and I commend clause 128 to the Committee.
I turn briefly, and finally, to clause 129. We have a number of existing water fluoridation schemes across England that have been in place for decades. We want to ensure that those existing arrangements can be treated in the same way as any new schemes created using the powers in clause 128. Clause 129 simply provides for the existing arrangements to be treated as if they were made under the new statutory regime for fluoridation. The clause also provides that all previous England fluoridation arrangements shall be treated as if they were entered into between the Secretary of State and the water undertaker. The Secretary of State has the power to modify the detail of these existing arrangements to give effect to this, provided he first seeks to agree the modifications with the water undertaker.
I therefore commend these clauses to the Committee.
Alex Norris
I take the Minister’s point about current powers. I agree that they are clearly at the wrong level, because these schemes simply are not coming through, so the system is obviously not working. As I say, I would rather we added what we are putting in the Bill today to what we already have, but I have probably made my point, so I do not intend to press amendments 149 or 150 to a Division.
The Minister has made the point that there are currently no schemes in the system. I hope that when it decides which schemes to prioritise or pilot, the Department might at least look fondly on local authorities—such as the city of Nottingham—that have made such commitments in their council plans.
Finally, on amendment 151, I have heard what the Minister said about cost sharing. That gave me some comfort, so I will not press that amendment to a Division either. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 149.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 128 and 129 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Steve Double.)
Subsidy Control Bill (Second sitting)
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
We will now hear from Dr Roger Barker, director of policy and corporate governance at the Institute of Directors, who is appearing virtually. We have until 2.30 pm for his evidence. Will the witness introduce himself for the record?
Dr Barker: Certainly. My name is Roger Barker. I am director of policy and governance for the Institute of Directors.
The Chair
Would you like to make an opening comment?
Dr Barker: I would, yes. Probably the most important comment I can make to start is that, from IoD members’ perspective, we are seeking a subsidy regime that is easy to navigate; does not result in too much delay; and has predictable outcomes that are reasonably legally certain and are not challenged or reversed too often. Of course we want a nimble system, but we do not want one that is so nimble that decisions are vulnerable to challenge because the public body has perhaps not followed the right process. That would make the whole system too uncertain and unpredictable. That is the basic point underlying our perspective.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
Thank you for giving evidence to us today, Dr Barker. I shall start with a more general question about your view of the Bill and the regime as a whole. Where do you see the opportunity for small businesses to work towards the Government’s objectives of levelling up and net zero that have been talked about?
Dr Barker: I do think this is an opportunity. It provides a framework to undertake the type of policy approach that you describe, but as to whether it will actually be used for that purpose is still somewhat uncertain. Historically, the UK has granted subsidies to companies much less than the EU, for example. EU countries, the United States and Asian countries continue to use subsidies in a major way to encourage key areas such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing—the industries of the future. Despite the difficult historical experience that we had in trying to pick winners during the 1970s, we probably have to ask what it is that our more successful competitors have realised about the use of subsidies that we have not.
From the IoD’s perspective, our view is that we should recognise that an effective subsidy regime does have an appropriate role to play for small and medium-sized enterprises to build a tech revolution in the UK, and a green industrial revolution. That will require Government and business to work together, as to some extent they have during the pandemic. The subsidy regime will be part of that—the changes will not just happen spontaneously.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Dr Barker: I do not think it does. At the moment, the framework that is being described is like an empty husk that could be used in a variety of ways. It does not really indicate how it will be used in a more detailed policy sense. Some aspects of the structure of the framework could get in the way of some of the policy agenda. The particular area where we have some concerns relates to compatibility with the levelling-up agenda. There is a clear principle in the Bill that any subsidy should not displace investment or business activity from one part of the UK to another, but you can see that having some potential conflict with the levelling-up agenda, which is trying to promote disadvantaged regions of the UK. You can see the potential for legal challenges occurring as one region says “Well, actually, you are not creating new business here, with these subsidies; you have actually displaced business activity from our region.” I think we could benefit, within the Bill, from more clarity to prevent that type of conflict from happening.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Dr Barker: Yes. I think there should be scope to do that within the framework of the Bill. I do not have a very specific proposal on the wording of the legislation, but that displacement principle should certainly be qualified to the extent that it allows this kind of regional policy—or levelling-up agenda—to actually take place.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Dr Barker: We would like to see transparency throughout the system. It is important for everyone to have trust in the system. That applies to all the different processes that one might go through to win a subsidy; there are different processes identified, depending on the nature of the subsidy, from those requiring quite a detailed due-diligence process from the Competition and Markets Authority to those that, as you state, are on a kind of fast-stream process to subsidy.
Transparency is incredibly important. Competitor firms and other enterprises want to be able to see what sort of subsidy is being granted to their competitors; they want to see how that is justified and whether they might want to make some kind of legal challenge against that decision. If any of this process is seen as happening within a black box, where each subsidy decision is not properly justified and explained, that will simply create mistrust in the system and undermine it.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Dr Barker: I would not say whether it is too high or too low. I think that there should be transparency at every level of subsidy, but I think it is reasonable to have a threshold in defining a faster-track decision-making process. That seems reasonable but, regarding transparency, I do not think that should be related to the size of the grant.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Q
Dr Barker: That is potentially welcome, but now we are extending subsidy-granting powers to a large number of bodies—about 500 in total. That will create a requirement that each of those bodies understands the principles for granting the subsidy and the processes that need to be gone through. They need to have some degree of expertise to guide business through the process in a confident way. In practice, that will probably mean that the subsidy advice unit in the CMA will be called on a good deal from a lot of those bodies for advice, information and to try to get an indication of whether the process being followed is the right one.
I am slightly concerned that consulting the subsidy advice unit may become a kind of quasi-obligatory stage in the subsidy approval process. The question is, will that delay things? Will it take away the nimbleness of the system? Does the subsidy advice unit have the necessary resources to deal with the hundreds of public bodies that will be consulting it? That is an uncertainty and a concern.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Q
Secondly, we know that historically the UK’s spend when it comes to state aid, as it is more commonly known, has fallen well below that of European partners. Do you think the Bill will change that in any way, shape or form? Is there any indication in the Bill as it stands that it will change, certainly from a business perspective?
Dr Barker: I do think that more clarity is needed around a number of the concepts in the Bill. The need for more detail increases with the number of public bodies that are being empowered to grant subsidies. To give some examples, there is uncertainty around what would constitute a subsidy of particular interest, which is a subsidy that requires much more detailed pre-assessment by the CMA. Will that apply to a significant proportion of potential subsidies, or will that be done just on an exceptional basis? The answer will affect the nature of the entire system. At the other end of the spectrum, I think we still lack detail about the streamlined subsidies that can benefit from fast-track approval.
Another area that is important, particularly for IoD members, is the extent to which this regime can facilitate the support of start-ups, particularly those companies that do not have a long-standing financial track record and are still some way from generating profit or even revenue. I think that the proposed regime in this respect is preferable to the previous European Union regime, which had a prohibition over supporting undertakings in difficulties, which really ruled out start-ups. Within this measure, the only thing that is ruled out is the support of ailing or insolvent companies, which increases the scope of what can be supported. However, we still need clarity about what kind of going-concern assessments will be conducted to ensure that a potential recipient is eligible.
To answer your first question, there is still some way to go to provide all the interested parties with more clarity about how the system will operate. With your regard to your second question—do I think that this framework indicates that we will have more state support of business?—in itself, the answer is no. As I said before, it provides a framework in which that kind of policy could be pursued, but there is nothing about it that necessarily implies that it will be pursued. As I have said previously, in certain sectors there is a need for a changed approach to match those of our key competitors. That is really how the IoD is viewing it—is it going to be useful for that purpose? The answer is that it could be.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Q
Dr Barker: Yes. To address your first point, the factors that will ultimately make this most predictable include, first, guidance on the principles under which subsidies will be granted. It is a tricky balance between providing guidance that is too prescriptive, which becomes difficult to penetrate and understand, and, on the other hand, principles and advice that are too sparse and which try to be nimble but leave too much uncertainty on the table in specific instances. It is about finding the balance.
Secondly, it is about the subsidy advice unit operating effectively and being really useful, informative and timely in being able to assist the various parties and point them in the right direction. The third part of the process is the tribunal. One would hope that the number of cases coming to tribunal is minimised, but at least it provides timely, transparent and understandable rulings that assist parties in future in how they assess their ability to give subsidy. Those are my answers to that question.
Bill Esterson
Q
Dr Barker: I think that that is reasonable. It will need to evolve. As it evolves, hopefully confidence in the system will grow, along with predictability based on past rulings and decisions. That is the key thing that we are trying to get to—a degree of predictability so that everyone concerned knows how it is going to work and whether or not it is going to work without having to resort to a more legal framework.
On your second question, yes, we do need to learn the lessons of other major countries that seem to be doing a better job than the UK in terms of building technology companies and science-intensive-type enterprises. What is it that they are doing that we are not? I do not think they have achieved their success entirely by business acting alone and Governments simply stepping out of the way. A lot of the industries of the future are those that require very close collaboration between business and Government. Certainly, the green industrial revolution that we are all seeking to work towards in order to achieve net zero is also something that will require a lot of partnership between business and Government, so for me, an effective subsidy system can be part of that.
Bill Esterson
Q
Dr Barker: Certainly in the United States, which on the face of it is a free market-oriented economy, there is still a significant degree of public subsidy going into sectors such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, for example. The EU is subsidising to a high degree the development of semiconductor manufacturing capability, and of course Asian countries also provide many examples.
Bill Esterson
Q
Dr Barker: That is right. The CMA is increasingly playing a central role in many aspects of our economic life, and we are asking it to do more and more, not least in the digital space. It would be incredibly beneficial to this new regime if the CMA and its advice unit had the capacity to really assist the process.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Q
Dr Barker: They are aware of this issue in each of the devolved nations. The IoD as a whole does not take a view, for example, on whether the subsidy regime should be a devolved matter or a reserved matter for the UK central Government, but they certainly are concerned to ensure that that does not get in the way of a levelling-up agenda that could be very needed in, and very beneficial to, a country such as Wales.
Stephen Kinnock
Thank you. It is a question about aid intensity: you will be well aware that under the European Union rules, there were ceilings for how much state aid could be put into businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, according to certain themes. If you look at the regional aid theme, for example, the ceiling for SMEs was set at a 10% to 20% supplement. Do you think that the ceilings for aid intensity should be raised in the legislation—that is obviously not in the Bill and will probably end up being in the guidelines—so that you can make the kind of contribution that would make a difference to the business choices and models that are being put in place, rather than just putting money into something that would probably be happening anyway?
Dr Barker: I feel that this framework should permit the flexibility to allow those kinds of changes. Policy priorities will change over time and the Bill must not be so rigid so as not to permit that. It needs to offer a flexible framework.
The Chair
I will bring the Minister in now—I ask him to be conscious that Kirsty Blackman also wants to come in.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I am happy to let Ms Blackman go first.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Q
Dr Barker: That is what I said, yes.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Dr Barker: This is why I was arguing for transparency. Transparency is an important part of that. A lot will depend on how quickly and effectively the system operates and how much trust there is in the system. If you are potentially a competitor and you can see that there is a clear justification, based on widely understood principles, for a subsidy—it is something that is not being covered up and that is openly stated—and if you have trust in the decision-making process, the system is going to work well, and there is probably going to be less legal challenge from competitors. But as soon as that trust is lost—because things are taking too long, because there is a lack of transparency, because decisions are being made on a very unsafe basis, or because officials do not understand how to apply the principles—that is going to build mistrust and that will then lead to more legal challenge and more problems from the system. It is very important that all the components of the system have the right resources and the right clarity in terms of guidance, and that there is transparency.
Paul Scully
Q
Dr Barker: Yes. For us, it is very much about finding the balance. We absolutely do not want a highly prescriptive, bureaucratic regime. We really do see the benefits to our members of nimbleness. It is finding that balance between being nimble and not too nimble, such that decisions are made that then subsequently fall through. It is finding that sweet spot that we need to search for.
Paul Scully
Q
Dr Barker: Yes, we do. I realise that various options were considered, but we agree with that option.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of this panel. I thank Dr Barker for his evidence this afternoon.
Examination of Witness
George Peretz QC gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear from George Peretz QC from Monckton Chambers in person. We have until 3 o’clock for this session. Could the witness please introduce himself for the record? If you would like to make a brief opening statement, please do so.
George Peretz: I am George Peretz QC. I practise at Monckton Chambers. I was the co-founder of the UK State Aid Law Association a few years ago and am currently also co-chair of the Joint Working Party of the Bars and Law Societies of the United Kingdom on Competition Law, and we have contributed to the debate on subsidy control as well.
Seema Malhotra
Q
George Peretz: There is an issue about the position of subsidies that are not recognised by the granting authority as subsidies. It has always been true under EU state aid rules and World Trade Organisation subsidy rules, and it will be true under the definition of subsidy in the Bill, that there is room for considerable disagreement and argument about whether certain types of measures are subsidies at all. Two well-known examples are tax measures decisions by the tax authorities as to the tax treatment of particular corporations. If those are over-generous, they give rise to subsidies under WTO rules, EU rules and under the Bill. You also have situations where Government bodies enter into commercial transactions—loans, contracts or grants—that are over-generous. They are not the sort of transaction that a market operator would enter into, but the public authority wants to claim that they are the sort of transaction that a bank or another market operator would be prepared to enter into.
You will appreciate that there is scope in both of those areas for considerable argument and for genuinely different views to be taken about whether what is being done is a subsidy at all. You can certainly have such a situation, and these situations will arise fairly frequently when public authorities have to take a view as to what they are doing in granting a loan, or in the case of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs deciding on the tax treatment for a particular company, is a subsidy at all. They will quite often take the view that it is not, but that view will be contestable. Sometimes the view is completely wrong and the measure is in fact a subsidy. Those cases will not be placed on the transparency database, and it seems to me that there is a bit of an enforcement gap in dealing with them.
We have an obligation under the trade and co-operation agreement to ensure that things that are subsidies are dealt with properly as subsidies, so I think that there is a bit of a weakness. One thing that the CMA could be given the job of doing is, probably most easily, investigating on its own initiative, rather than necessarily in response to a complaint, cases where it looked as if there may have been a subsidy, but where a subsidy was not in fact placed on the transparency database. That would have to be on its own initiative because the whole starting point in the Bill is that things go on the transparency database, so if they have not other mechanisms do not really kick in.
Seema Malhotra
Q
George Peretz: There is a lot in that, yes. It is also worth looking at clause 60, on proposed award referrals, because quite often these cases will arise after the measure has come into effect, so it will be a post-award referral. Clause 60 and clause 55, on call-in directions, both talk about the power of the Secretary of State to request a report in relation to a proposed subsidy or subsidy scheme. It is not entirely clear what happens in a case where the Secretary of State thinks there might be a subsidy scheme but is not actually sure. It is possible that he could make a reference in that situation. The first question for the CMA in either case would be, “Is what we are dealing with really a subsidy?” The granting authority will be saying, “No, it isn’t.” If the intention is for the Secretary of State to have powers to catch things that are subsidies but have not, for one reason or another, been placed on the transparency database, it would better for the wording to say something like, “a proposed subsidy or subsidy scheme, or something that the Secretary of State considers to be a subsidy or subsidy scheme.”
There is a second point behind both those provisions: whether it is right for that power to be held only by the Secretary of State, who is of course a politician. Realistically, politically, in what circumstances is the Secretary of State likely to be keen to scrutinise decisions of central Government? He may or may not, but clearly politics will come into that in a way that might not be entirely desirable. There is a wider argument, which I think I have made elsewhere, that it might be worth widening out the category of people who can make post-award referrals and call in directions, at least to include the devolved Ministers, but that is a slightly separate issue.
To return to your question, it seems to me that it is worth looking at the wording of clauses 55 and 60. Then there is the broader question of whether it should just be the Secretary of State who has that power.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Secondly, public interest bodies that you might normally expect to be able to look at and challenge decisions are currently not defined as interested parties. How important do you think it is to revisit the definition of interested parties?
George Peretz: There are two points there. One is the position of the devolved Governments, particularly in relation to clauses 55 and 60, vis-à-vis the position of the United Kingdom Government. The whole point of clauses 55 and 60—you can see it in the text—is that a reference is made to the CMA in situations where the measure creates a risk of negative effects on competition or investment within the United Kingdom. Plainly, the power is intended to catch a situation whereby the Secretary of State considers that a measure undertaken by the Scottish Government or Welsh Government creates highly distortive effects in England. One can see the possibility of that, but if that is the intention, it is hard to see why sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. In a situation where an English local authority, the Secretary of State or another UK Government body acting as an English Department does something that is designed to benefit England but causes serious concern in Scotland or Wales, why should the Welsh or Scottish Ministers not be able to do the same thing if the concern is with competition or investment within the United Kingdom? I find it slightly hard to see what the argument against that is.
A second, slightly different point is about the definition of “interested party”, which is in clause 70(7). This says that
“interests may be affected by the giving of the subsidy”.
“Interest” is a wide phrase—what does it cover? Is it just financial or commercial interests? I think any court, in construing that, will look at paragraph 6 of article 369 of the trade and co-operation agreement, which seems to be where this comes from. That refers to both parties being obliged to make sure that interested parties have a right to challenge. It then defines interested parties as including competitors, trade associations and a couple of other things. However, they are all people with very direct commercial interests in subsidies, most obviously competitors who feel that the subsidies will make life difficult for them when they compete.
When one goes back to article 369, the argument that we have put is that it does not cover bodies such as concerned next-door local authorities and the Scottish and Welsh Ministers. The Secretary of State is automatically defined as an interested party, so it is not a problem for him, but it would be a problem for any other Government authority in the United Kingdom that has concerns. There is then also an issue about whether the wider bodies concerned with public interest litigation would be able to claim an interest; it looks as if the intention is to exclude those from having the right to go to the CAT.
I say “right to go to the CAT” because there is a subsidiary question, which is if the definition of interested parties is confined to and is rather narrower than the caste of people who would normally have the ability to challenge public law decisions such as this in the judicial review courts, as I think it may be, there would be an argument open to someone who was not an interested party—a public interest group—to go to the High Court and say they have a right to challenge this decision as a matter of ordinary public law. They would say that because they do not have standing under the Subsidy Control Bill to go to the CAT, they have no alternative remedy. It seems to me to be quite likely that the courts would accept that argument. I am not entirely certain that that is what is intended. If it is intended that all subsidy control appeals go to the CAT, I am not sure that is really achieved.
Stephen Kinnock
Q
“Subsidies may be granted for the development of disadvantaged or deprived areas or regions. When
determining the amount of subsidy, the following may be taken into account: the socio-economic situation of the disadvantaged area concerned; the size of the beneficiary; and the size of the investment project.”
I would be interested in your view as to whether that constitutes an actual obligation to have an assisted area map, or some way of defining disadvantaged areas based on the terms of the TCA?
My other question was around article 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol; I am sure you will not be surprised to hear that, we have discussed it many times. What is your sense now of the state of play around article 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol? To what extent could it be interpreted so broadly as to effectively drive a coach and horses through this legislation?
George Peretz: I will deal with the regional aid map first. The schedule to the TCA is permissive. It allows the parties to do things: it does not require them to do anything. If the UK Government just did not think that regional aid was appropriate at all, they are entirely free not to do it—ditto the EU. There is also a bit of a danger in holding on to old state aid law thinking. The position of regional aid maps in the state aid law regime was there because there was a basic prohibition on state aid unless it went through the process of going to the Commission and getting cleared, unless it fell within block exemptions. Regional aid maps played their role within the block exemptions. They meant that if you were giving a grant that fell within the conditions of regional aid in certain areas, you could give grants in an area that benefited from assisted area status that you would not be allowed to give, for example, in Guildford without going through the process of notification and clearance. If you did it in an assisted area, you could just do it without going through that process.
Structurally, that does not really fit into the new regime, because it does not have that basic prohibition element in it. Instead, it requires all public authorities to think about the principles, which will inevitably apply in a somewhat different way. They are bound to be affected by the region in which they are given. For example, the principle in paragraph A(b) of schedule 1—
“address an equity rationale (such as social difficulties or distributional concerns)”—
will apply very differently in the Welsh valleys than in Guildford, because the social difficulties and distributional concerns are different.
One possibility that could arise under the structure of the Bill is that the Government might well issue streamlined schemes that make reference to the areas concerned—something that a streamlined scheme could certainly do. They could say, “This scheme applies,” and effectively there is automatically no risk of the CMA having to look at it, and you do not have to go through the process of thinking about the application of the subsidy control principles for grants in Pontypridd, as you would were you making the grant in Guildford. That is where something like the regional aid map might come back in, but it is not in the Bill; it will depend on what the Government decide to do about streamlined subsidy schemes.
I have probably written far too much on article 10. The current state of play is that, if I am advising a client such as a local authority or a subsidy recipient, my immediate problem is that I have to look at two sets of guidance—one issued by the European Commission and one by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—that in some important respects tell me very different things. If I am advising a client who is the prospective recipient of a grant from an English local authority, but my client sells a significant quantity of goods in Northern Ireland, the Commission guidance essentially tells me that article 10 is likely to apply. The BEIS guidance tells me that it is unlikely to apply. I am capable of making up my own mind about that, but I would obviously have to draw my client’s attention to the different guidance, and if it ever got to court the court would be entertained with the different guidance and would have to decide what to do, so there is a difficulty.
The fundamental problem is the effect on trade test. Assuming that it is meant to mean the same sort of thing as it means in the EU state aid law rules, which is probably, though not certainly, right, it catches an awful lot of things. It famously caught the question of whether taxi cabs in London could drive in bus lanes, according to the European Court, even though one might struggle to see quite why that affected trade between member states.
The real problem is that the European Court has consistently upheld reasoning on effect of trade, which is extremely thin, based on assumptions, and it does not really include much of what any economist would recognise as economics. An effect on trade has been deduced and that makes it a bit difficult. The boundary line is therefore just obscure. The Bill effectively says that anything that falls under that regime is excluded from the Bill, but you do have the problem that the boundary line is not very clear.
Bill Esterson
Q
George Peretz: We have touched on a couple of the main issues. The devolution issue that we have discussed is quite important. There is an issue with enforcement, particularly in relation to measures that are not regarded by the public authority as being subsidies, but are just a grey area—and that view could simply be wrong—and how those are dealt with. The Bill does not really address on its face how those will be dealt with. One can sort of work out how they are likely to be dealt with but it would be better if that situation was more expressly catered for and dealt with.
There is an enforcement problem in that, ultimately, unless the Secretary of State decides to refer things to the Competition and Markets Authority—of course, there will be cases where things have to go to the CMA—the mechanism does very much rely on private enforcement by, at the moment, interested parties, who are going to be commercial operators and probably not public interest ones or local authorities. You cannot always rely on commercial operators to enforce things like this. There are all sorts of reasons why they may not. Quite a lot of commercial operators are hoping for the same subsidy themselves, so they will keep quiet, or they get the same subsidy themselves and will therefore be quiet, whereas actually there is a real public interest problem.
You will get situations with quite small companies who are concerned about subsidies being given to a much bigger competitor. They will understandably be reluctant to annoy both the granting authority, probably, and the bigger competitor. There are also the inevitable costs and risks of litigation. In a new regime, those costs and risks are greater, because various points have to be sorted out and decided in the first few cases until you get some case law on it. So inevitably the risks and costs are greater. There is more chance that you will end up in the Court of Appeal on a point than there would be once the regime has bedded in.
All of those will be quite off-putting to a lot of private enforcement. Ultimately, that is the keystone on which the whole enforcement mechanism depends, because if nobody brings challenges to this, public authorities will often get away with pretty sloppy reasoning and genuflection to the principles rather than serious engagement with them. I think that is a concern.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
George Peretz: That is absolutely a fair point. If the subsidy measure comes from central Government or even if it is BEIS that is the granter, is it realistic to expect the Secretary of State to call it in or make a post-award referral? You are obviously going to be concerned, from a Scottish perspective, with the possibility that you have a BEIS decision—there is serious concern about this in Scotland—that has an adverse effect on the Scottish economy in some way or another. That is the point I was making. It does seem to me right, as matter of principle, that in those circumstances the Scottish Ministers at least—and potentially other people—would have the right to send the matter off to the CMA to consider.
Bear in mind that the CMA report is not binding, so in a situation where the Secretary of State wanted to say, “Well, I hear what the CMA says, but I just disagree: I still think that this measure is wholly compliant with the principles and the CMA has just got it wrong in suggesting that I change it”, he can go ahead. It is then a risk of litigation—it might be better if the Scottish Ministers had a clear right to bring that litigation too, but that is the current position.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
George Peretz: It certainly generates work, so I look at it not entirely unfavourably, but yes, from anyone else’s perspective it is a bad thing. There is certainly an issue, and not much that the Bill can do about it. Given the way article 10 stands, the Bill does the only thing that can be done, which is simply to exclude from the Bill measures falling within the scope of article 10, but you do then have that issue.
When we were members of the EU in the old days, you would advise on something that was state aid, or was certainly likely enough to be state aid that the beneficiary—they tend to be quite cautious because they do not like to receive money that they then have to pay back—said, “We are rather concerned that it is state aid, but it does not seem to fall within the any of the block exemptions and has not been notified and cleared.” In the old days, if the grant were a from local authority, the beneficiary would go off to BEIS, which would take a look at it, and if there was a real risk that it was state aid, they would be notified. That happens now, but there is a bit of a suspicion that BEIS will take a somewhat conservative view of what article 10 covers, because that is the UK party line. That is fine, but the UK party line may not actually be right and may not be what a UK court would decide.
If you are the beneficiary of a grant from a local authority in the situations that I have described, and you are concerned that your competitor may challenge that as an article 10 measure in the UK courts, as they are entitled to do, the BEIS guidance says that it should be fine, and although the court may read that guidance, it certainly would not be bound by it. Ultimately, if a UK court is uncertain, it will refer the matter to the European Court of Justice, about which we have heard rather a lot in recent days, and it will decide, or at least decide the parameters within which that decision is to be taken. It is all a bit of a mess.
Paul Scully
Q
George Peretz: No, not a company boss. I think a company, a competitor, would.
Paul Scully
Q
George Peretz: That is a live question. It seems to me that any court, when reading clause 70(7)(a), is likely to go back and have a look at the trade and co-operation agreement because the concept of “interested party” is a concept of that agreement, as it contains a definition of “interested party”. I do not have the provision before me and cannot remember the exact words off the top of my head—
Paul Scully
Q
George Peretz: The Secretary of State is automatically an interested party because of clause 70(7)(b). The Secretary of State does not have to demonstrate a role; all he has to do is say, “I am the Secretary of State”—he has an interest.
Paul Scully
Q
George Peretz: That may or may not be right. That seems to be an issue. Other local authorities, or other sub-governmental bodies, are not listed in the relevant provision of the TCA—
The Chair
Order. I am sorry, but that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee. I thank the witness very much for his evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Jonathan Branton, Alexander Rose and Richard Warren gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear from Jonathan Branton, partner at the DWF Group; Alexander Rose, director at the DWF Group; and Richard Warren, head of policy and external affairs at UK Steel. They are all here in person. We have until 3.40 pm for this session. Can the witnesses please introduce themselves in turn for the record—perhaps we will go left to right, starting with Mr Rose—and give a brief opening statement? I will then move to Seema Malhotra for questions.
Alexander Rose: I am Alexander Rose. I am a director at DWF working day to day on subsidy control.
Jonathan Branton: Hi. I am Jonathan Branton, a partner at the DWF Group. I have been head of competition and practising in this area for over 20 years. I have spent a long time in Brussels.
Richard Warren: I am Richard Warren, head of policy and external affairs at UK Steel, which is the trade association representing the steel industry in the UK. The steel industry is a recipient of various forms of state aid approved under the EU regime, so we have an active interest in the system that replaces it.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Richard Warren: I would probably be best placed to start with the opportunity side of things, rather than transparency. As we see it, the opportunity for the Bill, briefly, is that it creates a more flexible and light-touch regime, which I am sure many of your witnesses have already spoken about.
The EU system, certainly the way we view it, effectively says, “State aid or subsidy is banned, except for a list of things that you’re allowed to do.” The new UK regime seems to take the opposite approach and says, “Basically everything is allowed apart from a select list of things that we ban.” At least ostensibly or theoretically, the Bill, as we see it, sets out a regime that will give us considerably more flexibility and room for manoeuvre in what we are able to do.
Some of the regimes that we are recipients of—the most beneficial for the UK steel sector—are around some of the subsidies and exemptions we receive on the costs of renewables and carbon taxes in relation to electricity prices. That is a really big issue for the steel sector. The UK steel sector pays between 80% and 100% more for its electricity than its counterparts in the EU. Those exemptions have reduced our electricity prices. There is a still a big gap, but they are really important to improving competitiveness in the UK.
The system in the EU has a very complicated, convoluted way of saying, “You can do this. If you introduce this scheme, you have to follow this rule. You can’t do this. This is the percentage that you are allowed to reward, etc. etc. etc.” Now the UK may choose to follow that, and it may not simplify the rules, but at least theoretically it can say, “I don’t have to follow any of your rules. I have a complete clean slate to redesign the process,” and award the compensation or the exemption in a targeted fashion that is most beneficial to the UK sector. Without giving too many other examples, although I have a long list if people want to hear them at a later date, the main benefit is that the framework is transparent.
The second element is the process for providing approvals if a local authority or national Government want to introduce a scheme. From our perspective, it is a lot more light touch and a lot more straightforward. There are a number of examples that we can give where the UK introduced or tried to introduce a system to benefit the steel industry. It was either blocked by the EU Commission or it said, “You need to go back and change this regulation.” You have actually got examples where state aid had been stuck in consideration or investigation for two years before eventually being given up on by member states. The process where you can actually approve schemes should be a significant benefit.
The final thing I would say before handing over to others on the panel is that that is all theoretical and I am sure questions will be posed at a later point. I think probably the biggest barrier to the use of state aid in the UK has not necessarily been the EU rules, although they have proven tricky at times. It has perhaps been a culture in the UK that says that state aid is not necessarily what we want and perhaps a last resort. The data bear that out; we tended to use about a third of the amount of state aid that Germany has and about half the amount that France has used. The proof of the pudding will be more in the answer to whether there is a different approach or a different cultural approach within the UK to wanting to use state aid.
Jonathan Branton: Shall I pick up? First, to talk about the opportunity, it is really important to set the context of the Bill in the fact that we already have a new regime away from the EU regime. The opportunity of the Bill is to take forward the regime that has come out of the trade and co-operation agreement, which is already in force and in use. The fundamental point is how the Bill takes that and improves upon it to help to pursue the UK’s interests in a safe and secure way.
The TCA has already diverged massively from the EU state aid regime and created a whole lot of flexibility and ability to do things at speed, which is supposedly what the UK is particularly interested to secure. In terms of the opportunity presented by the Bill, there is an opportunity to improve upon that framework to make it better fit for purpose to monitor and secure a subsidy-controlled platform in the UK in a way that preserves competition, but also enhances the ability of Government and various different public authorities up and down the land—I do not just mean central Government, but regional government and local government—to influence policy and to make active interventions in order to achieve positive outcomes. There is an enormous opportunity to do that better, but also a risk of compromising some of the freedoms and flexibilities that have been achieved by the TCA in the first place. It is important to put that in context.
In terms of transparency, that is one of the bedrocks of an effective regime if you look at it from the perspective of maintenance of competition and the ability of third parties to come forward and to be able to challenge that subsidies have been carried through in a clear and effective way, through sound decision-making and appropriate thought as per the commitments within the TCA to respect the common principles that have been set out.
For the level playing field to be preserved, if you like, it is vital that there is a remedy, an enforcement system. That system can only come out when there is public knowledge of what is going on. Such public knowledge is also generally seen to enhance decision making on account of the scrutiny that it necessarily brings to the process as a result. Primarily, the main point of the transparency is to enable people to come forward and say, “Okay, this particular subsidy has created a negative effect,” and make sure that that is scrutinised by a suitably empowered authority, in this case the national courts.
Transparency is super important to that process. What has happened already is that there are commitments to transparency via the TCA—those are minimum commitments that the UK has made—and they must be respected because they are international commitments. What has happened in practice, however, is that a national transparency register has been established, but when you look at that register and at the relevant rules around it, you do not see that it is functioning well.
A lot of the entries there at the moment look somewhat incomplete, and you will notice that lots of the entries have a zero for the amount of money that is committed, all of which leads to an inability for the market to be able to see what is actually going on. If you cannot see what is going on, you do not know what to challenge, or even if to challenge.
The other point about the transparency register is its brevity, frankly. Given how long the new regime has been in force, which is the best part of 10 months, and given the number of public authorities that are out there making interventions on this, that and the other form, it is clear that not everything that has been awarded in that 10 months is in that register—not by a long shot. Something is going awry in terms of the implementation of that particular transparency register.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Jonathan Branton: On the challenge point, I think one month is too short, because that requires people to be extremely alert about checking things. The database is not readily searchable. It does not send prompts when particular information is put on at a sectoral level. If you were keeping an eye on it, you would have to be checking it every other day to see that something was coming forward about which you were concerned.
In terms of searching for amounts and dates on which things have been recorded, all that is not regulated. What we really need—I will hand over to Alex in a second as I know he has strong views on this—is something that sets out in very clear detail exactly what needs to come in on every entry. Then, in practice, when you actually come to making those entries, it must require you to put in the correct answers to those questions in order for the entry to go live on the website. If that does not happen, you should get pushed back. That is clearly not working well enough.
Alexander Rose: As Jonathan says, essentially, the key piece of information on that website is the date the entry is made, and the reason that is so important is that the challenger has as little as a month to challenge once that information is placed on the website. To put some numbers on what Jonathan said, first and foremost there are only 501 entries. There are a lot of subsidies, so there is no way that only 501 subsidies have been awarded since 11 pm, 31 December 2020.
Secondly, of those 501, some 257 are recorded as having a zero or nil value. In order to bring a digital review—
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Q
Alexander Rose: Two hundred and fifty seven out of 501. In order to bring a digital review challenge, you are probably going to have to spend between £25,000 and £40,000, so if you are seeing a nil value, you are very unlikely to bring a claim.
Some of those are going to be schemes, and I will bring out some of the schemes on that website at the moment. SC10261, the Tees Valley Capital Grant Scheme, is listed as having been posted on the website on 1 April 2020, but the website did not exist on 1 April 2020. SC10388 is a real estate grant of £675,000 in Girton in Cambridgeshire—I picked this one because it is the last—and that one does not have a date at all. There is no way that somebody wanting to challenge would be able to know that date unless, as I have personally done, they have been saving the spreadsheets and comparing them.
Now, essentially, what we have here, therefore, is a mousetrap that is lacking a spring. Unfortunately, the Bill does not fix that. The way to fix it is at clause 32, which relates to the database, and it must expressly say that there needs to be two things. First and foremost, that information has to be included—the date it is actually entered and/or modified. Secondly, I think you need to end up having a search function that gives you three pieces of information. You need to have the date an entry was entered or modified; the name of the funder, because that is currently not searchable; and the name of the beneficiary, which is on there at the moment. Those are the three key pieces of information. The other element is, in order to capture that scenario where people simply are not putting into the database, you need to have some sanction if you fail to put it on.
The other issue that needs to be considered is that, at the moment, you have up to six months to put that information on the database. A large enough subsidy could make a business insolvent within that six months, so it feels to me that the period needs to be shorter. Likewise, the period to challenge needs to be longer. There is no obvious reason for having a shorter period for what is rightly described as the most important piece of post-Brexit legislation than for a planning permission judicial review. It should be longer. The next point is that there should be some level of sanction if that information is not put online. For example, maybe a sensible level would be the challenge period is extended to six months.
Jonathan Branton: The challenge period is not validly started if the right information is not put online. That is one way of looking at it. If it is not validly started, it never ends.
Stephen Flynn
Q
Alexander and Jonathan, if I may say so, you gave quite a devastating indictment of current practices and we would all hope that the Bill will improve on that situation. Do you think it will, as it stands?
Alexander Rose: First and foremost, I think that the general structure of the Bill is good. I think it is quite sensible. My concern is in terms of those details. I think there is capacity to refine the Bill so it is better. I agree that transparency is a concern.
The other area I am very concerned about is the ability to create schemes because the schemes can then only be challenged in the period they are set up. Why that nil point is so important is that, essentially, you have got a situation where there is an unlawful aid––an unlawful subsidy––but you can only challenge it within the month the subsidy is set up. I struggle to see how an organisation could ever really know that it is going to be affected by that subsidy scheme unless it identifies the competitors who are going to get a subsidy and the amount.
Clause 70(2) needs to be amended to add some wording at the end along the lines of providing that, at the time of entry of information about the subsidy scheme on the subsidy database, sufficient information has been made available for an interested party to make an informed decision as to whether and to what extent their interest may be affected. To my mind, the transparency database and the addressing the schemes point are the two issues that will most damage the award of subsides in future if not rectified.
Jonathan Branton: I would second that. The transparency register is relatively easily fixed, I would have thought. The schemes point is a potential loophole that, if not closed, could lead to some frankly bad schemes being adopted and then being impervious to challenge on the basis that the time had passed since the scheme had been published, but the actual awards pursuant to that scheme were somehow protected.
That is at odds with the fundamental principle that interested parties ought to be able to see what is out there and affecting them so that they may challenge it, and they cannot see that until an actual award has been made to a competitor or another party in which they are interested. Until cash is parted with, they do not see that, and that is arguably at odds with at least the spirit of the TCA provisions around schemes, and I think that could be very much tightened up.
Broadly, the Bill does a good job. It will help the regime to mature and become more effective, but it must be recognised in huge part that it puts in place a framework to achieve a whole load of things that have not yet been decided. There is talk of streamlined subsidy schemes, referrals to the CMA and so on, but the Bill does not say what will be in a streamlined subsidy scheme or what will be the subject of a referral, so all those details will come in the future. I absolutely applaud the creation of the framework to be able to implement a streamlined subsidy scheme. What will matter—the proof of the pudding—will be what is actually within that scheme in due course.
A final point: a lot of people have mistaken the detail of the Subsidy Control Bill and the subsidy control framework regarding their effectiveness for remedying, levelling up, or whatever might be the question of the day. The Bill does not set the division of funding to different places and activities, which is a fundamental part of the redistribution of wealth. A lot of misconceptions suggest that the Bill should achieve all that, but the fundamental point of how the cash is carved up and distributed is not necessarily a question for subsidy control law.
Richard Warren: Just to go back to the question about problems that might arise with a light-touch approach, from our perspective the difficulties we have had with the system that we are replacing—the European system that we removed ourselves from—have been on the more prescriptive side. When we have asked the Government to introduce x, y and z, the response has often been, “The EU doesn’t say you can do it, so we assume you can’t.”
Other Governments have taken a different approach. When we proposed to the Government that they should provide an exemption from the cost of the capacity market within electricity pricing, BEIS said that as EU state aid law did not provide explicit rules on that, it could not introduce an exemption. The Polish Government took a different approach, saying, “We’ll come up with one and introduce it.” The more prescriptive approach in the EU has been limiting, certainly as the UK Government approached it, so we feel that we will be more empowered as industry to bring forward proposals with greater confidence that they will be within the UK scheme for subsidy control because, as I said in response to a previous question, everything is allowed apart from what is explicitly not allowed, so we will be in a stronger position to be confident of saying, “Actually, this is allowed by UK subsidy control rules.”
My final point is that the biggest barrier has probably been the UK’s culture of not using the power. Time and again, the reason why we cannot do x, y and z that has been given by either Ministers or officials is that the state aid rules will not allow it. We have often taken a different view, but that excuse has been an almost permanent barrier to doing things. The new regime might reveal whether the excuse has been something to hide behind, or if there is a general culture of preferring not to use state aid rules or subsidy. That is probably a more important point for the steel sector than the Bill, which broadly provides the right framework—we have no major concerns about it.
Let me briefly touch on the regional point that Jonathan made. It is valid, in that the new system opens up a huge amount of flexibility for regional development. Historically, the UK has not done a huge amount of regional development. If we look at the split of what we have spent in the past few years, barely anything has been spent by the UK on regional development in terms of state aid. The system gives us an awful lot of flexibility to redefine which areas we want to give regional development to.
Under the EU system, the map of which areas of the UK were considered to be category A was pretty limiting. One of them happens to be where Port Talbot is based, but it has been a slightly moot point because it has not received a lot of regional aid anyway. The point is: the Government can redesign it, and that will be a key element if they are to use their new subsidy control regime to the maximum flexibility to pursue their levelling-up agenda.
The Chair
Before I bring in Simon Baynes, may I remind panellists that five more Members wish to ask questions? Could we keep the answers succinct, please?
Simon Baynes
Q
Alexander Rose: Absolutely. In terms of improving, you are starting from a relatively low base, so it is quite easy. There are plenty of databases, but ultimately it is about service functions. For example, I receive updates every day from Government on what they are doing. That kind of technology is there and it is ready to be put in place.
Jonathan Branton: I would second that. It is really difficult to argue against transparency and say, “Why wouldn’t you have transparency about the dispensation of public money in this way?” There is an overwhelming case for having a strong database that is searchable by whatever means anybody wants to search it, quite frankly. You can insist on that and be very plain. All the enforcement and strength flows from that later.
Stephen Kinnock
Q
We will achieve net zero in this country only if our steel industry transitions towards it. Mr Warren, what kind of state aid support do you think would be needed for that? Do you think there should be more explicit guidance in the Bill about how to achieve the transition to net zero as part of this overall strategy?
Jonathan Branton: I will start with the levelling-up question. I think you were asking whether it is possible to do something there without the equivalent of a regional aid map. The short answer is yes. You do not have to have a map of the country with shades of different colours for different levels of qualification in order to do something similar. The point is to give some form of preference or favouritism to areas based on some kind of measure of comparative disadvantage.
You could quite easily do that if you established a series of criteria. If you found that a given area had exhibited one or more of those criteria—and there would obviously need to be quite some thought given to what they were—that would be a means establishing that somewhere is regionally disadvantaged. Obviously, you can layer that with all sorts of different complications and grades of disadvantage, if you wish. That might be complicated or overly political, but you can establish the fundamental point of something being disadvantaged or not by reference to, I would like to think, a set of criteria, which would not be too hard.
For the relocation point, the wording in the Bill talks about something prohibiting subsidy that was given as a condition of relocation. In some ways, to my mind, that invites somebody to give a relocation that is not a condition, but achieves it anyway. Maybe that is just lawyers being cynical. Perhaps it is not fit for what it seeks to achieve, but is that a good thing anyway? I have seen a number of situations where a relocation has taken place, which has been positive for several reasons—perhaps someone relocates to make physical space for an infrastructure project, for example. Linking that back to levelling up, relocations can be advantageous and good in the grand scheme of things, and definitely positive for redistributing wealth. Having a prohibition in the Bill, even a badly worded one, is potentially too blunt a tool, which might backfire.
Alexander Rose: I have a slightly different position on clause 18. I think the way to resolve it would be to put in a value figure—maybe £20 million. I also agree that relocations can be hugely beneficial. Schedule 1 outlines the common subsidy principles and paragraph F is designed essentially to avoid competitions developing within the internal market.
I think that the issue trying to be resolved here is avoiding what would be regarded as a distortive subsidy. The way to deal with that is to define distortive subsidy and say that that would then be referred to the CMA, or however that works. That leaves you with the potential to include a replacement additional principle—you mentioned levelling up and net zero. I note that the strategy announced last week requires all civil servants to take account of net zero, yet these rules will be used by more than 550 public bodies. That is a great opportunity to instil that kind of thinking in every single subsidy.
Jonathan Branton: Without necessarily preventing them.
Richard Warren: To answer very briefly, yes, undoubtedly decarbonisation of the steel sector will require considerable subsidy or state aids, however we wish to term it. In sectors such as the power sector, we see billions of pounds’ worth of subsidy to decarbonise, and the steel sector will need precisely the same. Net zero or low-carbon forms of steel production will add anything from 30% to 50% to the costs of steel production, depending on which route you go down. If other countries are not moving at precisely the same speed or putting the same constraints on their industries, you will need some sort of intervention to correct that market failure.
There are two key areas where we would like to see additional movement. Again, I come back to competitive electricity prices. Fixing the issue there will require some sort of intervention. Secondly, we need pretty hefty support for capital investment in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen or even new electric arc furnaces. That will require hundreds of millions of pounds of investment.
On your final point about whether we need anything further in the Subsidy Control Bill to direct us towards that, I think that the light-touch approach is the right way to go. It does not exclude the Government from doing anything and it leaves open a huge number of options.
For example, the clean steel fund of £250 million that we hope will be confirmed in the spending review tomorrow is perfectly legitimate under the current regime. Maybe under the EU system, which says, “You can do this, you can’t do that”, you would have had to go through a more complicated approvals process. By the time you start introducing explicit requirements for certain industries, you will get a bunfight where everyone wants something mentioned in the Bill. You may end up down a route of, “If it’s not mentioned, maybe we shouldn’t be doing it”, so I think that the light-touch approach is the best way to go.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Jonathan Branton: I think probably yes. In terms of the small amounts of financial assistance, it is basically double what the EU’s de minimis has been. The feedback I have had so far across the piece is that the doubling has been a sensible, long overdue move. Frankly, that has been set by reference to what the TCA sets anyway, so we do not have a lot of flexibility to play around with that. Setting it at a fixed, sterling level is immediately sensible. There can be no debate about that.
In terms of the transparency, yes, you have to draw the line somewhere and the £500,000 seems like a sensible, rounded figure. I certainly do not have a strong view that it should be put at a different level—not yet, anyway.
Alexander Rose: The £500,000 is for schemes. I think that the question ultimately is that if you amend clause 70(2) in order to address this gap in terms of, essentially, accountability, you will need some level of incentive to use schemes. It appears that transparency has been chosen as that route.
Personally, I think that the £500,000 seems quite high, but you do need some kind of incentive; otherwise, people will not go down the route of using schemes, when clearly a decision has been made that that is a good idea.
Bill Esterson
Q
Looking at the other things you have said, rather than saying in general terms that the reporting period should be less than six months, do you have a particular figure in mind? Similarly, do you have a figure in mind to replace the one-month opportunity to appeal?
Jonathan Branton: I will take those questions in reverse order. There is the clearest possible case for extending as soon as possible the period in which someone can appeal—but not to more than three months, which is the standard time limit for judicial review. I think that is relatively clear.
On the six months, I have yet to hear a really persuasive case for why you need that long to publish the fact that you have made a award. Why do you need six months to get yourself together to publish that something has been done? I would think that that could possibly be as much as halved.
Bill Esterson
Two lots of three months, then.
Jonathan Branton: Yes—without compromising anything, it seems to me.
In terms of other bits of the Bill that ought to be in primary legislation, that gives rise to the question: what would the streamlined subsidy schemes be? There is certainly a case for making a number of different ones. The obvious thing is to go down the path of the old block exemption—the general block exemption regulation, or GBER—which made non-controversial interventions easy. That was the good thing about that regime: you knew that if you were well within those limits, you could just get on and do it and you were not blocked from anything. If anything has been lost in the new regime, it is that those easy interventions now seem more difficult and require more thought and more risk, in the sense that nobody is quite sure if they have ever hit the mark or not.
You could go into some quick and easy streamlined subsidy schemes. I am thinking of areas like arts and culture. Regional aid and levelling up is possibly more complicated and will require a bit more thought, but something like arts and culture is easy and obvious. Research and development is easy and obvious—I think everybody agrees that that is a priority. Employment, training and skills are also the sorts of areas in which you might do it. I do not see why we would need to wait around and overthink those. The key with a streamlined subsidy scheme is to make it quick, easy and simple.
Alexander Rose: I completely agree with what Jonathan has said. On the elements where it would be useful for there to be greater clarification, presumably in primary legislation, I think there is a gap in terms of the interested party. It would be useful for public bodies to be able to challenge. If, for example, employment in their area is going to be significantly affected by an unlawful subsidy, it feels right that they should have the ability to challenge in that scenario. It would be good to address that.
Another element is the issue in clause 55 whereby only the Secretary of State can call in these subsidies. At the moment, that seems to be rather strangely limited to prospective subsidies, which does not seem particularly sensible. You could almost end up in a cat-and-mouse game whereby subsidies are issued quickly, so that no one can be called in. That does not seem like a good idea.
Likewise, however, it does not seem particularly sensible to limit the ability to call in the subsidy to the largest awarder of subsidies in the country. Therefore, it would seem that we need some kind of alternative—
The Chair
Order. I am sorry to have to cut you off, but that brings us to the end of the time allotted for this panel. I am sorry to those Members who did not get to ask questions. I thank the panel for their evidence, and we will move on to the next witness.
Examination of Witness
Daniel Greenberg gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear from Daniel Greenberg, Counsel for Domestic Legislation at the House of Commons. We have until 4 pm for this session. Will you introduce yourself, Mr Greenberg, and perhaps outline which areas you are able to talk on for us, please?
Daniel Greenberg: Chair, thank you. Yes, I am Daniel Greenberg, Counsel for Domestic Legislation. I was given an indication that the Committee would like me to talk about some of the technical aspects of the devolution interest in the Bill. I am happy to give that and any other technical analysis that the Committee would find helpful. Obviously, I am not here to defend or attack the policy of the Bill in any way.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Daniel Greenberg: Thank you. Chair, would it be convenient if I answered that question by contextualising it in the overall structure of the Bill and said a few words about how devolution appears in the Bill not on the surface, but underneath it, and requires to be brought in in relation to the principles mentioned?
The Chair
I think that would be very helpful, thank you.
Daniel Greenberg: Where I would like to start is to look at the shape of the Bill by reference to the concept of subsidy as set out in the Bill. I hope that the Member who asked me the question forgives me: this is an answer to your question. It will be slightly long, but I am hoping that at the end I will have answered most of the questions on devolution that Members have.
To take you back to what a subsidy is, we can see in clause 2 that the focus of the Bill is inevitably on things that affect the United Kingdom as a whole, or things that go on within the United Kingdom between the different components and parts of the United Kingdom. If we look at subsection (1)(d)—page 2, lines 16 to 21 —it explains a lot about the shape of everything that follows in the Bill.
I keep mentioning “shape”, because I want the Committee to understand that the Bill inevitably reflects macroeconomic policy. That is what it is there to do. Inevitably, there will be lots of connections, co-ordination, consultation and interaction of lots of different kinds—I will come back to some specifics soon—under the surface of the Bill. It may be that the question I have just been asked and other questions on devolution arise because, on its surface, the Bill is arguably a little short on explanation of some of the systems and mechanisms that will inevitably be required to go on underneath the surface in order to reflect the economic competencies of the devolved Administrations and the devolved legislatures.
To put it in a nutshell, everything that is required by way of accommodating, reflecting and understanding those devolved competences and powers is capable of taking place with the shape of the Bill as it is now, but it perhaps needs to be brought out more, either on the face of the Bill or in the explanatory materials.
Chair, I hope I am not yet trespassing on your patience. Am I still close enough to the question to be allowed to continue?
The Chair
indicated assent.
Daniel Greenberg: I mention explanatory materials because I expect that as well as the principles in schedule 3, you may want to ask me about the relationship between the United Kingdom Internal Market Act and this Bill, and indeed the relationship between this Bill and the Northern Ireland protocol, all of which are key devolution areas. It is arguably surprising that the relationship between the Bill and the internal market Act is not addressed more expressly on the face of the Bill, but whether or not it is addressed expressly, the shape of the Bill allows it to be accommodated. I do not know whether as a Committee, as you move forward, the interplay between the sides will encourage the Government to put more of this on the face of the Bill, but what I do think is that all members of the Committee may consider whether the explanatory notes could helpfully be enlarged to explain how these different mechanisms fit together.
Coming back to the specifics of the question, because the shape of the Bill is about subsidy that is macroeconomic, it has to focus on international obligations, and international obligations are obligations of Her Majesty’s Government. That brings us to the next point: throughout the Bill, you see “Secretary of State, Secretary of State, Secretary of State”—all powers of HMG—and you think, “Hold on, the devolved institutions are also public authorities. They appear in the list of public authorities in clause 6, so why is it that they do not also share Secretary of State powers?” The answer is very simple: when you are dealing with international obligations of the UK, that has to be dealt with by central Government but, again, doesn’t that have to be done in consultation with the devolved Administrations? Of course it does. With co-ordination with the devolved Administrations? Of course it does. With mechanisms for encoding that co-ordination and consultation into the way the Bill operates? Of course.
At the moment, I am absolutely sure that the Government intend that to work under the Bill, and it can work under the Bill. Whether that could be shown more on the surface of the Bill or in the explanatory notes is a matter for the Committee. Does that help at all?
Seema Malhotra
Q
Daniel Greenberg: The extent to which it needs to be made clearer is obviously for the Committee as it proceeds through the Bill. That is why I specifically mention explanatory material, because I would remind the Committee that it is so much easier to have things made clear in explanatory notes, explanatory memorandums, memorandums of understanding, quasi-legislation generally and explanatory material than it is to secure an amendment to the shape of the Bill, particularly because the simple answer to the question you were implying—“Could these powers be used to interfere with devolved autonomy?”—is “Of course they could. No question.” The question for you, therefore, is “Are there mechanisms by which they will not be used to do that?” Clearly, this sits alongside the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. It does not repeal that Act. It sits alongside the Northern Ireland protocol. Clearly, the Government expects and intends for them to operate in unison. The question for you is: can that dovetailing be addressed more expressly?
Seema Malhotra
I had a question about the Northern Ireland protocol, but I am conscious of the time.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
“whose interests may be affected”.
In your view, could we ensure that Scottish Ministers, Northern Irish Departments or Welsh Ministers have that ability by amending that section, by the Minister saying in Committee that that is the case, or by changing the explanatory notes? Would those all be routes that would allow those three authorities to have the ability to refer as well?
Daniel Greenberg: From a purely technical perspective, I think that is on the cusp of the things that I would be comfortable encouraging you to simply put in the explanatory notes. It either is an interested party or it is not. If it is not, saying in the explanatory notes that you hope it is may not be enough to get you over the line, in contrast to the Minister helpfully saying so to the Committee.
If I may briefly speak about the difference between explanatory notes and a Pepper v. Hart statement, Chair? The official explanatory notes are a source that the courts will have regard to in determining doubts and questions about the law. A Pepper v. Hart statement is the law: it is part of the legislative intention when the Act is passed, so it is more powerful.
However, if the Act says “dog” but the Minister says to the Committee, “We meant cats as well”, that will not help. You can have all the ministerial statements you like, but if it don’t go woof, it isn’t covered. However, if you have a clear understanding that it is expected that interested parties are to include the devolved Administrations, then the Minister saying that that is the Government’s legislative intent in using that phrase gets you well over the line. Would you then need an amendment? No.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Daniel Greenberg: Yes, okay, there is a bit of a shift, but it has been quite slow. People have been complaining about the increase in skeleton Bills by successive Governments since I started in public service 150 years ago. So, there is an increase, but it has been gradual.
However, if I may say so, you should not be complaining about that here. My whole point is that this is inevitably a Bill about structure and shape. Those of you considering the devolved institutions and other interests want to ensure that you have the flexibility to move forward while balancing everybody’s interests. The best way to do that without having to come back to Parliament each time is to ensure you have powers with a mechanism for consultation and co-ordination. Then, you know that that process of co-ordination will have the powers necessary to give effect to it through subordinate legislation and quasi-legislation. You should not be complaining on this occasion, because the Bill needs to be skeletal in order to give the flexibility for the ongoing relationships between the different powers concerned by the substance of the Bill. Does that help?
Seema Malhotra
Q
Daniel Greenberg: You are not asking me for a compatibility opinion, and I would not give you one, but I will draw your attention and the attention of the Committee to a point for your consideration as you go forward, which is to be sure that you understand the focal points of the protocol in relation to this Bill.
Primarily, we have to have regard to article 6 of the protocol and remind ourselves that the protocol is designed to ensure that it does not prevent market access within the UK and that the international requirements and commitments are protected. One of the issues about article 6 is that it does have the kind of mechanism that we were discussing before, because the protocol has of course the Joint Committee, which is going to be very significant.
So you start off by looking at article 6. You ask yourself, “Will those protections be consistent with this Bill, and how will the Joint Committee be capable of applying its mechanisms in a way that join up with the mechanisms that you develop in relation to the Bill?”
Then we move to article 10, which in substantive terms is the key article for you, because it deals with state aid. The question to ask in relation to compatibility is this: is there anything in the Bill that insists upon a measure, in respect of measures that affect trade between Northern Ireland and the Union, that being the test in article 10? As I have already said—I am perhaps slightly risking something close to an opinion here—I do not see anything, because the mechanisms of the Bill are deliberately so wide.
Perhaps it is helpful to say that we often have this in law. You look at something and you say, “Hold on—the Minister could exercise that in a way that is incompatible with human rights and the protocol.” That does not matter—that is not the question. The question is, “Would the Minister be obliged to exercise it in a way that is incompatible?” If the Minister would not be obliged to exercise it in a way that is incompatible, then in itself it is not incompatible, and your next question is, “Do we have mechanisms built in to make sure that the powers are only exercised in the way that is compatible?” That is article 10.
Finally, on the article 16 safeguards and the exception, which was of considerable controversy earlier on this year, that looks at economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist and allows unilateral action as safeguarding measures in relation to those difficulties. I think you will want to ask yourselves, not is this compatible—it clearly is—but how continued compatibility would be assured in a case where the article 16 safeguards were being invoked. For me, that is the more interesting question for you.
The Chair
Thank you very much for your contribution, Mr Greenberg. That brings us to the end of the session.
Examination of Witness
Rachel Merelie gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Rachel Merelie: Thank you for the opportunity to appear in front of this panel. As you say, I am the senior director for the Office for the Internal Market at the Competition and Markets Authority, but perhaps more relevant for you today is that I am the senior responsible officer for the project to set up the subsidy advice unit, should the Bill make its way through Parliament in its current form.
I want to make a couple of opening remarks. Obviously, we will operate within the framework set by the Government and by Parliament. The role that we have been given is an advisory one. I know that Members understand that, but it is really important and relevant to us. We have two particular roles to fulfil. One relates to the review function. We will have a very targeted review of the most complex and potentially distortive subsidies that we are asked to look at. The second is a more general and wider monitoring function. We will look at the way in which the regime is operating on a five-yearly basis, so that will enable us to look more generally at the subsidy control regime.
My second point is that in order to fulfil our functions we need to ensure that we have access to the appropriate information. We will have information-gathering powers in relation to the wider monitoring function, and we believe that with appropriate definition of the information to be supplied by the public authorities we should have the appropriate information to undertake our review functions. Should our role change, we would want to ensure that we had the appropriate powers.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: As you know, that wider role is not what is currently envisaged. Under the current proposals, we can look only at the subsidies of interest and subsidies of particular interest that are referred to us, although as I mentioned in my opening remarks we have a wider monitoring role, which will allow us to take a broader view on the regime as a whole. We can, of course, also look at subsidies that are called in by the Secretary of State, so that might to some extent help to address the question of subsidies that we might want to look at, as you referred to.
Were we take on a broader role, looking at things under our own initiative, as you were discussing, we would have to really understand the implications of that in terms of resources, as you mentioned, and the powers that we have. Ultimately, of course, it is not really for us to decide. It will be for Government and Parliament to decide whether that is a role that you want to give us. I think that was your first point. Could you remind me what the second point was?
Seema Malhotra
It was about whether there is sufficient resourcing.
Rachel Merelie: Yes, of course. We have been given money in the 2021-22 settlement to take on a number of new functions. Previous witnesses referred to the fact that the CMA has three new functions that we are currently setting up. We have the Office for the Internal Market, the Digital Markets Unit, and potentially the subsidy advice unit. We were given a sum of money in the 2021-22 settlement to start to staff up and resource all three of those functions. We now have a bid in for the spending review for the next three years, and we should hear more about that formally tomorrow.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: Perhaps I will start with the second question. The database is being set up by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and it is not something that the CMA or the subsidy advice unit will be operating—at least at the moment there is no intention for that to be the case. Our focus will be on those very specific, more complex subsidies—the subsidies of interest and of particular interest—rather than the wider set of subsidies that are contained on the database, although you are right that we will want to look more broadly when we undertake our monitoring role. Because we have the information gathering powers we have been given for that, I think we will be able to gather relevant information when we need to, to get a wider understanding of the subsidies that have been awarded.
Your first question was around governance and the way in which the Office for the Internal Market and the subsidy advice unit had been set up. You are right that they are slightly different, in the sense that the Office for the Internal Market has a chair and a panel that are in the process of being appointed by BEIS. There is an opportunity for the devolved Administrations to offer their views on the appointments of the chair and the panel members. That is entirely appropriate; we are talking about a function that is inherently involved in understanding the trade and relationships between the four nations.
For the subsidy advice unit, what is currently envisaged is a sub-committee of the board, so we would have the opportunity to draw on board members, non-execs, panel members and others, as well as the staff from around the four nations. It is important to emphasise that the CMA does have staff in all four nations, and a growing presence across the UK. We think that is incredibly important to be able to run the subsidy advice unit properly.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: Perhaps, again, I will pick up on the second one first. Yes, at the moment, given that the database sits within BEIS, it would be most appropriate for that sort of checking function to be part of its remit. Obviously, if it were decided for that database to sit with the CMA, we would need to have the requisite resources and powers associated with it.
On representation from all four nations, as you say, there is currently no formal requirement in the Bill. The CMA, as I said, is a pan-UK body. It does have good relationships across all four nations, and is very used to working with them. We are not the policy makers here—that is important to underline—we take on board and do our best to implement the policy set by the Government and by Parliament.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Rachel Merelie: That is a very good question. I think we will need to understand how that database is operating, and I am sure you are right; that will be one of the ways in which we will gather information. We may also be going directly to public authorities to ask them questions. I guess we would also be doing some market analysis, some desktop analysis, and so on, of how the subsidy regime is operating more widely. I think there will be a number of different ways in which we gather information, but you are absolutely right—the database will be an important part of that.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: Sorry—I did not quite understand. Did you ask what we will do with information that we get when our monitoring role identifies things that we are doing right?
Bill Esterson
If things are not working, or you identify a problem, what will you do with the information?
Rachel Merelie: Well, in our monitoring role, we will be producing a report on a five-yearly basis, which will be published. That will give information about our understanding of how the regime is working. It will then be for Government to decide whether they want to make any adjustment—for example, to the definitions of the subsidies of interest or particular intertest, or to the streamlined groups, or any other mechanism—based on both what we identify in our monitoring report and, of course, other information that they may also choose to look at.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: There are also the enforcement mechanisms that will be in place for subsidies to be challenged in the tribunal. That will be a more immediate way of looking at the impact of individual subsidies. If we are asked by the Secretary of State to provide insights sooner than that, we can do that too, so I think the opportunity to offer advice more quickly than that is there. Again, we are the disposal of BEIS, if you like, on that.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: There are two parts to our process. First, there is the review mechanism on the individual subsidies, on these particular subsidies of interest and particular interest. On that one, we will be assessing the assessments carried out by the public authority against the subsidy principles and, where relevant, against the environmental and energy principles. On those ones, there is a rapid, 30-day process that we have to operate. We have to publish a report within that timescale on the specific subsidy of concern. That is the sort of short-term mechanism—
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: Absolutely right.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: I do understand that concern. I think what you are saying is that at the moment we do not have any powers to look at specific subsidies under our own initiative where there might be an issue, other than through that broader monitoring role.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: The figure that I think we have publicly is that there is around £20 million for the three new functions in ’21-22. Obviously the majority of that is not for the subsidy advice unit, because we are only just setting that up now. I think it will be more relevant to look at the numbers that we get through the spending review, which will be agreed tomorrow.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: It is a very good question. As you say, it is difficult to get a reliable estimate of the workload. The BEIS impact assessment has so far estimated that if the current definitions of subsidies of interest or particular interest were applied to the last few years’ worth of data, we would be looking at, I think, between five and 20 in each of those categories. However, it is quite difficult to know the extent to which subsidy giving will change under the new, more flexible, faster and more agile regime that is being put in place, so that is one question.
Also, there may be a tendency for public authorities to choose to send subsidies of interest to us, even though those are not mandated. In the early days they might be cautious about awarding subsidies without going through the advisory process with us. There are therefore quite a few uncertainties about our likely workload, but we have modelled our requirements based on the upper end of each of those—so assuming that we might get around 40 references a year. With the recruitment plans that we are putting in place, we think that we will be able to service those, alongside performing our longer-term monitoring role.
Bill Esterson
Q
Rachel Merelie: On the second one, it was BEIS carrying out the consultation. We have not actually been in the frontline of engagement with stakeholders yet, partly because we are at this quite early stage of the Bill’s passage through Parliament. We will obviously be engaging with public authorities much more actively post Royal Assent, and perhaps in the run-up to Royal Assent as well. We do not yet have that information; BEIS may be able to answer that question.
On the question about how long an investigation would take, we have a very tight deadline for the reviews that we are undertaking of subsidies of particular interest. We are being asked to do those in 30 days, so there will be a bit of a run-in period—a pre-notification, to make sure that we have all the relevant information. Once we have published, I think there is a five-day cooling-off period and then the ability for the public authorities to implement their subsidies. They are quite tight timescales. You could imagine a team having a maximum of a couple of months on a particular review, then moving on to another one.
Simon Baynes
Q
Rachel Merelie: Thank you for the question. It is really important that all granting authorities are treated fairly and equitably, regardless of whether they are in the devolved nations or in England. Yes, certainly the spreading of the load across the different granting authorities, and the ability for the subsidy advice unit to engage with each of those on an equal footing, is very important.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Rachel Merelie: We will be taking the submission from the public authority, and it will be assessing its subsidy against the seven principles that are set out. It will then be for us to look at whether it is providing the evidence that we need to take a view on the strength of its assessment against those principles. That is what we will be relying on in order to do our assessment. Where necessary, we will be able to ask questions of third parties, but in the time available, we will be largely reliant on the public authority giving us the information we need.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Rachel Merelie: In the way the Bill is currently set up, that wider monitoring on a day-to-day basis is not something that we will be involved in.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: That is a very good question. I am sure that you are right—there will be quite a process to educate and support the public authorities as they embrace the new regime. I think that a lot of this will come from central Government and the guidance that they will publish. The subsidy advice unit, I suspect, will need to flesh out that guidance with respect to the very large subsidies and the information that we will need to carry out our assessment. We are keen to work with public authorities to make sure that they understand what will be required. Yes, we are aware of the need to do that guidance, which is one reason why, I suspect, it will take a little time between Royal Assent and the commencement of the Act, as there will be a need to get that guidance and detail out there and give confidence to those who want to operate under the regime to do so.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: I think the guidance will be incredibly important. Doubtless, there will need to be a series of roundtables and communication with public bodies to ensure that there is as good an understanding as there can be. The other point to emphasise is that this is going to be a bit of a learning experience for everyone in the first days of the operation of the new regime. We cannot expect it all to work entirely smoothly from day one, although we will do our very best to make that happen. There will be a need as time goes on to adjust, to iterate and to develop our processes.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: Yes, I can see that as a question. At the moment, the Bill allows for the Secretary of State to ask for advice more frequently or when required. There may be an argument that says that we will provide some advice on a shorter timescale than five years, with the set point being the five-year report. Again, that is a question that we are entirely open to discussing further.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Rachel Merelie: I think that this is an area where quite a lot more work needs to be done to understand the relationship between the subsidy schemes, the individual subsidies and the information that we will have to analyse. I do not have concerns at the moment, but that is partly because this is a pretty early stage in articulating how that will work.
The Chair
Thank you, Ms Merelie, for your evidence this afternoon. That was beautifully timed, and we will now move on to the final panel.
Examination of Witness
Ivan McKee gave evidence.
The Chair
We are going to hear from Ivan McKee, the Scottish Government Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, who is appearing virtually. We have until 5 pm for this session. Would the witness introduce himself for the record and give us a few opening comments?
Ivan McKee: Thank you very much, Ms Nokes. Thank you for the opportunity to set out the views of Scottish Ministers on the proposed legislation. For the record, my name is Ivan McKee. I am the Scottish Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise.
I look forward to taking questions, but would like to briefly outline a few concerns that the Scottish Government have about the Bill. The first is the sweeping powers of the Secretary of State, which ignore the devolution settlement and do not grant the equivalent powers to Scottish Government and other devolved Administration Ministers. The second concern is the absence of formal regulatory and enforcement arrangements. The third is the inclusion of agriculture and forestry in the provision. Those are our main concerns, but I am happy to take questions from members of the Committee.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Secondly, what do you see as the impact of moving away from more formal assisted areas on the ability of the Scottish Government to support more deprived regions? Would you say that there could be flexibility in the Bill to enable you to make those decisions as you might wish, in line with Scottish Government objectives?
Ivan McKee: First, for the record, it is well known but it is worth stating that leaving the European Union was a mistake and we look forward to the day, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, when we can rejoin the European Union and all the advantages that it gave to Scotland and, frankly, the rest of the UK.
As for the specifics of the Bill, given that we are where we are, we recognise the need for a Bill, notwithstanding the concerns I have raised already. Many of the specifics have still to be nailed down. As we see the final shape of it emerge, we will comment on the specifics.
As for being able to support different parts of Scotland, given that we have responsibility for economic development in Scotland, clearly we are keen to be able to do that. The EU rules obviously allowed different parts of Scotland to be treated differently depending on the circumstances and allowed us to make decisions on how we saw fit to spend money and take action within those rules. It was a slightly different system, but we do not see any specific advantages to the current proposals in this Bill.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Ivan McKee: A four-nations approach clearly has to take recognition of areas of devolved responsibility, be that for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, environment, economic development and so on. A range of areas on which the Bill impinges are devolved under the settlement. So clearly that is a concern.
I suppose another concern about the Bill’s general operation is the lack of the option, or requirement, under the EU regime for pre-notification or advance approval. In advance of an award or a subsidy being made, that gave certainty that it was aligned with the rules in place. The absence of that in this Bill creates a great deal of uncertainty as to what is allowable and what is not in advance of any subsidy decisions being made.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
Q
Welcome to this Committee of the UK Government, Mr McKee. We are discussing a UK Government instrument and within that there are provisions made for the role of the devolved Administrations. Clause 10 gives the devolved Administrations scope to set their own scheme of subsidies. Is that your understanding? Do you feel that that provides the Scottish Government with the powers to do what they need to do?
Ivan McKee: No, because the Secretary of State has powers over devolved areas that Scottish Government Ministers do not have, and that impinges on the devolution settlement. That settlement is quite clear on areas that are reserved and devolved, and it is the Scottish Government and Scottish Ministers who have the power to act and operate in those devolved areas. The Bill gives those powers to the Secretary of State and the UK Government, but it does not give equivalent powers to Scottish Government Ministers to operate likewise in devolved areas.
Robin Millar
Q
Ivan McKee: As I have said before, we believe that we should be in the European Union. The scope that we had within the European Union to be able to give subsidy, within a controlled environment, was very clear. We were able to get clarity in advance of making any subsidies as to whether it complied or not. There was clarity about that process that does not exist under the current proposals.
Robin Millar
I think the point you are making—
Ivan McKee: To answer your question, we don’t know. We do not know until we have made a subsidy and then someone decides that they want to challenge that at some point down line. Until then, we will not know whether we have the authority to do what we think we might like to do.
Robin Millar
Q
Ivan McKee: No, because that would be open to challenge potentially further down the line, and we would not have clarity in advance about whether it was open to challenge or not, and what the conclusion of any challenge may be.
Robin Millar
Q
We have just had very interesting evidence from Mr Greenberg, who is the Parliamentary Counsel for the House of Commons concerned with domestic legislation. He said that we should not be complaining about a skeleton Bill because we should not be focused on detail so much as on ensuring that it gives us the freedoms that we want to do the things we do. I just come back to clause 10 and I wonder again what your response is to that. Do you feel that the clause gives you freedoms?
Ivan McKee: Again, I don’t think that that is the case, because there is no advance approval. At the moment, there are several proposals on my desk that we are considering, and have done in the past. The process is that you go through a consideration, and then assess and get clarification on whether it would be allowable, or would breach state aid rules. If we are in an environment where you go ahead and do things and then you may get called up later on it because there is no clarity in advance as to whether it complies, clearly you can say that we must do something, but if it is then ruled non-compliant at a later stage because you did not know that in advance, that is a freedom that is not worth much.
Robin Millar
Q
Ivan McKee: No, I would be happier if there were clear rules for everybody across the UK that had been agreed with all parts of the UK, so that everybody knew exactly what that level playing field was, everybody knew what the rules were in advance, and there was a process for clarification before you took very important decisions about subsidies and economic development for very good reasons: to support businesses, industries, communities and parts of Scotland. I would be happy if we knew in advance that those things were clear and allowable, and if the Bill respected the powers of the devolved Administrations with respect to the devolution settlement.
Stephen Flynn
Q
Secondly, I would be grateful if you could expand upon your concerns in relation to agriculture, because I know it has been spoken about at length.
Ivan McKee: With regard to your first point, yes, of course that is a concern. It is lopsided, it is asymmetrical and it gives BEIS powers in devolved areas that it does not give to the devolved Administrations. Those are, to say the least, problematic with regards to devolved Administrations operating in areas of devolved competency. That is clearly of significant concern. I did not hear all the earlier evidence—I dipped in and out of some parts—but I am aware that those comments you referred to were made, and that does support the view that we have. It is not just ourselves: the Welsh Government and, I believe, the Northern Ireland Executive also have concerns regarding the powers that the Bill gives to the Secretary of State in devolved areas that are not reflected with equivalent powers for Scottish Government Ministers.
With regards to agriculture, our concern is that income support mechanisms for agriculture that would have been outside the scope of an EU subsidy control regime are inside the scope of the Bill, which raises concerns about the extent to which we can apply such income support mechanisms within the agriculture sector in Scotland, and of course elsewhere. That is a concern for us: we believe that agriculture should be excluded from the Bill, and I understand that an amendment could be coming forward with that objective in mind.
Stephen Flynn
Q
Ivan McKee: The proof of the pudding will be if an amendment comes forward in that regard and is accepted. We have not had confirmation that such an amendment would be accepted, so we will see where that goes. In answer to your question, we have not had confirmation from the UK Government that they would accept the exclusion of agriculture from the Bill at this point in time.
Paul Scully
Q
Ivan McKee: Clearly the Bill sets out where we go in the future. Agriculture is devolved, so we would be concerned if a scheme or support that we put in place was deemed to be within scope, and could not be put in place as a consequence of the Bill. That would be a concern, obviously.
Paul Scully
Q
Ivan McKee: I am very happy to engage, Paul, as you know, and to have those conversations at ministerial and official level. The issue is not so much the engagement; it is where the engagement leads. Our concerns have been clearly articulated, and if we do not see movement on them, clearly the engagement and discussion has not led to a solution that we find satisfactory. The challenge on the devolution settlement and the scope of powers is extremely concerning. We are glad that we continue to talk on this, but the real nub is the outcome. If the Bill continues to ignore the devolution settlement, clearly that is of significant concern to us.
On specifics, one thing that could help as part of that engagement process would be early sight of draft guidance and draft regulations; a lot of that has still to be nailed down. As we go forward with these discussions at ministerial and official level, any early sight of those things would facilitate discussions.
Simon Baynes
Q
Ivan McKee: As I say, our main concern is the assault on the devolution settlement; it takes control away from Scotland in devolved areas. That is a significant concern. It is not acceptable for the UK Government to behave like that. Powers in devolved areas should lie with Scotland, and that is our main concern.
Simon Baynes
Q
Ivan McKee: The main issue we have is around the devolution settlement. It is quite clear: UK Government Ministers can have authority over devolved issues, which should be decided on in Scotland as per the devolution settlement. That should not be trampled on. That is something we are very concerned about, and we are opposed to that.
Simon Baynes
Q
Ivan McKee: Clearly, it depends on what it is. In the devolution settlement, local government is obviously a devolved area, and those areas are for Scotland to decide on.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Ivan McKee: Not really. Look at the calling-in powers, for example, that the Secretary of State has that we do not. The streamlined subsidy schemes, which have not been clarified yet, can be made only by the Secretary of State, not by the devolved Administrations. The cooling-off period, again, has no equivalent powers for the devolved Administrations. Requesting a report from the CMA cannot be done by the devolved Administrations. Referring to the CMA’s subsidy advice unit can be done only by the Secretary of State and not by the devolved Administrations, so the Secretary of State has a range of powers that can operate in areas where the devolved Administrations do not have the authority to do those things as well. That asymmetry in devolved areas is something that we are concerned about.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Ivan McKee: In terms of designing the scheme, clearly it is open to challenge within the scope of that. As I have outlined, the Secretary of State has a range of powers that the devolved Administrations do not.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Ivan McKee: It does not give us the same powers as the Secretary of State, which are much more wide-ranging than those that you mentioned.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Ivan McKee: That is true as far as it goes, but that is not the point. The point is that we do not have the same powers that the Secretary of State has under section 55.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Secondly, I was not fully clear on what your view was in relation to local authorities. It seemed that it was more for the Scottish Parliament to decide what local authorities in Scotland may or may not do, rather than local authorities across the UK being able to make subsidies if they felt that they were in line with the subsidy control principles, and beneficial for their area. I was slightly confused on what your view was about local authorities being able to make subsidy decisions in Scotland. Perhaps you could come back on both those points, and put in writing what specific changes you want to see.
Ivan McKee: On the specifics of what our asks would be, I am very happy to put that in writing. In broad terms, it centres around, as I said, the requirement to not have the Secretary of State able to operate in devolved areas, as per the devolved settlement, and for the Scottish Government and Scottish Ministers to be able to do that. For us to have equivalent powers as it refers to devolved areas would be the ask, in broad terms. I have outlined some of that verbally, but I am very happy to come back to the Committee in writing with the details on specifically what that means.
Local authorities have always been able to grant aid within the rules that exist, so effectively nothing changes there. What changes with regard to the Bill is the authority that it gives the Secretary of State that it does not give in devolved areas to Ministers in the devolved Administrations. That is our concern.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Ivan McKee: Experience has shown us over recent years that the commodity of trust is in short supply. We would be very concerned if the issues that we are talking about were not dealt with in the Bill. I think we would be in a very difficult place if we were relying on guidance that might come out later to give us the comfort that we require that this was not a challenge to the devolution settlement, and the powers of the Scottish Government and Scottish Ministers.
Kirsty Blackman
Q
Ivan McKee: I would not like to comment. We do what we think is right for the people, communities, regions and businesses in Scotland. I am sure that the UK Government will do what they think is right for businesses in England.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, I thank you, Mr McKee, on behalf of the Committee for giving evidence to us today.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.—(Michael Tomlinson.)
Nationality and Borders Bill (Tenth sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Nationality and Borders Act 2022 View all Nationality and Borders Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I have been asked to remind Members and staff that they are asked by the House to have a lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate. That may be done either at the testing centre on the estate or at home.
Clause 18
Priority removal notices
Amendment moved (this day): 60, in clause 18, page 22, line 26, leave out “10(1) or (2)” and insert “10”.—(Tom Pursglove.)
This amendment is consequential on clause 43 of the Bill.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Government amendment 61.
Clause stand part.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)
I was about to conclude by saying that paragraphs (a) and (c) of subsection (7) suffice to capture every scenario. Removing paragraph (b) does not affect how the clause operates or who it impacts. I commend the amendments and the clause to the Committee.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
We intend to oppose the clause standing part of the Bill. The clause is an entirely new provision. Its stated aim is to reduce the extent to which people may frustrate removals through sequential or unmeritorious claims, appeals or legal action. It does so by providing for a priority removal notice, or PRN, to be served on anyone who is liable for removal or for deportation. Factors might include where a person has previously made a human rights or protection claim.
According to the explanatory notes, subsection (3) defines a PRN. It states that the notice imposes a duty on the claimant to provide a statement setting out the reasons for wishing to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, any grounds on which they should be permitted to do so, and any grounds on which they should not be removed or required to leave the United Kingdom. The notice also requires them to provide any information relating to being a victim of slavery or human trafficking as defined by clause 46.
The notice also requires them to provide any evidence in support of any reasons, grounds or information. The statement, grounds, information and evidence must be provided before the PRN cut-off date included within the notice. Intended as a warning to the person that they are being prioritised for removal, the notice gives them a period of time—the cut-off period—within which to access legal advice and to inform the Home Office of any grounds or evidence that they want to provide in support of a claim to be allowed to remain in the UK.
The clause and the introduction of priority removal notices are part of wider proposals to fast-track claims and appeals, and to create a one-stop process for claims to asylum to be brought and considered together in a single assessment up front. The consequences of the clauses related to priority removal notices will make it harder for people to bring evidence after making an initial asylum claim and penalise delayed disclosure. Indeed, if anything required by the PRN is provided after the specified cut-off date, a decision maker—when determining a protection or human rights claim, or making a decision as to whether the person is a potential or actual victim of trafficking—will treat it with scepticism and it will be considered damaging to the person’s credibility and their claim.
The requirements related to the PRN are extensive. It requires all manner of claims and evidence to be provided, covering all grounds for resisting removal and all evidence in support. When implemented, that could have incredibly damaging consequences for people seeking asylum, as it requires them to provide extensive supporting evidence by a specified date. For example, it will seriously disadvantage vulnerable people and victims, such as those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or those who have been trafficked, as well as those who are LGBTQ, as I have mentioned previously.
The introduction of priority removal notices fails to acknowledge the reality of situations that people seeking asylum may encounter. There are many reasons that evidence may be provided late but in earnest, as we have explored already, for example with traumatised victims. The ultimate consequence of people not being able properly to present evidence relating to their claim, or being deemed to lack credibility as a result of failing to present such evidence on time, is that claims may be rejected and people may be wrongly subject to removal. The Opposition are very concerned that these measures may give rise to a significant risk of refoulement and will consequently abandon the UK’s obligations under international law.
In short, the proposals are unacceptable. They form a package of measures that seek to create a one-stop process for asylum claims and fail to do so in a fair or humane way. They are widely condemned by the sector. The Opposition are vehemently opposed to the introduction of priority removal notices and, when they are taken in conjunction with the series of clauses in part 2, are incredibly concerned about these measures. Its potentially strict application risks having a severe impact on asylum seekers and refugees, in terms of both procedural fairness and ensuring that people are protected by the refugee convention. We therefore oppose the clause.
Amendment 60 agreed to.
Amendment made: 61, in clause 18, page 22, line 28, leave out paragraph (b).—(Tom Pursglove.)
This amendment removes a superfluous paragraph (any person within paragraph (b) would in any event fall within either paragraph (a) or (c)).
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
I beg to move amendment 62, in clause 19, page 22, line 43, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert—
“(a) the PRN cut-off date, or
(b) if later, the day on which any appeal rights of the PRN recipient in respect of a relevant claim are exhausted.”.
This amendment and Amendments 63 and 64 provide that a priority removal notice will remain in force for 12 months after a PRN recipient’s appeal rights are exhausted in relation to any protection or human rights claim brought while the notice is in force.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 63 to 66.
Clause stand part.
Tom Pursglove
This clause is supplementary to clause 18, which we have just discussed. It makes provision for the validity and effect of a priority removal notice. A priority removal notice imposes requirements to provide any reason and supporting evidence as to why a person should be allowed to remain in the UK. This will reduce the extent to which removal can be frustrated.
Where a priority removal notice has been issued, it will remain in force for a period of 12 months after either the cut-off date specified in the notice or after the recipient has exhausted their appeal rights. A period of 12 months will provide sufficient time for the person’s removal to be enforced. Following the service of a priority removal notice, any previous evidence notice, slavery or trafficking information notice, or notice under section 120 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, will cease to take effect. Any appeal right arising from a protection or human rights claim received after the cut-off date will be subject to the expedited process as provided for by clause 21, unless the claimant provides good reasons for late disclosure.
The amendments are minor and technical and are intended to ensure that the new priority removal notice will work as effectively as possible. Amendments 62 to 64 provide for a priority removal notice to remain in force for a period of 12 months after the recipient’s appeal rights are exhausted. Amendments 65 and 66 clarify that a priority removal notice will remain in force where the recipient is no longer liable to removal or deportation from the UK. This makes it clear that where the recipient of a priority removal notice makes an application to the EU settlement scheme that is later refused, they will remain subject to the priority removal notice.
Bambos Charalambous
The Opposition will oppose the clause standing part of the Bill. It forms part of the Bill’s new PRN regime, as initially set out in clause 18, and states that the PRN will remain in force until 12 months after the cut-off date or the person’s appeal rights become exhausted, whichever comes last. The Opposition believe that preventing people from being able to bring further evidence for 12 months after they have been issued with a PRN is wrong. It is unfair and it fails to consider the reasons for delayed disclosure, which range from psychological and cultural barriers to the crucial fact that those who are seeking asylum have fled their homes and may not have access to evidence immediately.
When applied narrowly and in conjunction with other clauses in part 2, the proposed provisions potentially risk significant breaches of the refugee convention and the principle of non-refoulement. For those reasons, and reasons discussed in the debate on clause 18, we will be voting against clause 19.
Amendment 62 agreed to.
Amendments made: 63, in clause 19, page 23, line 3, at end insert—
“(1A) In subsection (1) ‘relevant claim’ means a protection claim or a human rights claim brought by the PRN recipient while the priority removal notice is in force.”
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 62.
Amendment 64, in clause 19, page 23, line 4, after “rights” insert
“in respect of a claim”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 62.
Amendment 65, in clause 19, page 23, line 11, at end insert—
“(2A) A priority removal notice remains in force until the end of the period mentioned in subsection (1) even if the PRN recipient ceases to be liable to removal or deportation from the United Kingdom during that period.”
This amendment clarifies that although a priority removal notice can only be served on a person if they are liable to removal or deportation, the fact that the person ceases to be so liable does not mean that the notice will cease to have effect.
Amendment 66, in clause 19, page 23, line 23, leave out subsection (6) and insert—
“(6) Expressions used in this section that are defined for the purposes of section 18 have the same meaning in this section as in that section.”—(Tom Pursglove.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 65.
Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 139, in clause 20, page 23, line 40, at end insert—
“(3A) For the purposes of subsection (3) ‘good reasons’ include, but are not limited to—
(a) evidence of post-traumatic stress,
(b) potential endangerment to the PRN recipient caused by collecting evidence for anything mentioned in subsection (1)(a) before the PRN cut-off date.
(3B) The Secretary of State must publish guidance including a non-exhaustive list of ‘good reasons’ within the meaning of subsection (3) within 30 days of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
This amendment would illustrate potential interpretations of “good reasons” for late compliance and require the Home Secretary to publish a non-exhaustive list of potential “good reasons” to aid asylum decisions.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 154, in clause 20, page 23, line 40, at end insert—
“(3A) The Secretary of State or competent authority must accept that there are good reasons for the late provision of anything mentioned in subsection (1)(a) where—
(a) the PRN recipient’s protection or human rights claim is based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) the PRN recipient is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(c) the PRN recipient has been a victim of torture;
(d) the PRN recipient has been a victim of sexual or gender based violence;
(e) the PRN recipient has been a victim of human trafficking or modern slavery;
(f) the PRN recipient is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(g) the PRN recipient is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment defines “good reasons” for the purposes of subsection (3).
Amendment 41, in clause 20, page 23, line 38, leave out
“, as damaging the PRN recipient’s credibility,”
This amendment would mean that – whilst late provision of information would still be taken into account – it would not necessarily be deemed as damaging the claimant’s credibility.
Paul Blomfield
I will try to be brief, because the amendments cover ground similar to our previous discussion. Clause 20 seeks to damage the credibility of claimants producing evidence outside the time period dictated by a priority removal notice. There is a general point to make here. As we all know well, completing processes in time is not really the Home Office’s strong point. What is worrying is that the provision makes things worse. As Women for Refugee Women has pointed out:
“As well as causing harm to women in desperate need of safety, these clauses are likely to lead to greater unfairness in the system, an increasing number of incorrect decisions and ultimately therefore an increase in the backlog of asylum cases.”
That is something we all seek to avoid.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that not all the delays are down to the Home Office? In many people’s view, the thousands of judicial reviews that are done, the vast majority of which fail, are there to buy more time for the applicant possibly to come up with a reason for an article 8 application.
Paul Blomfield
There is an exception to every rule, so I am prepared to accept that not all the problems are down to the Home Office. We discussed that issue earlier. The fact that some people may seek to abuse the system does not mean that the system should be changed to focus on those cases. We should operate on the basis that everybody has a right to access and utilise the judicial processes that are available.
As I was saying, the backlog has risen at a time when the number of asylum applications for the year ending June 2021 fell. We know that is reflected across the system; it is not just a problem with asylum. In the relatively straightforward area of EU settled status, recent data from the Home Office in response to a freedom of information request showed that, in June, more than 26,000 EU citizens had been waiting for more than a year for a decision; more than 216,000 had been waiting for more than six months; and more than 680,000 had been waiting for more than three months.
The problem of delays is endemic in the Home Office, and there were no JRs involved in those numbers. In the asylum process, delay is not only seriously detrimental to the individuals, but—we have returned to this point a number of times, and will again—hugely costly to the taxpayer, so any measure that will exacerbate rather than correct the issue is unconscionable.
The assumption behind the measures in clause 20 and related causes is that those trapped in the system are to blame, as was echoed in the exchange we just had. Blaming others is a common approach of the Government on a wide range of issues such as covid, where GPs are the lightning rod for discontent, and Brexit, where we blame everybody going other than those who negotiated the deal. That ignores the reality that those trapped in the system want decisions to be expedited as soon as they can. They want to move on with their lives. Those who are successful want to take the opportunity to work and contribute to our society.
We need more resources from the Home Office to tackle the backlog. It is welcome that there has been some acknowledgement of that. I saw that the permanent secretary said at the Home Affairs Committee last month that the Home Office is planning to almost double the number of caseworkers, which is extremely positive. It is delayed recognition of where the problem might lie, but they should not be seeking to undermine applicants, which subsection (3) of clause 20 does by specifying that the Secretary of State or the competent authority must consider evidence being brought late as damaging to a claimant’s credibility unless there are good reasons why it was brought late. We come again to this issue, which we debated in relation to an earlier clause, of good reasons.
As there is no explanation before us, either in the legislation or in the explanatory notes, of what might constitute good reasons, amendment 139 seeks to help the Government, in a collegial spirit, by inviting the Secretary of State to publish a framework that allows the consideration of the effect of post-traumatic stress and potential endangerment on the provision of evidence. I do not think that any of us could object to the idea that post-traumatic stress and potential endangerment would be good reasons, so I will be interested to hear the Minister explain, if in fact he does not embrace the amendment, why that is the case, because we go on to suggest that he might also publish the other factors that would be seen to be good reasons.
The clause serves to shift from a presumption of guilty until proven innocent, again echoing an earlier discussion, back to our legal system’s norm of innocent until proven guilty. As it stands, unamended, it is not in the spirit of the law or of British values, and it should not be in the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again, Ms McDonagh. As the hon. Member for Sheffield Central said, clause 20 instructs decision makers to take into account
“as damaging the PRN recipient’s credibility…the late provision”
of information and evidence. I absolutely support the hon. Gentleman’s amendment to explore “good reasons” for evidence, including post-traumatic stress. Our amendment 154 provides other examples, such as mental health issues or where a person has been a victim of torture or other crimes that can impact on their ability to provide information. That is similar to debates we have already had.
Amendment 41 revisits earlier arguments about taking into account all the evidence, including lateness in providing it, when assessing a case. It is not appropriate to tell decision makers what conclusions to draw. We say decision makers will often find people to have credibility if lots of new information is provided with respect to that explanation. That is a matter that should be left to them. It is not for parliamentarians to tell decision makers how to analyse claimants.
Bambos Charalambous
Clause 20 introduces the concept of a priority removal notice and, under subsection (3), specifies that the Secretary of State or the competent authority must consider evidence being brought late as damaging to a claimant’s credibility, unless there are good reasons why it was brought late.
As we have made clear during the course of the Bill’s passage, the Government are trying to make it harder for refugees and asylum seekers to gain protection here in the UK. That is undeniable. The priority removal notices regime is part of a package of measures and provisions to achieve that end, both in deterring refugees from seeking protection and in making it more difficult for refugees admitted to the UK to be recognised as such.
One of those measures is directing decision makers, including judges, to doubt an applicant’s credibility if they fail to provide evidence under the strict conditions described in clauses 18 and 19. It is worth noting that the Home Office and the courts have always been able to consider the timing of a claim as a factor in determining credibility, and that might determine an appeal. None the less, clause 20 seeks to reduce the weight that is given to any evidence that is submitted after the cut-off period stipulated by the PRN.
According to the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association:
“Rather than allowing decision-makers to sensibly consider whether the late provision of evidence is a reason to doubt its credibility, weighing all the evidence on the whole, the government proposes to strait-jacket decision-makers with a series of presumptions. The caveat that decision-makers will be allowed to use their own judgment if there is a ‘good reason’ why evidence was provided late does not mitigate these concerns.”
Indeed, there are many so-called bad reasons that evidence might be provided late that do not indicate dishonesty, and many more reasons that it may not be possible for someone to present all relevant information in support of their claim at the earliest opportunity. We have already heard in detail the problems felt by certain groups and individuals with this approach, such as LGBTQ asylum seekers and victims of torture, sexual or gender-based violence, or trafficking.
One long-standing concern for the sector, which we have yet to cover in detail, is failings within the asylum process itself, particularly poor-quality, shortened or inadequate interviews. The consequences of poor interviews conducted with an individual can be devastating in the moment and potentially have grave long-term effects, including the risk of being returned to persecution because the Home Office did not have the information it needed to make a fair and informed decision.
For the Home Office, asylum appeals have been rising steadily over the last decade, which points to the importance of protecting asylum appeals as a vital safeguard for the most vulnerable and to the fact that the Home Office often gets decisions wrong first time. More widely, a system that relies on the appeal process to correct its errors is inefficient, costly and inhumane. For that reason, we can describe the asylum system in the UK as broken, and we can point to the last 11 years of Conservative government as a reason for us having that broken system.
Mr Goodwill
Would the hon. Gentleman include foreign national offenders who are being removed, who may have committed crimes including rape and murder or been involved in the drugs trade, among the people who should be given the sort of latitude he is talking about?
Bambos Charalambous
Priority removal notices will apply to all people to whom they apply. If they qualify, they will qualify under that regime. I do not think people can be distinguished on the basis on their offences.
Clause 20 and the wider proposals around priority removal notices will penalise the most vulnerable and those who have been failed by the system by reducing the significance of any evidence submitted after the applicant has been through the one-stop process. That could include independent expert medical evidence, such as medico-legal reports, which often prove determinative in asylum appeals.
Ultimately, the provision around late compliance risks people not being given protection even though they deserve it and are in need of it. For the reasons I have specified, we will oppose clause 20 standing part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
By introducing the statutory requirement to provide information or evidence before a specified date, clauses 16 and 18 will contribute to the swift resolution of protection and human rights claims, enabling decision makers to consider all the evidence up front and, where appropriate, grant leave. It is right that where evidence or information is provided late, that should impact on a person’s credibility, and that the decision maker must consider whether to apply the minimal weight principle, unless there are good reasons why it was brought late.
Clauses 20 and 23 both recognise that it may be harder for some people to engage in the process and provide evidence before a specified date. That may be the result of trauma they have experienced, a lack of trust in the authorities or the sensitive and personal nature of their claim. Amendment 41 removes the possible credibility implications stemming from late evidence in response to a priority removal notice. It is right that where evidence or information is provided late, that should impact on a person’s credibility, unless there are good reasons why it was brought late. Where there are good reasons that information or evidence was provided late, the penalties in clauses 20 and 23 will not apply.
Clause 20 recognises that there may be good reasons that evidence was provided late. Where there are good reasons, the associated credibility provisions in clauses 20 and 23 will not apply. Therefore, amendment 41 is unnecessary, as the clause already meets its aim that late evidence should not necessarily be damaging to the claimant’s credibility. As with amendment 39, by removing the possible credibility implications stemming from late provision of evidence, amendment 41 would make such a measure inappropriate for primary legislation and render it pointless. Amendment 154 places a statutory obligation on decision makers to accept that there are good reasons for late evidence where an individual’s claim is based on certain factors, or the individual falls into a particular category. That would apply to Home Office decision makers and, under amendment 154, the competent authority as well as the judiciary.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
This comes back to the point that we were discussing this morning about PTSD. The Minister seems to be saying that if PTSD were on the list and someone could not prove that they had it that would advantage those who could prove that the condition had been diagnosed while disadvantaging those who had not had a diagnosis. However, they would not get a diagnosis within the timeframe specified in the legislation. Perhaps a means to address that anomaly is the Government providing their own list of good reasons that could be used to distinguish between cases—on a case-by-case basis—based on how long someone has been in the process and whether they are undergoing assessment for PTSD. That could be a way to resolve that predicament. As it stands, the Minister seems to be saying that he cannot accept the amendment because it would advantage those whom the Government’s plans disadvantage.
Tom Pursglove
Our intention is to publish guidance to help operationalise the measures in the Bill that will set this out in more detail. We would expect, as I have said in relation to several amendments and clauses, that caseworkers will consider those factors properly when reaching judgments about individual cases.
Mr Goodwill
I am sure the Opposition understand that when someone is given a police caution when they are about to be arrested they are told, “It may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on.” Is the clause not basically about the same principle being applied to immigration cases?
Tom Pursglove
I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central.
Paul Blomfield
I am trying to explore the contradiction in what the Minister has just said. He said that the Government intended to produce guidance that set out what good reasons were subsequent to the legislation, but he cautioned against requiring good reasons, because that would exclude some people from justice. Would he square that circle for me?
Tom Pursglove
We think that the appropriate place to be clear about these matters is in the guidance, rather than the Bill. As I say, I would expect decision makers to take into account all the relevant factors at play in an individual case when making decisions relating to it. Rather as we have discussed in relation to other clauses and amendments, there is flexibility in certain circumstances, where good reasons can be shown as to why evidence would not be produced sooner. We recognise that people may be in difficult circumstances and that issues arise in their lives. We want the system to be responsive to that and to take proper account of it, which is why we are proposing to proceed as we are doing.
To return to the point that I was making on amendment 139, it would perpetuate the issues that the clauses are designed to address to the detriment of genuine claimants, undermining their usefulness. Amendment 139 would also introduce a requirement to publish guidance on good reasons within 30 days of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. That is an arbitrary deadline and it is not necessary to include it on the face of the Bill. As I have indicated, good reasons will be set out in published guidance for decision makers and will be made available when the measures come into force.
Neil Coyle
It is a brief intervention. I am reminded of what the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby said about being cautioned by the police. Will the good reasons clauses cover children specifically? We need to know, given that they represent almost a quarter of asylum claims, and given the issue of age and maturity.
Moreover, what evidence would a gay man trying to escape Iran or another oppressive have to provide in order to prove his circumstances? What would the threshold be, given how hard it has been to provide proof in multiple cases under the existing system?
Tom Pursglove
I can confirm that it will refer to children. To conclude my remarks, I respectfully invite the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to withdraw the amendment.
On clause 20, the unnecessary provision of late evidence, statements and information delays justice for those with genuine claims, and wastes valuable resources. Clause 20 will work in parallel with clauses 18 and 19 to support the new priority removal notice. Its focus is on encouraging persons liable to removal or deportation to provide at the earliest opportunity any information or evidence in support of their protection or human rights claim, or, for potential victims of modern slavery, in relation to a decision by the competent authority. Where information or evidence is provided on or after the cut-off date, as set out in the priority removal notice and without good reason, it is right that that should be taken into account as damaging to the person’s credibility. I hope that the Committee will agree to the clause standing part of the Bill.
Paul Blomfield
I am afraid that I am unconvinced by the Minister’s response, so I wish to press amendment 139 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 155, in clause 21, page 24, line 21, at end insert—
“(2A) The Secretary of State must accept that there are good reasons for P making the claim on or after the cut-off date where—
(a) the PRN recipient’s protection or human rights claim is based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) the PRN recipient is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(c) the PRN recipient has been a victim of torture;
(d) the PRN recipient has been a victim of sexual or gender based violence;
(e) the PRN recipient has been a victim of human trafficking or modern slavery;
(f) the PRN recipient is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(g) the PRN recipient is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment defines ”good reasons” for the purposes of section 82A(2) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (as inserted by this Bill).
If someone makes a protection claim after the PRN cut-off, then unless the Secretary of State is satisfied there are good reasons, she must certify the appeal right and it will be subjected to an expedited appeal straight to the upper tribunal. Tribunal procedure rules, then, must make provision for this. If it is in the interests of justice for an appeal not to be expedited, the tribunal may order that it is no longer subject to that process. This, too, prevents any onward appeal.
In the next debate I will set out our opposition to the clause as a whole, but amendment 155 sets out a situation where the Secretary of State must accept there has been a reasonable excuse, similar to before. It would surely be wrong to subject survivors of human trafficking, or gender-based violence or torture—to use but three examples—to an accelerated appeal, simply on the grounds that they were late making a claim in response to a PRN. We have heard very powerful reasons already today, including in Home Office guidance, why that can be an incredibly difficult process.
I suspect the Minister will again reject this amendment on the same grounds as before, but it is at least useful for him to state on record that these are the types of claimant that he envisages should not be pushed through any accelerated appeal process. I will listen carefully to what he has to say in that regard.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling amendment 155, which seeks to define good reasons for the purposes of proposed new section 82A(2) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. I appreciate the concerns this amendment is attempting to address but the Government must oppose it. The amendment would result in all individuals who meet any of the descriptors listed being exempt from the expedited appeal process, even where their reason for lateness may be completely unrelated and make redundant any need to submit a claim by the date specified in the PRN.
I acknowledge that the experiences and circumstances listed in the amendment can inform why a person has made an application late. However, the duty on the Secretary of State will see all and any reasons for lateness being considered. Guidance for decision makers will be published and made available when these measures come into force. For that reason, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Tom Pursglove
I beg to move amendment 67, in clause 21, page 24, line 27, after “are” insert “brought and”.
This amendment and Amendment 68 clarify that the Tribunal Procedure Rules establishing the new expedited appeals process must aim to ensure that both the bringing of an appeal and its determination are expedited.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 68 and 69.
Amendment 42, in clause 21, page 24, line 37, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment would protect the right to an onward appeal from an expedited appeal decision by the Upper Tribunal in certain cases.
Clause stand part.
That schedule 2 be the Second schedule to the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
The Government propose three amendments to clause 21. Two amendments relate to the timeframe for bringing an expedited appeal. Accordingly, they clarify that the tribunal procedure rules must provide that an expedited appeal is brought more quickly than a standard appeal. That will ensure that individuals bring appeals promptly. The third amendment provides that, where the upper tribunal exercises its discretion to order that an expedited appeal should not be treated as such, the appeal will be transferred to the first-tier tribunal. This amendment provides an important clarification about the impact of the upper tribunal’s discretion to remove a case from the expedited appeal route. I therefore urge the hon. Members to support the Government amendments.
I thank the hon. Members for tabling amendment 42, which concerns the finality of decisions by the upper tribunal in expedited appeals. However, the Government oppose the amendment. The expedited appeal process provides effective access to justice while protecting the appeals system from abuse by individuals who deliberately act to prolong their case, thereby delaying a final decision.
We believe that where recipients of a priority removal notice who have received an offer of enhanced legal advice bring a late human rights or protection claim without good reason, any subsequent appeal should be dealt with expeditiously by experienced senior judges, and that their decision should be final. We believe that that strikes a balance, ensuring that appellants have access to justice, while protecting the appeals system from abuse. Section 13 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 provides for various upper tribunal decisions to be excluded from onward appeal. It is appropriate that expedited appeals are included within the list of excluded decisions that are not appealable.
Mr Goodwill
When we discussed the previous clause, there were a lot of complaints about the time it took to process people whose claims were rejected and who were removed, and those who had genuine claims. Should the hon. Gentleman not welcome the expedited process because it will enable people to get their decisions more quickly and stop those whose vexatious use of the law delays things?
Bambos Charalambous
There is such welcome generosity from Conservative Members. The measures will do no such thing; all they will do is clog up the upper tribunal system, which I will address later.
The Bill’s system of penalisation includes curtailing appeal rights, as set out in clause 21. The clause creates an expedited appeal route for those who have been served with a priority removal notice and who have provided evidence or a claim after the PRN cut-off date. Most importantly, the right of the appeal will be limited to the upper tribunal.
According to the Law Society, the proposals would essentially result in single-tier appeals with increased pressure on judges and more appeals to the Court of Appeal, as well as undermining access to justice, which is crucial in asylum cases. The Government’s proposals on priority removal notices and expedited appeals risk impinging on people’s rights and access to justice. In many instances, asylum seekers are highly vulnerable and may experience difficulties when it comes to the legal intricacies of the asylum process—studying legal determinations, gathering evidence and preparing submissions for appeals, for instance.
It is also worth clarifying that when unfounded or repeat claims are made, accelerated procedures as part of the asylum process are necessary and important safeguards. The difficulty is that more complex cases—where there are legitimate reasons for evidence being provided at a later date, for example—may be included in those accelerated processes, with devastating consequences. The Committee has heard some of examples of that today.
The Committee heard from Adrian Berry of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association about clause 21 during our evidence session. It is worth revisiting his evidence and the severe concerns that he raised on 23 September. First, he spoke about the expedited appeal, which begins in the upper tribunal. Therefore those who introduce a claim for asylum and provide evidence after the cut-off date in a priority removal notice receive an expedited appeal and lose their right of appeal and a hearing in the first-tier tribunal. Secondly, he raised concerns that the upper tribunal hearing is final. There is no onward appeal to the Court of Appeal. That is wrong for a number of reasons.
Mistakes, unfortunately, do happen in asylum claims, but under the current provision, individuals would be left, in the words of Adrian Berry, “one shot” to appeal and correct the mistakes. The fact that the first instance tribunal decisions cannot be reviewed has serious implications for the rule of law. It also creates a wider time-pressured, accelerated decision-making process operating on the tribunal system, which is likely to have a negative effect on the quality of decisions made. That is well documented and an issue that we have touched on previously, but it is worth repeating for the benefit of the Committee.
Appeals have been rising for many years. Between 2016 and 2018, 57% of first-tier tribunal asylum appeals were dismissed. It was only 52% in 2019-20. The right of appeal is fundamental in protecting individuals’ rights and preventing potential miscarriages of justice.
I should like to cite an example to illustrate that point and wider concerns about the priority removal notices regime introduced in part 2. I will call my example AT, a Gambian national who unsuccessfully sought asylum in the UK. He was married to a Gambian woman who had been granted indefinite leave to remain in July 2016 as she was unable to return to Gambia. His wife was heavily pregnant with their child but their relationship had not been raised or considered by the Home Office as part of his asylum claim. He was given a “notice of liability to removal” and was detained after the notice period had ended. Before his detention, he was unsuccessful in securing an appointment with his solicitors.
During AT’s detention, his wife gave birth to their son—a British citizen. The Home Office refused AT’s human rights claim based on his family life, focusing on the late stage at which he raised it. He was removed from the UK before he could access legal advice and challenge that decision. His subsequent judicial review proceedings were successful and he was allowed to return to the UK to exercise his right of appeal to the first-tier tribunal against that decision. The Home Office subsequently conceded his article 8 family life claim, and granted him leave to stay in the UK with his wife and son. If the priority removal notice provisions of the Bill had been in force in this case, AT’s right of appeal, even after he had succeeded in a judicial review, would have been severely circumscribed. He would only have been able to appeal directly to the upper tribunal. The appeal would have been decided on an expedited basis and the tribunal would have been required to treat AT’s claim to a family life as lacking credibility. If the upper tribunal had found against him, he would have had no right of appeal to the Court of Appeal.
That case highlights some of the severe consequences of clause 21. Are Committee members, on all sides of the debate, happy to put speed over justice? That is what the Bill’s attempts to expedite appeals seeks to do, and without acknowledging the harm that that will cause. It risks people having their human rights violated as a result of a truncated appeals process for asylum claims.
Clause 21 has serious consequences for the rule of law, procedural fairness and the rights of individuals. It will inevitably lead to the wrong being decisions made that will then go unchallenged. Closing off avenues for appeals risks closing off access to justice. An incorrect decision can cost an individual their safety, security and livelihood. Therefore the clause presents an unacceptable risk of breaching the UK’s non-refoulement obligations under the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. As such, the Opposition will oppose that clause 21 stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I agree with everything the shadow Minister said. I want to speak in support of amendment 42, which would preserve onward rights of appeal in certain circumstances.
The overall danger of clause 21 is that it risks expediting appeal processes so that mistakes are made and people are denied justice. Given the dangers that are posed by speeding up such processes, it is all the more important that there is access to the supervisory jurisdiction of the higher courts in case errors are made. We are not talking about minor issues; these are matters of life and death. Assessments have been made about a risk of persecution. Errors will have catastrophic consequences for individuals concerned.
All tribunals make mistakes, so in such circumstances, it seems reckless not to have any right of appeal. I absolutely accept that there can be restrictions and that the grounds for such an appeal can be phrased in a way to try to prevent abuse, but to exclude it altogether goes way beyond what can be justified. Expedited appeals without any possibility of onward appeals creates a double danger of getting those decisions wrong. The fact that claims are made late does not remotely mean that they are necessarily without merit, nor does it mean that they can be decided any quicker than another claim and it should not automatically lead to accelerated appeals processes.
Again, I think that all this is missing the point. The tribunal was actually functioning pretty well. It is the Home Office that has to focus on getting its house in order, and the whole clause is completely misconceived.
Amendment 67 agreed to.
Amendments made: 68, in clause 21, page 24, line 28, after “be” insert “brought and”.
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 67.
Amendment 69, in clause 21, page 24, line 32, leave out from “is” to end of line 33 and insert
“to be continued as an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal and accordingly is to be transferred to that Tribunal”.—(Tom Pursglove.)
This amendment is a drafting amendment to clarify that where the Upper Tribunal is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to do so it has power to order that an expedited appeal is instead to be heard subject to the usual procedure by the First-tier Tribunal.
Amendment proposed: 42, in clause 21, page 24, line 37, leave out subsection (2). —(Stuart C. McDonald.)
This amendment would protect the right to an onward appeal from an expedited appeal decision by the Upper Tribunal in certain cases.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Tom Pursglove
Clause 22 provides for legally aided advice to be available to all individuals who have received a priority removal notice. The priority removal notice is designed to give advance notice to individuals who are being prioritised for removal from the UK, and requires them to raise any reasons why they should not be removed. It is essential that individuals have access to free and impartial legal advice upon receipt of a priority removal notice. Those individuals need to understand what the notice is and what it is asking them to do, and they need the opportunity to go through their individual circumstances with a qualified lawyer and confirm whether there are any reasons why they should not be removed from the UK, and how to raise those reasons. Access to this legal advice will be free to the individual, with the only criterion for the advice being receipt of the priority removal notice.
Bambos Charalambous
Clause 22 provides for up to—but no more than—seven hours of legal aid to be available to those served with a priority removal notice, enabling them to receive advice on their immigration status and removal. This provision is necessary due to the new priority removal notices regime introduced in part 2 of the Bill, and while we welcome the introduction of the legal aid requirement in the Bill, it does not go far enough. Seven hours is not enough time for a legal representative to take instructions from, advise and represent individuals who are often among the most vulnerable people in society.
The Government’s one-stop approach to asylum claims means that there is a significant risk of claimants being unable to obtain legal advice properly despite the provisions set out in the clause, because they have not been given enough time to develop a relationship of trust with their legal advisers and the legal authorities. We know about the difficulties many asylum seekers—for example, those who are victims of torture, sexual gender-based violence, or trafficking—face in disclosing evidence, and the time constraints imposed by clause 22 will likely negatively impact people who have difficulty disclosing information related to their claim due to an initial lack of trust in the advisers or authorities.
More widely, organisations in the sector have rightly made the connection between the Government’s offer of legal aid to the recipients of PRNs in this clause and the broader cuts to legal aid in the immigration sector that have become the hallmark of the Government’s time in office. According to Bail for Immigration Detainees,
“This meagre provision comes after the gradual decimation of the legal aid immigration sector since the legal aid cuts in 2013”,
and the clause
“will not be a sufficient safeguard to ensure access to justice”.
It is, of course, essential that people who need legal advice can access that advice in practice, and support must be provided for those who need help navigating the system. In many instances, asylum seekers are highly vulnerable, and may experience difficulties when it comes to the legal intricacies of the asylum process, such as studying legal determinations or preparing submissions for appeals. It is equally clear that the wider proposals in part 2 of the Bill will not achieve the Home Office’s aim of creating an immigration system that is fairer and more efficient. As we know from reading the Bill, clause 22 comes alongside a set of sweeping legislative changes that, for example, limit access to appeals, speed up the removal process and penalise late submissions of relevant evidence. These measures can hardly be described as fair, and they fail to make the system more efficient.
We must take the proposals about legal aid in clause 22 in conjunction with other clauses in part 2 that seek to fast-track asylum claims and appeals, and make conditions harder for asylum seekers and refugees here in the UK. When implemented together and in strict draconian fashion, the Bill’s provisions therefore inhibit access to justice, risk inherent unfairness, are contrary to the common law and violate procedural requirements. Most importantly, they may give rise to a significant risk of refoulement, which would violate the UK’s internal obligations.
While we welcome the introduction of legal aid, we do not believe that the clause goes far enough: we believe that much more should be done to provide more legal aid, particularly in relation to the immigration sector.
Neil Coyle
Members will be pleased to know that I will be brief, not least because my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate has been so comprehensive, but also because I spoke on this issue a lot this morning. However, I would like to ask some specific questions—three, I think.
If children are covered by clause 22, perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity—despite failing to do so on the two previous chances I have provided—to outline what the equality impact assessment means when it says,
“We will also provide increased access to legal aid.”
As I have explained, the Ministry of Justice seems to be unaware of this extension, and there are previous answers I have yet to exploit. However, it would be useful to know—indeed, I believe we are entitled to know—what cost to Government this will have. What is the cost of this extension to the taxpayer? Is it relevant to clause 22, and how many children or people will benefit from such an extension as we go forward? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that or, at least, send another letter. I am enjoying our correspondence so far.
My second question is about the organisations that might be providing this advice. Is it the Government’s intention, under clause 22, to have a defined list of organisations that will be willing to provide it? As I mentioned, at an asylum hostel in my constituency yesterday, there appeared to be a Home Office list of legal aid providers that is given to asylum seekers in an induction pack. That should be made public, so that we can explore whether those are the best organisations and whether the list could be expanded. I hope the Minister will tell us whether that list will be published, and whether clause 22 will involve a defined set of organisations.
Thirdly, if the Government are serious about genuinely tackling the delays and the pace of these cases, perhaps they would consider expanding legal aid to all cases to make it a genuinely fast, fair and effective system. That is sadly not what we have before us today.
Paul Blomfield
Similarly, I want to ask a couple of questions of the Minister on why the opportunity has not been taken to go beyond the provisions in the clause, because there is a real problem with access to legal aid. Research by Refugee Action has shown that, since the changes introduced in 2012, it has been much more difficult to secure legal aid. There is also a vast difference in provision across the country, with provision concentrated in metropolitan areas such as London and Birmingham, and not in dispersal areas, where it is particularly difficult to access legal aid. Refugee Action’s report recommended that the Government should commit to ensuring that everybody in the asylum system who is eligible for legal aid representation has access to it. What are the Government proposing in respect of that?
If the clause is about ensuring that issues are resolved at the appropriate stage, why are the Government not extending legal aid to all stages of the process? If cases are successfully resolved at an earlier stage, surely it is to everybody’s benefit.
Tom Pursglove
I will try to respond to the various points that have been raised as best as I am able. I will, of course, happily feed through the views that have been expressed to Ministry of Justice colleagues who have direct responsibility for legal aid within their portfolio.
On the initial point about the seven hours, it is worth saying that the power we are proposing will allow the Lord Chancellor to amend the number of hours of advice available under the clause. The Lord Chancellor will have to lay affirmative legislation to ensure that Members of this House and the other place have full sight of the proposed changes. That power is necessary because the priority removal notice is a new process and, as with all new operational processes, it will take time to bed in. We must be able to change the number of hours to ensure that the purpose of the clause works how we intend in practice. Providing individuals with access to free legal advice ahead of their potential removal from the UK is clearly important. That is why we are making that commitment in the Bill.
I was asked what this extension of legal aid will cost. The estimates are in the region of £4 million to £6 million, so it is a significant increase to meet the need resulting from the new measures we are introducing. If, at the end of the seven hours, more advice is needed—and there are circumstances which dictate that—there is legal advice available for asylum claims and appeals.
Neil Coyle
Is that £4 million to £6 million just for the civil legal services under clause 22 for people under priority removal notices?
Tom Pursglove
Yes. That provision is made precisely for those in receipt of a PRN. I was making a point about the extension. It is worth making the point that, if people find that they require further advice at the end of the seven hours, any individual needing more legal advice on an immigration matter can apply for in-scope legal aid, such as for asylum advice or through the exceptional case funding scheme, subject to passing the relevant means and merits tests. I will make sure that colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are aware of the points raised today on legal aid more generally within the immigration and asylum system.
There was a question about access to justice in dispersal areas. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark asked where information about legal aid provision is provided. My understanding is that it is published online, so it is readily accessible to people. As hon. Members would expect on the issue of dispersal areas, the MOJ monitors the market capacity and works with the Home Office to ensure supply in dispersal areas. If the hon. Member for Sheffield Central wants to write to me with specific concerns on that matter in his community, I would be glad to look at those and make sure that they are considered by Ministers appropriately.
Paul Blomfield
I will take the Minister up on his offer, but I want to press him on another point. He talks about legal aid being made available for the new provision for a priority removal notice. However, the Home Secretary has the opportunity to issue a priority removal notice, but is not required to do so—it might not be done in all cases. There will potentially be people who are served with a notice of removal who have never received a priority removal notice. They will not have the opportunity to access the seven hours of free legal aid. What is the justification for that?
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Member is seeking to extend the provision we are proposing in the Bill. We are very clear that the clause makes the legal advice available to those who have been served with priority removal notices. We do not propose to extend the offer beyond that. However, I will make sure that his concerns are flagged with ministerial colleagues in the Ministry of Justice.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Late provision of evidence in asylum or human rights claim: weight
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 23, page 26, line 38, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) Where subsection (1) applies, the deciding authority must have regard to the fact of the evidence being provided late and any reasons why it was provided late in considering it and determining the claim or appeal.”
This amendment would remove the provision which states that “minimal weight” should be given to any evidence provided late.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 38, in clause 23, page 26, line 40, at end insert—
“(2A) Subsection (2) does not apply where—
(a) the claimant’s claim is based on their sexual orientation or gender identity; or
(b) the claimant was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom.”.
This amendment would remove the direction to the deciding authority to give minimal weight to evidence provided late in cases where an asylum claim or human rights claim is based on issues of sexual orientation or gender identity; or where the claimant was under 18 when they arrived in the UK.
Amendment 131, in clause 23, page 26, after line 40, insert—
“(2A) The deciding authority must accept that there are good reasons why the evidence was provided late where—
(a) the claimant’s claim is based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) the claimant was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom;
(c) the claimant’s claim is based on gender-based violence;
(d) the claimant has experienced sexual violence;
(e) the claimant is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(f) the claimant is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(g) the claimant has been a victim of torture;
(h) the claimant is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(i) the claimant is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment sets out the circumstances where the deciding authority must accept that there were good reasons for providing evidence late.
Amendment 44, in clause 23, page 27, line 13, at end insert—
“(6B) This section does not apply where the evidence provided proves that a claimant is at risk of persecution by the Taliban.”
This amendment would disapply Clause 23 (under which minimal weight is given to any evidence provided late) in respect of claimants who are at risk of persecution by the Taliban.
Clause stand part.
Stuart C. McDonald
The clause is similar in nature to clauses we have debated already, and most of the amendments address similar issues. It is about penalties for providing evidence after a specified cut-off date. Amendment 43 makes the point, again, that we regard it as legitimate to ask a decision maker to take account of the fact that evidence was provided late and the reasons for that, but it should not tell a decision maker what to conclude. We have also added our names in support of amendment 131, which seeks to ensure an acknowledgement of how difficult the process of the provision of evidence can be for certain categories of claimant, and the inappropriateness of fixing hard and fast deadlines.
Bambos Charalambous
I will speak to amendments 38 and 131, and will seek to press amendment 131.
We do not believe that it is fair that some evidence is deemed to have minimal weight when there are practical and psychological reasons that it cannot be disclosed by a particular date. We have grave concerns about the clause, in particular because of the awful impact it could have on vulnerable women and other groups such as the LGBT+ community. That is why we have tabled the amendments. We want a cast-iron and legal guarantee that groups who have good reasons for late evidence are protected under the law. Otherwise, there is a danger that the persecution they have fled will be compounded by the inappropriate disregard of their late evidence.
The clause instructs decision makers to give regard to the principle that minimal weight be given to later evidence unless there are good reasons, which are undefined in the Bill and are therefore left entirely to the discretion of the Home Secretary. There are many good reasons why, for instance, women who have fled sexual and gender-based violence cannot share relevant experiences right away. This is even acknowledged in Home Office guidance that refers to
“guilt, shame, and concerns about family ‘honour’, or fear of family members”.
The same guidance acknowledges that women who have been trafficked to the UK may be facing threats from their traffickers at the time of their interview, such that they are unable to speak openly. Some women who have fled persecution because of their sexual orientation are not able to disclose their sexuality during the time of their initial claim. They may still be coming to terms with it themselves—a process that can take years. Other women or people who have fled sexual violence or torture may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and may experience disassociation from their experiences, which is a well-known psychological phenomenon in the aftermath of sexual violence.
Women therefore already face significant barriers to the full investigation and recognition of their protection claims. The clauses on late evidence will worsen those obstacles if they are not given additional protections. As well as causing harm to women in desperate need of safety, if unamended the clause will lead to greater unfairness in the system, an increasing number of incorrect decisions and ultimately, therefore, an increase in the backlog of cases.
With reference to women and late evidence, the Bill taken as a whole goes directly against Home Office policy, which states that late disclosure should not automatically prejudice a woman’s credibility. The backlog of asylum cases urgently needs addressing, but restricting the ability of vulnerable women or other vulnerable people to bring evidence is neither a fair nor an effective solution. That is why we believe the amendment that provides the specific categories as set out is so needed.
Introducing a rigid deadline for providing evidence and penalising those who provide late evidence also risks negatively impacting trans people specifically from applying for asylum. Trans people already face difficulty in “proving” their gender identity, due to the innateness of someone’s gender identity together with social expectations and stereotypes ostracising a population of trans people from protection. We see a similar difficulty in respect of other LGBT+ identities in so far as it is by nature next to impossible to prove something so intimate, without its becoming disproportionately invasive. Therefore we believe that these groups, too, are adversely impacted by the provisions around late evidence.
For people under 18, there are obvious reasons why their evidence may be late. It seems ridiculous that without amendment, the clause seriously suggests that we punish children by giving their evidence less weight if they cannot meet an arbitrary date. How on earth is it appropriate that children who may have escaped the worst imaginable situations, and who are likely to be suffering from trauma, are then further traumatised with arbitrary conditions placed on evidence and its weight?
Clause 23 creates the principle that a decision maker must give minimal weight to evidence raised late by a claimant, unless there are good reasons why that evidence was provided late. We are deeply concerned about the clause and the impact of the Bill’s measures around delayed disclosure in part 2. There are many reasons why it may not be possible to present all information in support of an asylum claim at the earliest opportunity. Women who have been trafficked to the UK may be facing threats from their traffickers at the time of interview. Others who have fled persecution because of their sexual orientation may be unable to disclose their sexuality during the time of their initial claim. They may still be coming to terms with themselves—a process that can take years.
If implemented, the Government’s proposals would adversely impact those vulnerable people. We propose that the Government introduce a cast-iron legal guarantee that groups that have a good reason for late evidence are protected under the law. Failing to do so risks penalising the most vulnerable people and those who have been failed by the system.
Neil Coyle
Clause 23 is deeply pernicious and comes at a time that suggests that the Government have rushed this legislation. Last Tuesday, there was a meeting between the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief and the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). That meeting was to discuss the case of Maira Shahbaz, a 15-year-old Christian who has fled Pakistan having been kidnapped, forced to convert religion and forced to marry one of the men who kidnapped her. She managed to escape and is seeking asylum, but she was held for a significant time, so she would not necessarily meet the original timeframe and she might fall foul of the measures in this legislation.
For the Prime Minister’s special envoy to be willing to meet and discuss that case suggests that there should be a process by which someone in those circumstances is able to avoid the provisions of this legislation. I am deeply concerned that one bit of the Government are off having discussions elsewhere, while the Home Office is bringing forward plans that could prevent someone in those exact circumstances from benefiting from any exemptions they might have discussed in that meeting last Tuesday. It suggests once again that this is more about culture wars and headlines than it is about the practical reality of the system that exists or building towards a system that is fairer, more effective and faster.
I wanted to quickly raise issues around sexuality. I am deeply grateful to Rainbow Migration, who provided some examples and evidence for the Committee to all members. It said that clause 23 specifically
“would be acutely detrimental to LGBT+ people because of the difficulties in gathering and providing evidence that helps confirm their sexual orientation or gender identity. Many LGBT+ people may have spent a long time trying to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity from other people…in the UK”,
never mind in regimes where it is specifically illegal or unlawful, and could be punished.
Earlier, I asked the Minister what a gay man would need to provide to meet the initial evidence threshold, to avoid PRNs and to avoid being punished by clause 23. If someone has been persecuted on the grounds of their sexuality—persecuted for having the temerity to fall in love with someone of the same gender—in their country of birth, they may inevitably worry about revealing that identity, having managed to escape such an horrific regime.
I ask the Minister again to explore some of the practical realities of those circumstances before penalising someone specifically on the grounds of sexuality, because I think that it will fall foul of existing UK law, if not other international obligations. I am very mindful that I have a live case of a gay man trying to flee Lebanon where he is being forced, as the only son in a family, to marry against his wishes. He is seeking to escape Lebanon in order to not be forced to subjugate his sexuality in the interests of his family’s wishes.
I hope that the Minister can give more information on what the burden of proof would be, because I do not understand. Producing a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a love letter from someone still living in a regime where it is impossible to do that, will not necessarily be possible; yet the Government are legislating to penalise people in exactly those circumstances. Members across the House are deeply worried about the implications of such a measure.
On 3 February 2020, the Home Office was asked in question 11509 when it
“plans to update the House on the progress of the review into the way asylum claims based on religious grounds and LGBT+ grounds are assessed.”
The response was:
“The review into the way asylum claims on the basis of religious and LGBT+ grounds are assessed has been completed.”
That review has never been published. The Government refused to publish it in February last year, and they have refused to do so in answer to many subsequent questions. It is troubling that, while the Government withhold information on how existing processes have not necessarily dealt with faith and sexuality-based cases very well, we now have measures before us that deliberately penalise people who will find it harder to prove discrimination or persecution on faith and sexuality grounds. I hope that the Minister will agree that the review should be made public during the Bill’s passage, and certainly before anyone is penalised and has their case impeded on those grounds.
We talked about PTSD. Under clause 23 someone could face having their case undermined before their PTSD symptoms were, importantly, fully diagnosed. I will not repeat what I said this morning, but it would be ludicrous to legislate that someone be forced to have that diagnosis when they cannot access healthcare and not all symptoms will necessarily be evident.
Finally, the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit has provided a case of a Nigerian woman whom it has just listed as “X”. Promised a career in the UK as a hairdresser, she was forced into sex work, when in the UK, for nearly a year before she managed to escape. She was unable to meet the time limit, could be subject to a PRN and could be subject to clause 23 if she finally makes a case. The Minister had said that trafficking victims would not be subject to those provisions; but the Home Office initially declared that specific woman, X, not to be a victim of trafficking. By the time the Home Office had admitted its mistake, she could have gone through that process. She could have had the PRN imposed before the Home Office was willing to accept that, and before she had the legal advice to support her to make the case that proved she was the victim of human trafficking. I see no safeguards before us today that would prevent her from being subject to clause 23, and having less weight applied to her case or being removed from the country before she could make that case. The Government need to come forward with more safeguards before they progress these measures any further.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for raising these important issues. We all recognise that young or particularly vulnerable claimants, sufferers of trauma such as sexual violence or ill-treatment on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and survivors of modern slavery or trafficking need to be treated with care, dignity and sensitivity. It is important that they are able to participate fully in the asylum process so that, in the case of a genuine applicant, their claim for protection can be recognised and their status settled at the earliest opportunity. That is in the best interests of the claimant and the overall functioning of the asylum system.
At the same time, we recognise that it may be harder for some people to engage in the process. That may be because of their past experiences, because of a lack of trust in the authorities or because of the sensitive and personal nature of their claim. That is why clause 16, together with clauses 17 and 23, provides for good reasons why evidence might be provided late. What constitutes “good reasons” has not been defined in the Bill, because to do so would limit the discretion and flexibility of decision makers to take factors into account on a case-by-case basis. It would be impractical to legislate for every case type where someone may have good reasons for not previously disclosing evidence in relation to their protection claim.
Good reasons may include objective factors such as practical difficulties in obtaining evidence—that may be where the evidence was not previously available, or where an expert report is not available. Good reasons may also include subjective factors, such as a claimant’s particular vulnerabilities relating to their age, sexual orientation, gender identity or mental health. Decision makers, including the judiciary, will be better placed to identify and assess those factors on an individual and case-by-case basis.
Amendment 43 would effectively remove the minimal weight principle; it would disapply the requirement for a decision maker to have regard to the principle that minimal weight should be given to late evidence for two categories of people. The amendments fail to take into account the fact that decision makers will have discretion in how they apply the principle that minimal weight should be given to late evidence, and that they may choose not to apply the principle in any given case. Clause 23 does not create a provision whereby decision makers are required to give late evidence minimal weight; they are required only to have regard to the principle, which they can choose to disregard.
Amendment 131 would place a statutory obligation on decision makers to accept that there are good reasons for late evidence where an individual’s claim is based on certain factors, or the individual falls into a particular category. That would apply to Home Office decision makers as well as the judiciary. Compelling a judge to accept good reasons for late evidence based solely on the grounds of the person’s claim raises significant issues and interferes with their fact-finding role. It also ignores the possibility that a claim may fall within a particular category or a person may identify as one of the listed categories, but their evidence may be late for unrelated reasons. The amendment would therefore create a blanket acceptance of late evidence in specific prescribed circumstances, and yet a vulnerable individual who did not fall within the specified groups might have late evidence and face a different test for whether or not they have good reasons. We feel that is unfair.
On amendment 44, this country has a proud history of welcoming with open arms those who require its protection. That includes circumstances where, as in Afghanistan, a significant change in circumstances means a sudden shift in a country’s security situation. Where evidence is brought late on account of such a change, that is clearly capable of falling within the “good reasons” consideration, so there is no need to make specific provision in relation to a fear of the Taliban.
Stuart C. McDonald
But what would happen in the hypothetical example I gave, where there was not good reason? The guy was a bit stubborn and did not think he should have to go through this process; he thought he should have had some automatic leave. I am still at a loss to understand what it means for the decision maker to have regard to the principle that minimal weight should be given to the evidence. I do not understand the expression. How does that work in the context of the hypothetical example I gave?
Tom Pursglove
I will come back to that point and try to give the hon. Gentleman some further clarity, which I hope will be helpful. I will make the point again that, in the current circumstances that we find ourselves in regarding Afghanistan, people are not being removed there.
Of course, all the relevant information is taken into consideration when reaching decisions on individual cases. For example, if there is an assessment that a particular country is safe but for a particular individual there are grounds whereby it is not safe for them in their circumstances, that is reflected in the decisions that are taken.
To finish the point about amendment 44, it would create a system where those with a fear of the Taliban were treated differently from all other asylum seekers, no matter the risks they faced or the vulnerabilities of the individuals involved, simply on the basis of where they were from. That is discriminatory and cannot be right.
On the point about how decision makers can be told that they must apply minimal weight to evidence, clause 23 does not create a requirement for Home Office decision makers or the judiciary to give late evidence, following the receipt of an evidence notice or a priority removal notice, minimal weight. In protection and human rights claims, decision makers must have regard to the principle that minimal weight will be given to any late evidence, but they can consider the principle and determine that it should not be applied in a particular case.
Tom Pursglove
I have made that point previously and I have reiterated it now for the record. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I have made the point pretty clear.
Neil Coyle
The Minister suggests there is clarity where no clarity exists. If the clause is not to reduce the weight that the evidence is given, what exactly is it there for? Is he suggesting that he will withdraw it?
Tom Pursglove
No, that is not for a moment what I am suggesting. The point that I am making is that, as I have alluded to on many occasions in relation to the clauses that we have considered, we want decision makers to have the appropriate discretion within the framework that we are establishing through the Bill. We think that is the right approach to reach the right decisions in individual cases, taking into account all the relevant circumstances and all the relevant information that is provided. We think that is the right way to proceed. More detail will of course be set out in the guidance.
The hon. Gentleman earlier alluded to very difficult circumstances that a particular individual has found challenging to talk about and disclose. I repeat that caseworkers are trained to be sympathetic to circumstances. The burden of proof, as he described it, will be set out in the guidance that follows. Again, I want to see proper discretion and proper consideration of cases on a case-by-case basis. That is the right and proper way to address such matters.
All individuals should be treated with respect by having proper consideration given to their case. As I said, the detail will be established in the guidance. There will also be training for decision makers, but there is already training for decision makers to ensure that they are sympathetic to the sorts of issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised.
Neil Coyle
With the best will in the world, no amount of training will change the fact that, even if someone has come out in the UK, the Bill makes it harder for gay men in particular from certain countries. What do they need to provide to prove that they would face homophobic persecution if they went back? What do they need to show or do? I want a practical example of how it will work in practice. I cannot believe that one even exists at the moment.
Tom Pursglove
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand why it is difficult to set out in the Bill all the circumstances that would capture all the situations that individuals face in relation to such matters. It is just not possible to do that, which is why we are saying that we will establish that in the guidance that will be published if and when the Bill becomes law, as I hope it will. The guidance will set out the circumstances and the way that cases will be considered. Again, that discretion, flexibility and consideration will be shown to individual cases.
Tom Pursglove
I am conscious that we are going over this ground repeatedly, but I will give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to intervene again.
Neil Coyle
Is the Minister saying that the guidance will set out what a gay man needs to provide in order to prove that they will face persecution? I think and hope that is what he is saying, and I hope that he will say why the Home Office has not published the review it has already undertaken of the existing process and when it will be published.
Tom Pursglove
I am not familiar with the review to which he refers, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have been in this role only for the past four weeks. However, I will go away and look into that.
I can only repeat the point that we will set out in guidance the relevant factors that will be taken into consideration when cases are determined. I would expect there to be sympathetic consideration of people’s individual circumstances. I have also made that point at the Dispatch Box when we have talked about the operationalisation of the policy. Of course, it is right that that information is established in full. With that, I encourage the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East to withdraw his amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. At points, he did sound almost reassuring, but the problem is that he sounds reassuring when he says, essentially, “This clause will not have any effect,” suggesting that decision makers will be able just to have regard to all the circumstances on a case-by-case basis. That is what decision makers do anyway without the need for this myriad of statute provisions telling them what to think about a, b, c and the weight to be applied to evidence here, there and everywhere. While I take at face value his intention—I think we probably intend the same thing—that my Afghan example would not end up with conclusive evidence being disregarded because the man was stubborn or behaved in a stupid way because he was at risk, I still find the wording in the clause troubling. I hope the Home Office will think again.
In the meantime, we have pressed similar amendments to a vote, so I do not need to do so again. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 131, in clause 23, page 26, after line 40, insert—
“(2A) The deciding authority must accept that there are good reasons why the evidence was provided late where—
(a) the claimant’s claim is based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) the claimant was under 18 years of age at the time of their arrival in the United Kingdom;
(c) the claimant’s claim is based on gender-based violence;
(d) the claimant has experienced sexual violence;
(e) the claimant is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(f) the claimant is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(g) the claimant has been a victim of torture;
(h) the claimant is suffering from a serious physical disability;
save-line2(i) the claimant is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”—(Bambos Charalambous.)
This amendment sets out the circumstances where the deciding authority must accept that there were good reasons for providing evidence late.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 45, in clause 24, page 28, leave out lines 9 to 11.
This amendment would remove the requirement for detainees to give their notice of appeal within 5 working days.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 46, in clause 24, page 28, line 22, leave out “may” and insert “must”.
This amendment would require (rather than merely empower) the Tribunal or the Upper Tribunal to cease to treat cases as accelerated detained appeals where it is in the interests of justice to do so.
Clause stand part.
Government new clause 7—Accelerated detained appeals.
Stuart C. McDonald
Clause 24 establishes a system of fast-track appeals for those in detention. The explanatory notes state that in 2019-20 it took almost 12 weeks on average for detained immigration appeals to progress from receipt in the first tier tribunal through to disposal, and the aim is for faster decisions in certain cases
“to allow appellants to be released or removed more quickly”.
That sounds almost benign, and who does not want appeals to take place as quickly as possible? But the key issue is whether they can be decided fairly within the timeframe set down in the clause. We are talking not about trying to take three or four weeks off the average time, but about reducing it by almost three quarters. Clearly, the Government believe that the tribunal is wasting a lot of time but I do not see any evidence for that, and I do not see any analysis of why that 12-week average exists.
Five days is an incredibly short timeframe in which to launch an appeal, particularly when a person is detained in an immigration detention facility, often in the middle of nowhere, and where the chances of securing proper legal advice and consultation in that time are incredibly slim. Amendment 45 would delete that requirement.
Amendment 46 would also mean that the tribunal would be required to stop treating an appeal as an accelerated appeal if it was in the interests of justice to do so. Again it is not clear to us why the tribunal should be empowered to continue an accelerated appeal when that is not in the interests of justice. More generally, the clause gives rise to the question of why the Secretary of State should have any say in which appeals can be disposed of expeditiously. Why is she not required just to assess the fairness of a case or give consideration to how complex a case is? Why not leave the tribunal to make those determinations? It would be far better placed to make that assessment.
As Members will know, in 2015 the Court of Appeal found similar rules to be unlawful and held that they created a system in which asylum and human rights appeals were disposed of too quickly to be fair. The Court said that the timetable was
“so tight that it is inevitable that a significant number of appellants will be denied a fair opportunity to present their cases”.
It also said that the policy did not appreciate the problems faced by legal representation obtaining instructions in such cases or the complexity or difficulty of many asylum appeals, and the gravity of the issues raised by them. I have absolutely no reason to think that the proposed policy is any better than that one.
The Government now intend to replace the entire clause with new clause 7, principally it seems to expand the categories of appeal that could be subject to the proposed procedure. My party opposes that expansion and opposes the clause.
Bambos Charalambous
We oppose the clause. It seeks the return of the detained fast-track system and to recreate it in primary legislation. The clause imposes a duty on the tribunal procedure rules committee to make rules for an accelerated timeframe for certain appeals made from detention that are considered suitable for consideration within that timeframe.
In the explanatory notes, an accelerated detained appeal is defined as being
“an appeal brought by an appellant who…received a refusal of their asylum claim while in detention…remains in detention under a relevant detention provision…is appealing a decision which was certified by the Secretary of State as suitable for an accelerated detained appeal”.
That system previously existed but was found to be illegal by the High Court in a landmark case brought by Detention Action. The system was found to be unfair as asylum and human rights appeals were disposed of too quickly to be fair. The Court of Appeal described the timetable for such appeals as
“so tight that it is inevitable that a significant number of appellants will be denied a fair opportunity to present their cases”.
It also emphasised, perhaps instructively for this Committee, that speed and efficiency must not trump justice and fairness—something of a feature of part 2 of the Bill. Indeed, hundreds if not thousands of cases have had to be reconsidered by the Home Office or the tribunal because they were unfairly rushed through the process that the Government now seek to recreate. Those cases include survivors of trafficking and torture and other individuals who, on the basis of a rushed and unfair procedure, will have been removed to places where they fear persecution or are separated from their families. There was no adequate system for ensuring that such people were removed from the fast track and given a fair opportunity to present their claims.
Despite that background, the Bill aims to create this unjust and ineffective procedure by reintroducing the detained fast-track process through this clause. It will put that same system, which was deemed unlawful in 2015, on a statutory footing, which will insulate it against future legal challenges.
The clause provides for the Secretary of State to certify a decision if she considers that an appeal would be disposed of expeditiously. It requires the tribunal procedure committee to introduce the following time limits: a notice of appeal must be lodged no later than five working days after the decision was received; the tribunal must make a decision no later than 25 days after the appeal date; and an application for permission to appeal to the upper tribunal must be determined by the first-tier tribunal not later than 20 working days after the applicant was given notice of the tribunal’s decision.
The clause would deny access to justice. First, five days is insufficient to prepare an appeal against a negative decision, particularly where the individual is detained and where their access to legal advice is poor and an individual’s wellbeing may be affected by their detention. For those detained in prison, the situation is even worse. For example, in a case in February of this year, the High Court declared the lack of legal aid immigration advice for people held under immigration powers to be unlawful. More widely, Home Office decision making is frequently incorrect or unlawful. As we know, half of all appeals against immigration decisions were successful in the year leading up to June 2019. It is therefore vital that people are able to effectively challenge decisions through the courts.
The detained fast track is unjust. It is also unnecessary. As the Public Law Project and Justice have pointed out, the tribunal has adequate case management powers to deal with appeals expeditiously in appropriate cases and already prioritises detained cases. The Home Secretary should not be trying to force the hand of the independent tribunal procedures committee to stack the cards in her favour in appeals against her decisions. The Bill does not learn the lessons of the past and seeks to resurrect an unworkable system of accelerated detained appeals. The clause proposes that the appeals process be fast-tracked. I am very worried that provisions in part 2 of the Bill will therefore disadvantage the most vulnerable.
By allowing the Home Secretary to accelerate appeals when she thinks they would be disposed of expeditiously, the clause is clearly unjust. Once again, it also seems to violate the refugee convention. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said on Second Reading:
“It is more than regrettable that the convention appears now to be held in such little regard by this Government.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 769.]
For those reasons, we will oppose that the clause stand part.
Tom Pursglove
I understand the motivation behind amendment 45. However, the Government oppose the amendment, as it is contrary to our policy intention and would undermine the effective working of the accelerated detained appeals process.
The period of five working days strikes the right balance, achieving both speed and fairness. The detained fast-track rules put in place in 2003 and 2005 allowed only two days to appeal. The 2014 rules set the same time limit. The current procedure rules allow a non-detained migrant 14 days to lodge their appeal against a refusal decision.
On amendment 46, I can assure hon. Members that it is not necessary, as the Bill already achieves the objective sought. The Government’s aim is to ensure that cases only remain in the ADA where it is in the interests of justice for them to do so. The consideration of what is in the interests of justice is a matter of judicial discretion. Where a judge decides that it is not in the interests of justice to keep a case in the ADA process, we would expect that they would use their discretion to remove the case. The current wording of the Bill—“may” rather than “must”—is consistent with the drafting of the rules that govern all appeals considered in the immigration and asylum chamber.
For these reasons, I invite the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate to withdraw the amendments. On the detained fast track and wider points about the Government’s intentions, although the courts upheld the principle of an accelerated process for appeals made in detention, we have considered the legal challenges to the detained fast track carefully. We are confident that the new accelerated detained appeals route will ensure fairness as well as improving speed. All Home Office decisions to detain are made in accordance with the adults at risk in detention policy and reviewed by the independent detention gatekeeper. Changes made to the screening process, drawing on lessons learned, will enable us to identify appellants who are unsuitable for the accelerated detained appeals route at the earliest opportunity. Suitability will be reviewed on an ongoing basis and the tribunal will have the power to transfer a case out of the accelerated route if it considers that that is in the interests of justice to do so.
The timescales proposed for the accelerated route are longer than under the previous detained fast track. Appellants will have more time to seek legal advice and prepare their case. We are confident that the new route will provide sufficient opportunity to access legal advice. I am also conscious that Members are interested in what happens in the eventuality that a migrant misses the deadline to appeal a refusal decision. Provided that there are no other barriers to return, removal will be arranged. It is open to a migrant and/or their legal representatives to submit an appeal after the deadline and ask a judge to extend the time and admit the appeal late.
On new clause 7, the Government are committed to making the asylum appeals system faster, while maintaining fairness, ensuring access to justice and upholding the rule of law. In particular, it is right that appeals made from detention should be dealt with quickly, so that people are not deprived of their liberty for longer than is necessary. New clause 7 sets out a duty on the tribunal procedure committee to make rules for the provision of an accelerated detained appeals route. That will establish a fixed maximum timeframe for determining specific appeals brought while an individual is detained.
Currently, all immigration and asylum appeals are subject to the same procedure rules. Appeals involving detained appellants are prioritised by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service but there are no set timeframes. It often takes months for detained appeals to be determined, resulting in people being released from detention before their appeals are concluded.
Changes to procedure rules are subject to the tribunal procedure committee’s statutory consultation requirements and procedures. However, the Government’s intent is to ensure that straightforward appeals from detention are determined more quickly. Under a detained accelerated process all appellants will benefit from a quicker final determination of their immigration status, spending less time in limbo, and getting the certainty they need to move forward with their lives sooner.
Those whose appeals are successful will have their leave to remain confirmed earlier than if the standard procedure rules had been followed. Meanwhile those with no right to remain will be removed more quickly, as they can be detained throughout the process, which reduces the risk of absconding.
The courts have been clear in upholding the principle that an accelerated process for asylum seekers while detained, operated within certain safeguards, is entirely legal. I made that point earlier. We have considered the legal challenges to the previous detained fast track carefully and we are confident that the new accelerated detained appeals route will ensure fairness as well as improving speed. We will ensure, through regulations and guidance, that only suitable cases will be allocated to the accelerated route. Cases will be assessed for whether they are likely to be able to be decided fairly within the shorter timeframe, and individuals will be screened for vulnerability and other factors that may impact their ability to engage fairly with an accelerated process.
As an additional safeguard, the clause makes it clear that the tribunal can decide to remove cases from the accelerated route if it considers it is in the interests of justice to do so. The new accelerated detained appeals route will contribute significantly to the timeliness with which appeals are decided for those in immigration detention. It will allow us to swiftly remove from the country people found not to need protection, while those with valid claims can be released from detention more quickly.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I still have serious concerns about the provisions in the clause, particularly the short timeframe of five days to launch an appeal, and particularly when it could be the Secretary of State who has decided somebody has to go through that process. If she gets that decision wrong, by the time there is any ability to apply to the tribunal to move away from the fast-track process, it could be too late. In that case, a removal attempt will have been made, and a vulnerable person who was unable to contact a solicitor in time is completely without any chance of rectifying what the Secretary of State has done.
I maintain my opposition to what is proposed. I think that the safeguards fall way short, but I do not see any point in putting my amendment to a vote, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
I will now put the question that clause 24 stand part. I understand that the Government will vote no.
Craig Whittaker
I thought we were voting for clause 24 to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
As Chair, I do not wish to stop you voting as you wish to. I understand that the Government have indicated that they would vote to leave out the clause.
Tom Pursglove
To be clear, we are seeking to remove clause 24 and replace it with new clause 7.
The Chair
If that is the Government’s intention, far be it from me to tell them what to do.
Clause 24 disagreed to.
Clause 25
Claims certified as clearly unfounded: removal of right of appeal
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
Protection or human rights claims that are certified as clearly unfounded are those so clearly without substance that they are bound to fail. The refusal of such claims can currently be appealed after the person has left the UK. By contrast, there is no right of appeal against the rejection of further submissions received after a protection or human rights claim has previously been refused, where those submissions do not create a realistic prospect of success. That approach is right: there should be no right of appeal unless there is something of real substance for the tribunal to consider.
The clause removes the out-of-country right of appeal under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 for those whose protection or human rights claims are certified as clearly unfounded and bound to fail, bringing them into line with how we treat further submissions that have no realistic prospect of success. It will apply only to claims that are certified after the clause comes into effect. I would like to be clear that removing the right of appeal for certified claims does not prevent a person from applying for a judicial review to challenge a certification decision. It provides a necessary and effective safeguard in the event that a claim is incorrectly certified as clearly unfounded.
Bambos Charalambous
It is ironic that we are debating this clause as the Judicial Review and Courts Bill is receiving its Second Reading. We oppose the clause. We have heard time and again that the Government are aiming to make it harder for a person in the UK to establish their refugee status and entitlement to asylum. Clause 25 further restricts appeal rights for people seeking asylum. This clause removes the in-country and out-of-country rights of appeal for human rights and protection claims certified as clearly unfounded. It is concerning as, once again, it seeks to limit the rights of individuals, while failing to increase efficiency in the system and in turn decreasing fairness, with regrettable consequences for individuals. In respect of articles 6 and 8 of the ECHR, it represents a clear breach and will give rise to legal challenge. That was seen in the case of Kiarie and Byndloss v. the Home Secretary in 2017. At present, where the Home Secretary certifies a case as clearly unfounded, any appeal may be brought only after removal from the UK. In cases concerning protection claims or article 3 human rights claims, such appeals are incapable of providing an effective remedy, because the feared harm will have eventuated before the appeal can be heard.
As the explanatory notes to the Bill acknowledge, the right of appeal is rarely exercised; instead, challenges are brought by way of judicial review. This provision therefore contributes to the general trend in immigration and asylum law away from rights of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal and towards unappealable decisions, which are amenable to judicial review.
For the reasons specified in my speech, we will oppose clause 25 standing part of the Bill.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 159, in schedule 3, page 62, line 39, at end insert—
“(2D) Notwithstanding subsection (2A), a person who is particularly vulnerable to harm must not be removed to, or required to leave to go to, a State falling within subsection (2B) or any state to which Part 2, 3 or 4 of Schedule 3 to the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 for the time being applies.
(2E) For the purposes of subsection (2D), a person is particularly vulnerable to harm if they—
(a) are suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(b) have been a victim of torture;
(c) have been a victim of sexual or gender-based violence;
(d) have been a victim of human trafficking or modern slavery;
(e) are pregnant;
(f) are suffering from a serious physical disability;
(g) are suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses;
(h) are aged under 18 or 70 or over;
(i) are gay, lesbian or bisexual;
(j) are a trans or intersex person.”
This amendment would prevent persons who are particularly vulnerable to harm from being removed to, or required to leave to go to, a state falling within subsection (2B).
That schedule 3 be the Third schedule to the Bill.
New clause 18—Removal of asylum seeker to safe country—
“Schedule N makes amendments to section 77 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (no removal while claim for asylum pending).”
This new clause introduces the proposed NS2.
New schedule 2—Removal of asylum seeker to safe country—
“In section 77 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (no removal while claim for asylum pending), after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) This section does not prevent a person being removed to, or being required to leave to go to, a third State if all of the following conditions are met—
(a) the removal is pursuant to a formal, legally binding and public readmission agreement between the United Kingdom and the third State;
(b) the State meets the definition of a safe third State set out at section 14 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2021, as shown by reliable, objective and up-to-date information;
(c) the person has been found inadmissible under section 80B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002;
(d) the third State in question is the State with which the person was found to have a connection under Section 80B of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002;
(e) taking into account the person’s individual circumstances, it is reasonable for them to go to that State; and
(f) the person is not a national of that State.’”
This new schedule modifies the circumstances in which a person can be removed to, or required to leave to go to, a safe third State.
Tom Pursglove
This Government have been clear that claiming asylum in the first safe country reached is the fastest route to safety. We must dissuade all those considering making dangerous journeys to the UK in order to claim asylum. We are working closely with international partners to fix our broken asylum system and discussing how we could work together in the future.
Clause 26 introduces schedule 3, which aims to reduce the draw of the UK by working to make it easier to remove someone to a safe country, where their claim will then be processed. It amends existing legal frameworks in order to support our future objective to transfer some asylum claims to a safe third country for processing.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
What my hon. Friend the Minister is saying about deterring these dangerous journeys is even more poignant given the rescue operation that took place today off Harwich, where I understand five Somalis were in a small inflatable boat. As I understand it, two have been rescued, but three are feared drowned. That brings starkly into all our minds the need to deter these dangerous journeys and the desperate people who face these terrible things. I am sure the condolences of the whole Committee go to all those involved—not only those actually in the boat, but the rescue services, which must have had a fairly tough time.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is fair to say that I am very mindful of the enormous risks that we are finding people taking in trying to cross the channel at the moment. We have debated the matter extensively in this Committee up to this point, and no doubt that debate will continue. I am very concerned to hear about the situation that he has described. I have asked to be updated, and to be kept updated as to the progress of the operation to try to find the individuals who, it would seem, have been lost at sea. Of course, we send our thoughts and best wishes to those who are caught up in that terrible tragedy, and we hope for the best for them. This absolutely and without question underlines the gravity of the risks that people are taking by getting into small boats and trying to cross the English channel to get to the United Kingdom.
The Bill contains a suite of measures designed to protect those in genuine need while breaking the business model of criminal gangs who profit from people trafficking and exploit vulnerable people for their own gain. Our aim is to disincentivise people from seeking to enter the UK by dangerous means, facilitated by those criminal smugglers, with a clear message that those who arrive via an irregular route may be eligible to be transferred to and processed in another safe country not of their choosing.
Stuart C. McDonald
Is schedule 3 confined to applicants who arrive via irregular and dangerous routes, or could it be applied, in theory, to pretty much anyone who is claiming asylum?
Tom Pursglove
If I may, I will set out the detail that underpins schedule 3 in the course of my remarks.
Clause 26 is designed to be part of a whole-system deterrent effect to prevent illegal migration. Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, and not driven by the actions of criminal enterprise. Under current policy, it is too easy for removals of individuals with no right to remain in the UK to be delayed as a result of speculative and, in some cases, unfounded article 3 human rights claims.
Consequently, schedule 3 will also introduce a presumption that specified countries are safe, because of their compliance with obligations under article 3 of the European convention of human rights.
Neil Coyle
Earlier today, the Minister mentioned that Albania, from where we accept many asylum cases, could be considered a safe country. Can he tell us about other safe countries? Gibraltar, which was touted by the Government, has said categorically that it will not be a safe country for these purposes. Ghana and Rwanda have ruled themselves out, despite being touted by the Government. Morocco and Moldova have appeared in the press as potential examples, but the FCDO has said:
“No north African country, Morocco included, has a fully functioning asylum system”.
The Foreign Office stated that Moldova has “endemic” corruption, and that
“If an asylum centre depended on reliable, transparent, credible cooperation from the host country justice system we would not be able to rely on this”
in Moldova. Can the Minister tell us which safe country he is talking about?
Tom Pursglove
One thing I will say is that the measures are not about opening camps on overseas territories. I will not get into a running commentary about the negotiations or discussions that may or may not be taking place with individual countries.
Claimants will be required to present strong evidence to overturn this presumption to prevent removal. That will support the aim of swiftly removing individuals who have no basis to remain in the UK by preventing unnecessary delays where speculative article 3 claims are made prior to removal to safe countries. Adding to the existing removal power, schedule 3 will also provide the Secretary of State with a power to add countries to the safe list. That will ensure that the list of safe countries remains accurate.
Schedule 3 also ensures that rights of appeal are not afforded either to asylum seekers on the basis of removal to safe countries, or to clearly unfounded human rights claims, thus preventing unnecessary appeals for unsubstantiated claims.
Neil Coyle
The Minister says that he does not want to get into a running dialogue—that is fine—but can we have just a rough idea of how many countries are currently in bilateral negotiations with the Home Office? That may be useful. I think it is only right and proper that the Committee has an idea of the costs involved, because they will vary massively depending on the country—or indeed the continent, given some of the ludicrous examples that have been touted by people as high up as the Home Secretary. How many countries are in those negotiations, and how much can the public expect to pay for this particular part of this ridiculous Bill?
Tom Pursglove
The hon. Gentleman is a crafty parliamentarian who will, I have no doubt, try to elicit that information from me, but I am afraid that he will be unsuccessful in that endeavour, however hard he tries. The bottom line is that I am not going to get into a running commentary in this Committee about discussions that may or may not be taking place with countries around the world in relation to this policy.
Tom Pursglove
I will give way, but the hon. Lady will get the same response if she is trying to extract the same information from me.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He might remember that I asked previously whether he had any examples of returns to third countries. He responded in writing with an update this morning. He updates Committee members that
“4,561 ‘notices of intent’ were served to individuals, informing them that inadmissibility action was being considered in their cases.”
So we are not discussing hypotheticals here. The wheels are in motion for individuals. Can he understand that we have got to do our due diligence in pushing for the details, because the consequences for these people who have had notices of intent are very real? That is why we need to put those questions to him.
Tom Pursglove
I would make a few points in response. Obviously, removals and deportations generally have been much more difficult to organise during the last 18 months, as a direct consequence of covid-19. That is not unsurprising, and of course it is reflected in the fact that we have seen fewer removals and deportations than we would have expected. It is not the Government’s intention to apply retrospectively the inadmissability measures we are talking about. That is an important point in providing clarity for the Committee.
We are committed to upholding our international obligations including under the 1951 refugee convention, and that will not change. While people are endangering lives making perilous journeys, we must fix the system to prevent abuse of that system and the criminality associated with it. Our aim is that the suite of measures in the Bill, including those in clause 26 and schedule 3, will disincentivise people from making dangerous journeys across Europe to the UK, and encourage people to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister has scuttled over the idea that the Government are keen to abide by their international obligations. The UNHCR is absolutely clear that the clause rides a coach and horses—I paraphrase slightly—through the convention. Can he say a little bit more about how he possibly believes that this is consistent with what the refugee convention provides?
Tom Pursglove
I am actually meeting the UNHCR tomorrow, and I am obviously looking forward to that meeting. No doubt we will cover a range of topics during that discussion and engagement, which I most certainly value. I repeat to the hon. Gentleman the point that I have now made several times in relation to the provisions in the Bill: we believe that they are compliant with our international obligations. I have made that point previously and will continue to make it.
Mr Goodwill
Does my hon. Friend agree that the principle of a safe country is well established? When we were members of the European Union, removals to EU countries were permitted because of that particular situation. Does he further agree that countries that seek to be candidates to join the European Union will have to bring their standards up to those equivalent to the European Union, so there is a list of countries, particularly in the Balkans and elsewhere, that may well meet those criteria before they join the European Union?
Tom Pursglove
My right hon. Friend raises various points on the back of his experience covering at least part of the role that I now cover. I would build on that by making the point that we do not remove people to countries where they would be unsafe. Of course, we are also talking here about countries that are compliant with the obligations set out under the refugee convention. That is an important point to re-make.
I thank those who drafted amendment 159 for their contribution to the debate thus far. Let me begin by being clear that this Government are wholly committed to ensuring that removals of individuals are done in accordance with our international obligations, and that the safety of those transferred is at the forefront of our actions. However, we simply cannot support any amendment that seeks to limit our ability to remove individuals to safe third countries. I assure the Committee again that we would only ever remove an individual to a country that we are satisfied is safe for them. However, the amendment is overly restrictive and therefore could not be used flexibly to consider the circumstances in the country in question. By way of illustration, the amendment would mean that we could not remove someone who is gay, lesbian or bisexual to France or Italy.
Committee members can be assured that the amendment is superfluous given the safeguards already in the Bill. Indeed, we will only ever send individuals to countries where we know that their removal will be compliant with the UK’s international legal obligations, including those that pertain to potential victims of modern slavery. Even where we are assured that a particular state is safe, changes made by the Bill make it clear that every individual in scope for removal to that state will be able to rely on the protection of article 3 of the ECHR to demonstrate why that state may not be safe in their unique circumstances. That is to prevent any individual from being transferred to a country where they would genuinely be at risk of inhumane and degrading treatment.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister keeps referring to safeguards in the Bill and consideration of individual applicants’ safety, but none of that is in schedule 3, which does not require a finding of inadmissibility or a connection with the state. There is no consideration of the reasonableness of the transfer. The country might not even be a signatory to the refugee convention or offer refugee protection or the chance to secure the full rights that refugees are entitled to. Will he talk us through the safeguards?
Tom Pursglove
I would argue that I have already set out those safeguards.
The Government are clear that we must consider all options to break the business model of people smugglers and prevent people from putting their lives at risk by making perilous journeys from safe countries. Changes in schedule 3 are a key component of the wholescale system reform that we are committed to undertaking to prevent irregular migration. For those reasons, I ask hon. Members not to press amendment 159.
On schedule 3, the Government have been clear that the fastest route to safety is to claim asylum in the first safe country reached. We must dissuade all those considering making dangerous journeys to the UK to claim asylum. We are working closely with international partners to fix our broken asylum system and are discussing how we could work together in the future.
Tom Pursglove
I have been generous to the hon. Gentleman, but I will give way one more time.
Neil Coyle
I thank the Minister—he is being generous. On the first safe country, the Government might have more standing and the public more confidence in them had they not abandoned their obligations. Pakistan, for example, is seeing a cut of £62 million in aid from the UK to help manage the refugee crisis spilling over the border from the Taliban. Turkey is seeing a cut of £16 million in aid from the UK, Lebanon is seeing a cut of £71.5 million and Syria is seeing a drop of £105 million. If the Government were serious about people being able to stay nearer to their home country, those cuts, which certainly were not in their manifesto at the last election, would not be happening.
Tom Pursglove
In recent years, UK aid in crisis circumstances has made a significant difference in relation to properly caring for and ensuring—
Tom Pursglove
Let me finish the point. We have regularly made additional aid available in crisis circumstances to help relieve particular pressures that have arisen, and UK aid has been essential as part of the global effort. I have been proud of the crisis measures we have put in place in relation to those circumstances as they have arisen. No doubt we will continue to have a commitment to that going forward.
Tom Pursglove
No, I am going to make some progress because I am conscious that we have still got some way to go.
Schedule 3 aims to reduce the draw of the UK by working to make it easier to remove someone to a safe country where their claim will be processed. It amends existing legal frameworks to support our future objective to transfer some asylum claims to a safe third country for processing. The Bill contains a suite of measures designed to protect those in genuine need while breaking the business model of criminal gangs who profit from people trafficking and exploit vulnerable people for their own gain. We aim to disincentivise people from seeking to enter the UK by dangerous means facilitated by these criminal smugglers with a clear message that those arriving via an irregular route may be eligible to be transferred to another safe country not of their choosing to be processed.
Stuart C. McDonald
I just do not understand why the Minister tries to suggest that the provision will apply only to people who are not in genuine need. The Government do not know that because they are not looking at the cases before removing them to a third country. How is he circumscribing those who will be subject to this procedure, which we utterly oppose? How can he keep on saying that it will apply only to those who do not have genuine need?
Tom Pursglove
Schedule 3 is designed to be part of a whole system deterrent effect to prevent illegal migration. Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, and not driven by the actions of criminal enterprise. Under current policy, it is too easy for removals of individuals with no right to remain in the UK to be delayed as a result of speculative, and in some cases unfounded, article 3 human rights claims. Consequently, schedule 3 will also introduce a presumption that specified countries are safe, due to them being compliant with their obligations under article 3 of the ECHR. Claimants will be required to present strong evidence to overturn that presumption to prevent removal. This will support the aim to swiftly remove individuals who have no basis to remain in the UK by preventing unnecessary delays where speculative article 3 claims are made prior to removal to safe countries.
Schedule 3 will also provide the Secretary of State with a power to add countries to the safe list—that is in addition to the already held removal power. This will ensure that the list of safe countries remains accurate. The schedule also ensures that rights of appeal are not afforded to asylum seekers on the basis of removal to safe countries nor to clearly unfounded human rights claims, thus preventing unnecessary appeals for unsubstantiated claims.
We are committed to upholding our international obligations, including under the 1951 refugee convention. That will not change. While people are endangering lives making perilous journeys, we must fix the system to prevent abuse of the asylum system and the criminality associated with it. Our aim is that the suite of measures contained within this Bill, including those within schedule 3, will disincentivise people from making dangerous journeys across Europe to the UK and encourage people to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach.
I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for proposing new clause 18, which introduces new schedule 2. I agree wholeheartedly with the importance of ensuring the safety of those who are removed from the UK to third countries. However, we cannot support the proposals, which seek to limit our ability to remove individuals to a safe country. This Government have made our position clear throughout today’s debate: people should claim asylum in the first safe country that they reach. That is the fastest route to safety. I would like the Committee to consider each of the conditions in new schedule 2 in turn.
Neil Coyle
This comes back to the first safe country. The Minister makes the point that we both agree on—we are proud of the UK’s contribution to humanitarian support and of military interventions that prevented refugees from being created in the past. The Conservative manifesto said that the Army would not be cut and aid would not cut, but voters have been betrayed by the Government’s actions since. They have reneged on those manifesto promises. And asylum seekers have been betrayed by those same cuts. The Bill does nothing but compound that betrayal.
Tom Pursglove
On 3 September, we announced £30 million of life-saving aid to Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to help those who choose to leave Afghanistan. That is part of the Government’s efforts to support regional stability. The hon. Gentleman spoke earlier about resources being made available to help in-region. Yet again, this country has demonstrated that commitment to try to help provide stability as far as possible, and to help to ensure that as much support as possible can be provided in the vicinity of where crises arise. I think that—
Tom Pursglove
I will not take another intervention from the hon. Gentleman on that point.
Tom Pursglove
I have been very generous to the hon. Gentleman. I think that aside was a little bit unfair on his part, given the number of interventions that I have taken. I know that it was not meant in an unpleasant spirit, so I will move on.
I invite the Committee to consider each of the conditions in new schedule 2. Regarding the form of a transfer arrangement, we are currently in discussions with our international partners to consider the shared challenge of irregular migration. I do not wish to pre-empt the form or content of future arrangements as that could tie the hands of our negotiators, but I can assure the Committee that the Government will act in accordance with our international obligations, considering both the content and form of any arrangement reached. Furthermore, that condition would have the perhaps unintended consequence of preventing the removal of individuals in ad hoc cases, which has been a long-standing process within our asylum system to which I have alluded in response to earlier questions.
Bambos Charalambous
The Labour party will oppose clause stand part. Clause 26 opens the door to offshoring by permitting the removal of asylum seekers from the UK while their claim is being determined or while the UK decides whether to take responsibility for the claim.
The clause introduces schedule 3, which allows the Government to remove people who are seeking asylum to countries outside the UK, and hold them in detention there while their asylum claims are being processed—in other words, offshoring. It is our strong belief that the clause should be deleted, and we will vote against clause stand part and against schedule 3. We believe that, through the clause, the Government are seeking to emulate the Australian system as a model. It has been reported that the Home Office is in talks with Denmark to share costs on an offshore detention centre in Rwanda, and a number of other places have also been mentioned.
It is worth examining the available empirical evidence on the ideas underpinning the clause. In 2015, a United Nations report found that Australia’s offshore detention regime was systematically violating the international convention against torture. In addition, in 2020, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said the regime was “cruel, inhuman or degrading”, and unlawful under international law.
We are deeply concerned that the Government’s plan appears to emulate a failed system that has been widely condemned for its human rights abuses. When we look in more detail at the Australian model that the Government seem to want to emulate, we find more causes for concern. In 1992, the Australian Government introduced mandatory indefinite detention for asylum seekers who arrive by boat—that policy remains in place. In 2001, they introduced the Pacific solution, whereby boats were intercepted by the navy and taken to processing centres on Manus and Nauru. In 2008, the Australian Labour Government ended that practice, branding it an “abject policy failure”, only to reintroduce offshore detention in the early 2010s. Approximately 4,180 people were transferred offshore between 2012 and 2014, at which point the transfers stopped.
Conditions and events inside the centres were secretive; journalists and legal representatives were generally banned from entering. That created the conditions for the systematic abuse of asylum seekers by those running the facilities. In 2016, The Guardian released records of more than 2,000 incident reports from Nauru—known as the Nauru files—documenting widespread abuse and neglect in offshore detention. That included systematic physical and sexual assault on children and adults, the use of blackmail by guards, and attacks and harassment by people on Nauru or Manus Island. At least 12 people are reported to have died in the camps, with the causes of death including medical neglect, suicide and murder by centre guards.
Aside from the immeasurable human cost, this failed system has been dismantled by its own architects. A recent research report by the Kaldor Centre found that there is no evidence that the policy achieved the stated aim of “stopping the boats” and that since 2014 the Government have been trying to distance themselves from the policy. Thanks to the powerful stories of the people affected, it has been increasingly rejected by the Australian public. It has cost billions of Australian dollars. The policy has clearly failed disastrously, and we are deeply concerned that this Government are seeking in this clause to bring the policy to the UK.
The impact of offshore detention on mental health cannot be overstated. In the Australian example, conditions in offshore detention centres have been inhumane and unfit for human habitation. The mental and physical health impact of offshore detention has been colossal. In 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission found that 34% of children in detention suffered from mental health disorders of a seriousness that would require psychiatric referral if the children were in the Australian population, and paediatricians reported that the children transferred to Nauru were among the most traumatised they had ever seen. Medical experts working with the UNHCR found rates of mental illness in people in offshore detention to be among the highest recorded in any surveyed population. Médecins Sans Frontières reported that the suffering on Nauru was some of the worst that it had ever encountered. There is absolutely no way, in our view, that the UK Government should be risking huge harm against children in terms of their mental health by emulating that failed policy.
Furthermore, the financial cost of the Australian system is astronomical and regularly more than $1 billion a year. The Refugee Council of Australia compiled a detailed breakdown of offshoring costs and found that it had cost the Australian Government $8.3 billion between 2014 and 2020. The annual cost per person of holding someone offshore in Nauru or Papua New Guinea has been estimated to be $3.4 million—per person. Again, we are deeply concerned that the UK Government are seeking to emulate a policy that is extremely likely to have extortionate costs in financial terms. The financial impact of this policy will be huge. That all these increased costs go simply to stopping boats, as a deterrent, which the Minister alluded to, shows that it is a failed policy. This is fiscal incompetence from the Government: in their own prediction of what the policy costs, they have estimated exceeding that every year. It will be a budget impossible to predict, based on the number of people whom they propose to offshore. We have the Budget tomorrow, so I will be interested to see what provision the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made in relation to that and the comprehensive spending review.
Let us look in more detail at what the Government are risking with this policy in terms of the human cost. There are countless stories of the lives destroyed by the policy of offshoring. Loghman Sawari, whose story was covered by The Guardian, is still detained, despite having been accepted by Australia as a refugee in 2014. Eight years after the initial detention, he told The Guardian that the days have begun to run one into another and his memory is failing. The Maghames family arrived in Australia by boat in 2013 and were detained on Christmas Island before being transferred to Nauru in March 2014. Hajar Maghames, along with her parents and younger brother, has been in detention ever since, despite being granted refugee status in 2019. In 2020, they were transferred to Australia so that her father could receive medical care, and they are now in cabins at the back of Darwin airport. They are now the only people held there.
I would be grateful if the Minister clarified whether people being processed wherever they are offshored will, if their claim is successful, be brought back to the UK, and what estimate he has made of the cost of that.
To continue with my examples, Reza Barati, who, like the family to whom I just referred, had fled Iran, is one of the 18 people to have died in offshore detention. He was beaten to death by guards and other workers on Manus Island after a protest turned violent and the centre was attacked. He died four days after his 24th birthday. His family are suing the Australian Government and G4S for negligence. During the same incident over two days in February 2014, 70 refugees and asylum seekers were injured. One lost his right eye. Another was shot in the buttocks. One man was attacked from behind by a G4S guard who slashed his neck, causing a 10 to 12 cm horizontal slit across his throat. There have been many others, including the high-profile cases of author Behrouz Boochani or the Tamil family from Biloela, whose harrowing stories have ultimately helped to turn public opinion against this policy.
Offshoring in large accommodation centres poses particular risks to LGBT+ people seeking asylum because of their particular vulnerability. Organisations such as Rainbow Migration and Stonewall have raised concerns that housing people in such centres outside the UK will result in systemic verbal, violent and sexual abuse of LGBT+ people who are in need of protection and who have higher rates of self-harm and suicide.
There is much evidence that LGBT+ people already experience systemic abuse and harassment in the UK’s current accommodation and detention system, led by staff and others with whom they are housed or detained alongside. The problems tend to continue, even when people are moved to a new property. Documented examples provided by organisations that deal with victims have included unwanted sexual advances, threats, invasions of privacy, verbal abuse, being prevented from sleeping, pranks and sexual assault.
It is therefore deeply worrying that offshore processing centres are likely to escalate the homophobic, biphobic and transphobic abuse that LGBT+ people experience in existing asylum accommodation and detention centres. It is even more shocking when one considers that many refugees in the LGBT+ community have fled their home countries specifically because of abuses and persecution that they have experienced there.
Offshoring also presents a significant risk of harm to women who have survived rape and sexual exploitation. It is difficult to see how women who have survived such atrocities would be exempt from offshoring because it is clear that the Government’s key objective for offshore detention is deterrence. According to the Government’s logic, there can be no exceptions to this policy, because otherwise the objective of deterrence is undermined.
This was seen when offshore detention was reintroduced by the Australian Government in 2012. All people seeking asylum who arrived by boat were liable for removal to the islands of Nauru or Manus
“even if they...had characteristics warranting special consideration, such as being an unaccompanied minor, a survivor of torture and trauma, or a victim of trafficking”.
It is clear that the UK Government, by introducing such provision for offshoring, must be willing to subject children, pregnant women, survivors of trafficking and other vulnerable people to offshore detention.
Tom Pursglove
I hope that I can help the hon. Gentleman somewhat by making it very clear that children will not be transferred overseas for their claims to be processed.
Bambos Charalambous
I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point, but there are still others with vulnerable characteristics, including pregnant women and survivors of trafficking who will be subject to offshore detention.
I hardly need to outline the inhumanity of this policy as it applies to women victims of rape and sexual violence. I am deeply concerned about the conditions in which women will be held, and particularly the risk to them of further sexual violence and abuse. In detention centres in the UK, where there are a range of safeguarding mechanisms in place, it has not been enough to protect people in detention from abuse. The 2015 Lampard report on Yarl’s Wood, which until last year was the main detention centre for women in the UK, highlighted that between 2007 and 2015, 10 members of staff had been dismissed for incidents involving “sexual impropriety” towards women held there. Such “impropriety” included the repeated sexual harassment and abuse of a 29-year-old woman by a male healthcare worker.
When it comes to offshoring, the UK Government will have even less control over the treatment of detainees in offshore detention centres. The risk to women of sexual violence and abuse in such centres will be increased. The sexual harassment and violence to which women detained offshore by the Australian Government were subjected has been well documented.
There is no empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of offshoring as a deterrent strategy in respect of those fleeing persecution. A recent report by the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law highlights that in the year following the Australian Government’s reintroduction of offshore detention
“more than 24,000 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat. This number was considerably more than at any other time since the 1970s, when boats of asylum seekers were first recorded in Australia. Moreover, as the months passed, and news of the policy presumably reached some of those who were contemplating travelling by sea to Australia, there was no noticeable change in the rate of arrivals, with boats of varying numbers of people (from two to more than 200) continuing to arrive on average several times per week.”
That brings us back to the fundamental fact, discussed earlier in reference to other clauses, such as clauses 10 and 11, that policy measures that rely on deterrence assume that people have a choice in the decisions they make. People who are forced to flee their countries because of violence and persecution have no such choice. Therefore, deterrent measures will not stop them making the journey to find safety. The likelihood is that offshoring will be completely ineffective in its aims, as well as deeply inhumane.
Stuart C. McDonald
I will speak briefly in support of amendment 159, new clause 18 and new schedule 2.
I echo everything the shadow Minister said. This is a terrible clause. I echo in particular all that he said about Australia. I take a tiny crumb of comfort from the fact that the Minister, despite the Home Office’s having adduced evidence in relation to the Australian example, did not mention it during his speech. Perhaps the Home Office is learning that it should run a million miles from the Australian offshoring scheme, because it was awful.
I did not recognise the clause from what the Minister said. He kept referring to safeguards and asserting that it was absolutely consistent with our international obligations. My reading of schedule 3 and clause 26 is the polar opposite. Schedule 3 drives a coach and horses through the principle that people cannot be removed while they have a claim outstanding. It allows removal to anywhere if some very basic safeguards are met. The person might have no link to the country to which they are removed—they might have been nowhere near it. It is clearly nothing to do with responsibility sharing between states. Like clause 14, it is just about offloading responsibility.
We are not saying that no one can ever be removed to have a decision made on their claim elsewhere. While not perfect, the Dublin scheme allowed for the transfer of a claim and the removal of a claimant in appropriate circumstances and with appropriate safeguards. We have set out the criteria that would put in place similar safeguards in new clause 18 and new schedule 2. They include a formal, legally binding and public readmission agreement with the state; a requirement that the person has a connection with the country in question; that it is reasonable in the circumstances for the person’s case to be considered there; and that all the requirements and safeguards that we said should have been in place around clause 14 are present, such as the proper implementation of the full refugee convention, protection against harm, access to fair and efficient asylum processes, and so on.
Again, all those protections are informed by the UNHCR’s public commentary on and critique of the Bill. I appreciate that the Minister expressed sympathy for what we are trying to achieve, but I suspect that when he has his discussions with the UNHCR, it will urge him to go further and to adopt some of these safeguards.
There are huge differences between what we propose in new schedule 2 and what appears in schedule 3. The absence of so many crucial safeguards in the latter shows why the clause should not form part of the Bill. Schedule 3 does not even require a finding of inadmissibility or a connection with the state. There is no consideration of the reasonableness of the transfer. The country might not even be a signatory to the refugee convention, offer refugee protection, or offer the chance to secure the full rights to which refugees are entitled under the convention.
To use the UNHCR’s own words:
“Transferring asylum-seekers or recognised refugees to territories with which they have no prior connection and without an individualised consideration of safety, access to fair and efficient asylum procedures and to international protection, or reasonableness is at odds with international practice and risks denying them the right to seek and enjoy asylum, exposing them to human rights abuses and other harm, delaying durable solutions to forced displacement, and encouraging onward movement. To transfer asylum-seekers and refugees to countries that are not parties to the Refugee Convention, and without any expectation, let alone commitment, that they will provide a fair asylum procedure and treatment in line with the Refugee Convention would be an abdication of the United Kingdom’s responsibilities under international law towards refugees and asylum-seekers under its jurisdiction.”
That is the UNHCR’s commentary on schedule 3. That is why we have tabled our new schedule, new clause and amendment, and I hope that the Minister will—not today, obviously—give that further thought.
We know that this is essentially about offshoring. We oppose the clause and the schedule because we are completely and utterly opposed to that concept. It is unlawful, unethical and, as the experience in Australia shows, it does not work. As the shadow Minister highlighted, it did not discourage arrivals by boat. The Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law went into great detail on that in its submission to the Committee, which is absolutely spot on. It highlighted the humongous cost and, more than anything else, the humanitarian disgrace that those camps represent. Doctors Without Borders has talked about
“some of the worst mental health suffering we have ever encountered in our 50 years of existence, including in projects that provide care for torture survivors.”
Finally, on amendment 159, it is good that the Minister has said that children would not be subject to that procedure. However, as the shadow Minister said, there are still various categories of vulnerable people who must be removed from the scope of the clause and schedule. If the Home Office insists on taking that terrible step, surely to goodness it will not subject pregnant women, disabled or sick people, torture victims, victims of trafficking or gender-based violence, LGBT people or the young and old to that procedure. Perhaps the Minister could accept that amendment, just to give us a tiny crumb of comfort.
Tom Pursglove
I will briefly pick up on a few points that have been raised during the debate on clause 26. The Government argue that the suite of measures are intended to have a deterrent effect. The measures under the clause are just one part of system-wide reforms that make clear our position that individuals must claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. I recognise that there are fundamental differences of opinion in the Committee about some matters, but we argue that that is the fastest route to safety.
I want to clarify the situation. Although we are, of course, working with our international partners to meet our joint challenges, I assure Committee members that we are not working with Denmark to open an offshore detention centre. It is important to be clear on that point.
Tom Pursglove
I will give way, although I gave quite a bit of clarity in what I just said.
Neil Coyle
The Minister has given some clarity by saying that the Government are not working with Denmark, but, as he has already said today, he cannot tell us which countries the Government are working with. We know that Albania, Ghana, Rwanda and Gibraltar have all said, “No, thanks”, and that, frankly, we look like we have fewer friends than North Korea on this issue. However, the Minister cannot tell us which countries the Government are negotiating with or how much the measures will cost. When we are supposed to be going through a very costly and controversial set of plans in line- by-line scrutiny, I think that is a dereliction of duty.
Tom Pursglove
I reject the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the situation. The truth is that a very particular point was raised about the United Kingdom establishing an offshore detention centre with Denmark, which is not the case. It is important to be clear about that on the record.
A number of issues were raised about vulnerabilities. Again, I want to make it very clear that we will only ever act in line with our international commitments and legal obligations, including the ECHR. Any particular vulnerabilities will be taken into account. Flexibility is already built into the system to ensure that individual circumstances are properly taken into account, and that will continue to be the case.
To conclude, the shadow Minister sought further clarification on the Government’s intentions on clause 26. Changes in the Bill are not about housing people offshore while their asylum claims are considered under the UK’s asylum system. The measures in the Bill support our future objective of removing someone to a safe third country where we intend their claims to be admitted and processed under the third country’s asylum system. I am very happy to provide the clarification he sought.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 152, in clause 29, page 30, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) The decision-maker must first determine whether there is a reasonable likelihood that—
(a) the asylum seeker has a characteristic which could cause them to fear persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion (or has such a characteristic attributed to them by an actor of persecution), and
(b) if the asylum seeker were returned to their country of nationality (or in a case where they do not have a nationality, the country of their former habitual residence)—
(i) they would be persecuted for reason of the characteristic mentioned in subsection (a), and
(ii) they would not be protected as mentioned in section 31.”
This amendment would remove the “balance of probabilities” phrase from the Bill and would maintain the status quo.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 48, in clause 29, page 30, line 45, leave out subsections (2) and (3).
This amendment would remove the requirement for the decision-maker to assess, on the balance of probabilities, whether a claimant’s fear of persecution is well-founded.
Amendment 132, in clause 29, page 30, line 45, leave out
“, on the balance of probabilities”
and insert
“whether there is a reasonable likelihood that”.
Amendment 133, in clause 29, page 31, line 1, leave out “whether”.
Amendment 134, in clause 29, page 31, line 5, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) if the asylum seeker were returned to their country of nationality (or in a case where they do not have a nationality, the country of their former habitual residence)—
(i) they would be persecuted for reason of the characteristic mentioned in subsection (a), and
(ii) they would not be protected as mentioned in section 31.”
The amendment would maintain the status quo and bring the bill back in line with UNHCR standards and UK jurisprudence.
Clause stand part.
Stuart C. McDonald
The clause makes fundamental changes to important aspects of what it means to be a refugee under the convention. It seeks to require that important elements of the claim are to be established on the balance of probabilities before the decision maker goes on to make an overall assessment of real risk. Previously an overall assessment of the reasonable degree of likelihood of persecution was applied.
We regard this as a hugely dangerous and possibly very confusing clause. It fails to take into account the challenge of evidence and facts that arise many thousands of miles away, or facts to which only the claimant’s testimony can speak to. If, for example, a claim is made on the grounds that a person is LGBT, it can be hugely challenging to prove that to the standard of the balance of probabilities. As the UNHCR has explained:
“Some claimants, because of the shame they feel over what has happened to them, or due to trauma, may be reluctant to identify the true extent of the persecution suffered or feared.”
Similar issues will arise with many other groups that we have already spoken about this morning.
What is proposed is really dangerous. If a decision maker is certain, for example, that LGBT people in general are at risk of persecution on return to a particular country, and even if that decision maker thinks that there is a reasonable likelihood that this particular applicant is LGBT, that would no longer be enough to justify an award of refugee status.
Mr Goodwill
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that it is very difficult to prove some of these things. It is also difficult to disprove them. Is he aware that asylum seekers from places such as Uganda may well claim to be gay when they are not because they see that as the route to getting a good result quickly?
Stuart C. McDonald
I am not aware of the evidence of that, so I cannot comment. At the end of the day we are talking about people who are at risk. We are not talking about a road traffic case, a minor bump or the small claims court. We are talking about people whose lives are at risk, or they are at risk of serious harm and persecution. That is why we have to be very, very careful about requiring evidence beyond the standard that is internationally accepted.
Let us say that a decision maker is certain that LGBT people in general are at risk of persecution on return to a particular country. Even though the decision maker thinks there is a reasonable likelihood that a particular applicant is LGBT, that will not be enough to secure refugee status. The decision maker could be 49% certain that the applicant is LGBT and 100% certain that an LGBT person returned to a particular country will be tortured and killed, but that 1%—that tiny little bit of doubt—means that the balance of probabilities threshold will not be met, and that case will be rejected. The implications are huge.
Amendment 152 seeks to maintain the status quo. Let us not mess with a long-established principle, and let us be very, very careful that we are not denying refugee status to people who we know should be awarded it.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for tabling the amendments. I agree about the importance of the UK carefully assessing whether asylum seekers have a well-founded fear of persecution, as required under article 1A(2) of the refugee convention. However, we do not agree with the amendments, which, when considered together, will leave decision makers with a lack of clarity on how to consider whether a claimant has a well-founded fear of persecution.
Clause 29 is currently drafted to introduce a clear, step-by-step process for decision makers considering whether an asylum seeker has a well-founded fear of persecution. Currently, there is no clearly outlined test as such. While there is case law, policy and guidance, the current approach leads to a number of different elements being considered as part of one overall decision. The reforms that the Government want to introduce create distinct stages that a decision maker must go through, with clearly articulated standards of proof for each. I am confident that hon. Members will agree that that will lead to clearer and more consistent decisions. That is desirable for all involved.
The amendments include what is already in subsection (4) of clause 29, and it is unclear how they are proposed to fit with subsections (3) and (5). That therefore creates a lack of clarity and defeats the clarificatory purpose of the clause. As identified by hon. Members, clause 29 also raises the standard of proof for one element of the test to the balance of probabilities. Whether an asylum seeker has a characteristic that causes them to fear persecution, also referred to as a convention reason, will be tested to the balance of probabilities.
Stuart C. McDonald
There is one further issue that I did not raise earlier. The Minister has spoken about whether an appellant has a convention characteristic. How does the clause deal with imputed characteristics—that is, when a person is not LGBT but is perceived to be, or a person who does not have a political opinion but is treated and thought of as having such an opinion? That is quite an important concept and it seems to be absent.
Tom Pursglove
Obviously, we are clear that our proposal is entirely consistent with our obligations under the convention. However, I will happily write to the hon. Member with further detail on that point. It is important to give clarity, and I am keen to do so.
At the clause’s core, we are asking claimants to establish that they are who they say they are and fear what they say they fear, to a balance of probabilities standard. That is the ordinary civil standard of proof for establishing facts—namely, more likely than not. Surelyit is reasonable that claimants who are asking the UK for protection are able to answer those questions.
We have looked carefully at the difficult situations from which many claimants come and the impact on the kinds of tangible evidence they may be able to provide as a result of that. We consider that our holistic approach to making decisions, which includes a detailed and sensitive approach to interviewing as well as referring to expert country guidance, allows all genuine claimants an opportunity to explain their story and satisfy the test. The raising of the standard of proof for this distinct element of the test is appropriate to ensure that only those who qualify for protection under the refugee convention are afforded protection in the United Kingdom.
Stuart C. McDonald
On the hypothetical example that I gave, if a decision maker is 49% certain that somebody is LGBT or that their membership of a political party meant that they would definitely be persecuted on return, is the Minister not uncomfortable that that small shortfall from 50% would mean that their whole claim would be rejected, given the consequences?
Tom Pursglove
On the concerns around LGBTQ+ individuals, we have acknowledged that it may be more difficult to prove such claims compared with individuals making applications based on other convention reasons. We already have specific asylum policy instruction on considering such claims, which sets out in detail how caseworkers should fully investigate the key issues through a focused, professional and sensitive approach to questioning. As part of the operationalisation of the programme, we will seek to update the training and guidance provided to decision makers. That will concentrate on interviews, to ensure that they are sufficiently detailed to enable claimants to meet the standard. I hope that gives the hon. Member some reassurance. I will of course write to him on his earlier point.
The second element of the test—whether the claimant would be persecuted if returned to their country of origin or their country of former habitual residence—remains at the reasonable degree of likelihood standard of proof. The subjective element—the future fear—is naturally harder for the claimant to demonstrate. Consequently, a lower standard of proof is appropriate.
Responses to the public consultation as well as recent reports from non-governmental organisations have warned of the effects that the clause will have on those with certain protected characteristics, including those with LGBT+ claims. The Committee should be assured that we have considered that carefully, and there are several ways in which we will ensure that such individuals are not disadvantaged by the change. It is worth reflecting on the points I made and the explanation I set out in response to the hon. Member’s intervention. In the light of those points, I hope he will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful for the offer of a letter, but I am not remotely reassured about the new higher standard, which will lead to marginal cases being sent away to persecution, torture and all sorts of terrible consequences. In the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 30, page 31, line 47, leave out “both” and insert “either”.
This amendment would mean that – in order to be defined as a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention – a group would only have to meet one (not both) of the conditions set out in subsections 3 and 4.
I have a short but important point to make. The clause concerns the definition of a particular social group, which is an important concept in refugee law and has been crucial to its ongoing relevance across many decades. The clause is controversial because it makes an important change to how a particular social group is defined. In the House of Lords case of the Secretary of State for the Home Department v. Fornah, a long-standing argument about whether the tests in subsection (3) of the clause should be cumulative or alternative was addressed and it was decided that there was no need to meet both of those conditions; one or the other would suffice. However, in the Bill, the Government have decided to change that approach. It now demands that both conditions are met, and that seems to contradict established case law in this country. I simply ask the Government to explain why they have taken a more restrictive approach.
Tom Pursglove
Clause 30 aims to clarify an area where there has been a degree of contradiction and confusion. There is a clear mismatch between how the concept of “particular social group” is set out in current legislation, Government policy and in some tribunal judgments, against the interpretation taken in some case law. That is unhelpful for all those working in and engaging with the asylum system, and who most of all want clarity and consistency. Defining how key elements of the convention should be interpreted and applied is vital in creating a robust system that can generate consistency and certainty, which ultimately will drive efficiency. I trust that members of the Committee will agree with that principle. The historical confusion demonstrates perfectly why what we are doing in this clause is so important and is a desirable law reform.
I cannot agree to the change proposed by the hon. Gentleman. First, it is important to state that the conditions set out in the clause reflect current Government policy; it is not a change. The amendment would mean that a group need only meet one of the conditions to be considered as a particular social group. That significantly broadens the scope of who may be covered by the convention. It would erode the concept that people deserve and need protection based on fundamental characteristics that go to the core of who they are, such as their faith or sexuality. It proposes instead to broaden the definition to cover potentially transient factors that can perhaps be changed, but that fundamentally misunderstands the very basis of what it means to be a refugee, as envisaged by the refugee convention, and why we have a system to offer protection. I hope my explanation has reassured colleagues across the Committee, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned established case law on the correct definition of “particular social group”, so I will say something briefly about that. As with many of the key concepts of the refugee convention, case law has developed over the years on how to apply the term “particular social group” for the purpose of considering whether a claimant has a convention reason. Despite significant judicial interest in the interpretation of “particular social group” in case law, there is no established case law on the point. There is, however, conflicting tribunal-level case law and obiter comments by the House of Lords in the case of Fornah. Consequently, the clause seeks to provide clarity on the UK’s interpretation of a particular social group, to ensure that it is applied consistently among decision makers.
Stuart C. McDonald
I agree with the Minister that we need clarity, but there are two different ways of providing clarity: we can either combine the requirements or use them as alternatives. I say that we should provide clarity by using them as alternatives. That is how the House of Lords interpreted the convention in the case of Fornah, and that is what the tribunal did recently as well, so I wish to press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 157, in clause 34, page 33, line 20, at end insert—
“(1A) Subsection (1) shall not apply to any refugee—
(a) whose claim for asylum is on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) whose claim for asylum is on the basis of gender-based violence;
(c) who has experienced sexual violence;
(d) who is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(e) who is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(f) who has been a victim of torture;
(g) who is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(h) who is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment would exempt certain groups from subsection (1).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider amendment 158, in page 33, line 34, at end insert—
“(2A) Subsection (2) shall not apply to any refugee—
(a) whose claim for asylum is on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics;
(b) whose claim for asylum is on the basis of gender-based violence;
(c) who has experienced sexual violence;
(d) who is a victim of modern slavery or trafficking;
(e) who is suffering from a mental health condition or impairment;
(f) who has been a victim of torture;
(g) who is suffering from a serious physical disability;
(h) who is suffering from other serious physical health conditions or illnesses.”
This amendment would exempt certain groups from subsection (2).
Stuart C. McDonald
The clause relates to article 31 of the convention, which provides refugees with immunity from certain penalties. It is an important protection that the Government are seeking to limit by, in my view, reinterpreting and undermining article 31, and setting out expectations of where and when individuals should claim that go beyond the letter and spirit of the convention.
The amendments take us back to this morning’s discussion about why it was especially inappropriate to place these requirements and expectations on particular groups, including victims of trafficking, sexual violence and torture. They are designed to pose a question to the Minister: why is he seeking to strip such groups of their immunity from penalties that the refugee convention provides?
Tom Pursglove
Again, I thank the hon. Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and for Glasgow North East for all their hard work in this area and in producing these amendments. As they will know, the provisions they are seeking to amend are crucial to the Government’s intention to uphold the first safe country of asylum principle. In this respect, these clauses are designed to deter dangerous journeys across Europe by no longer treating migrants who come directly to the UK and claim without delay in the same way as those who do not. I am sure they will agree that we must do everything in our power to stop people putting their lives in the hands of smugglers and making extremely perilous journeys across the channel.
Amendments 157 and 158 would apply to clause 34, which is closely related to clause 10 in that it sets out the UK’s interpretation of certain criteria within article 31(1) of the refugee convention. The criteria in article 31 provide the basis for the legal framework we are using to differentiate within clause 10. The intention of the amendments is to seek statutory carve-outs from differentiation for a wide range of cohorts.
I absolutely understand where this is coming from. I would like to reassure hon. Members that the powers in clause 10 do not compel the Secretary of State to act in a certain way, and leave discretion to impose or not impose conditions as appropriate, depending on the individual circumstances. We will of course set out our policy in immigration rules and guidance in due course. The policy will be exercised with full respect to our international obligations and will most certainly be sensitive to certain types, some of which are referenced in the amendment, such as having been trafficked.
I would note that blanket carve-outs are an attractive option to ensure protection of the most vulnerable, but ultimately I do not believe it would appropriate to do this in the way amendments 157 and 158 seek. In reality, blanket carve-outs would simply encourage people coming by small boat to claim they belonged to an exempted cohort. Most importantly, this would of course prevent us from protecting those people who do genuinely have those characteristics. By creating this perverse incentive, it would also undercut the entire purpose of the policy to serve as a deterrent. Indeed, people could then simply continue to make dangerous journeys to the UK and not claim in the first safe country because they know they can avoid group 2 refugee status simply by saying that they are LGBT+ or have a mental health condition.
For all these reasons, I invite the hon. Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and for Glasgow North East not to press their amendments.
Stuart C. McDonald
Obviously, we maintain a fundamental opposition to the whole scheme proposed by this clause and clause 10. In the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 50, in clause 34, page 34, line 1, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) in subsection (3), after (b), insert—
“(ba) entry in breach of a deportation order, entry without leave, remaining in the United Kingdom without leave, or arriving in the United Kingdom without entry clearance under section 24 of the 1971 Act”;
(c) in subsection (4), after (c), insert—
“(ca) entry in breach of a deportation order, entry without leave, remaining in the United Kingdom without leave, or arriving in the United Kingdom without entry clearance under section 24 of the 1971 Act””.
This amendment would mean that individuals who committed these offences (and the other offences set out in section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999) would be able to use the defence set out in section 31 of that Act, even if the offence was committed in the course of an attempt to leave the UK.
Again, I want to prompt the Government—perhaps optimistically—for their thinking on the compatibility of these provisions with the convention. The amendment would mean that individuals charged with certain offences could still rely on defences provided by the convention, even if the offence was committed in the course of an attempt to leave the UK. It is important that the Government explain clearly why they think that removing that possibility is consistent with the convention. To be honest, I am struggling to understand the Government’s reasoning.
Tom Pursglove
Amendment 50 is extensive. I thank the hon. Member for the considerable thought he has put into the amendment, which would list the illegal entry, arrival without clearance and remaining in the UK without leave offences as subject to the statutory defence against prosecution. However, the express statutory defence under section 31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 has never applied to the existing offences referred to in amendment 50. We do not consider the new arrivals without entry clearance offence needs to be referred to expressly for the same reason. Where relevant in a particular case, the Crown Prosecution Service will take into account the UK’s obligations under article 31 of the refugee convention.
Another effect of amendment 50 would be to reverse our clause 34(4) and reintroduce a defence from prosecution for those transiting through the UK having entered illegally and intending to go and claim asylum elsewhere, such as Canada or the USA. I disagree that the statutory defence should extend to those who have tried to exit the UK without first seeking asylum, but I reassure hon. Members that that does not mean that every asylum seeker who tries to exit the UK will be prosecuted. We are targeting for prosecution those migrants where there are aggravating factors involved—for example, causing danger to themselves or others, including rescuers; causing severe disruption to services such as shipping routes or closure of the channel tunnel; or where they are persons who have previously been removed from the UK as failed asylum seekers.
We have of course been very clear that people seeking protection must claim in the first safe country they reach. That is the fastest route to safety. In the same way that we will not tolerate smugglers exploiting vulnerable people to come to the UK when a claim could easily be made in another safe country, we will also not tolerate those migrants who transit through the UK, having previously travelled through European countries, to reach other places. They must claim in the first safe country they reach. For those reasons, I invite the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
It is useful to have that on the record. I will go away and give it some further thought. We maintain our fundamental opposition to the whole scheme, but, in the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35
Article 33(2): particularly serious crime
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 51, in clause 35, page 34, line 1, leave out sub-paragraph (i).
Under this amendment, persons receiving certain prison sentences in the UK shall be presumed (as at present) but not automatically deemed (as proposed in the Bill) to have committed a particularly serious crime.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 53, in clause 35, page 34, line 21, leave out “12 months” and insert “four years”.
Under this amendment, persons shall be deemed to have committed a “particularly serious crime” if they receive a prison sentence of more than four years in the UK (as opposed to two years at present, or 12 months as proposed in the Bill).
Amendment 52, in clause 35, page 34, line 24, leave out sub-paragraph (i).
Under this amendment, persons receiving certain prison sentence outside the UK, or persons who could have received such a sentence had they been convicted in the UK, shall be presumed (as at present) but not automatically deemed (as proposed in the Bill) to have committed a particularly serious crime.
Amendment 54, in clause 35, page 34, line 27, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c) and insert—
“(b) in paragraph (b), for “two years” substitute “four years”;
“(c) in paragraph (c), for “two years” substitute “four years””.
Under this amendment, persons shall be deemed to have committed a “particularly serious crime” if they receive a prison sentence of more than four years outside the UK (as opposed to two years at present, or 12 months as proposed in the Bill), or if they could have received such a sentence had they been convicted in the UK.
Clause stand part.
Stuart C. McDonald
The amendment is a probing one. The basic point is that if someone is at risk of persecution, we must be incredibly careful when creating gaps, loopholes and exceptions that would still see that person subject to removal to the very place where they would be at risk. The convention creates and recognises very specific exceptions to the fundamental principle of non-refoulement.
If someone is a danger to security here or has committed a particularly serious crime, they constitute a danger to the community. The amendment challenges the attempts in the clause to broaden the scope of the exceptions so that persons are automatically deemed and not just presumed to have committed a serious offence if they are sentenced to one year in prison, rather than two years. We have particular concerns about the circumstances where the crime has been committed overseas. How do the Government intend to be sure about the safety and appropriateness of prosecution, conviction and sentence?
Nobody is saying that refugees should not face appropriate punishment for their crimes, but the danger is that those sentenced to one year or more face an additional punishment that puts them at risk of persecution, torture and death. That is way beyond what is merited by the crime. The withdrawal of refugee rights should not be done in anything other than the most serious circumstances. We fear that the clause goes beyond what the convention envisages.
Bambos Charalambous
I just wish to add to the points made by the SNP spokesperson. The whole UK criminal justice system is based on having magistrates courts that deal with the less serious offences, which have a maximum sentence of up to 12 months, and we then have the Crown court, which deals with the more serious offences, with a sentence above 12 months. Defining something as serious with 12 months’ imprisonment seems to be contrary to other aspects of our judicial system.
Labour also has concerns about people who have been trafficked who may have been forced to commit offences. They may have been convicted of a criminal offence as a result of their trafficking, whether that is because of drugs, prostitution or another such offence that might attract a penalty above 12 months. We have some concerns about the redefinition and I wonder whether the Minister can clarify what might happen to someone who has been trafficked, has committed an offence and has received a sentence of 12 months. Would the clause apply to them, because that does raise concerns about it? I do not know whether he will be able to assist in that regard.
Tom Pursglove
I am afraid that we simply cannot agree to amendments that would allow individuals to remain in the United Kingdom despite being convicted of offences that are even more serious than those described under the current legislative framework. This Government cannot support provisions that allow dangerous foreign national offenders to remain in the United Kingdom, and if it means putting the public at risk.
This Government are committed to continuing to meet our international obligations, in particular those under the refugee convention and European convention on human rights. A key principle of the refugee convention is non-refoulement, also referred to as removal, of refugees to a place or territory where there is a real risk that their life or freedoms would be threatened. But the convention itself recognises that there have to be exceptions to this. Article 33(2) of the convention allows refugees to be returned when they have committed a particularly serious crime and as a result, constitute a danger to the community, or are a danger to the security of the UK.
The aim of clause 35 is to redefine a “particularly serious crime”. I would like to reassure Committee members that we have looked carefully at the type of offending that may be caught by a new lower threshold. It is that that has contributed to the Government’s position that offences with 12 months’ custody or more should be considered as being particularly serious.
It is worth taking a moment to consider some of those offences for which the Sentencing Council’s guidelines indicate that a year’s custody is the starting point. They include causing a child to watch sexual activity, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and carrying a firearm in a public place, in certain circumstances. Hon. Members surely agree with me that they and the public would consider those crimes as particularly serious. Clause 35 as drafted, like all clauses in the Bill, is fully compliant with our obligations under the refugee convention.
I turn specifically to amendments 51 and 52. They seek to make the first limb of the article 33(2) assessment, that is whether an individual has committed a particularly serious crime, rebuttable. That would mean that an individual who had been sentenced to 12 months or more in prison could argue that their crime was not in fact serious. That is despite a court of law, based on all the facts in the case, taking into account mitigating and aggravating factors, determining that the offending was so serious that an individual should be deprived of their liberty for 12 months or more.
If we are agreed that a year’s imprisonment means someone has committed a crime that society clearly considers serious, this amendment seemingly gives offenders a second bite of the cherry to disagree with the ruling of the criminal courts in the UK—some of the most respected legal bodies in the world. The Government propose in clause 35 that a crime which has been punished by 12 months or more imprisonment is an appropriate definition, ensuring that all particularly serious crimes are captured. Such a sentence, which limits the freedom of an individual for a considerable period, would be inappropriate if the crime was not particularly serious.
I also stress that there is a safeguard in the process. If an individual commits a particularly serious crime, the bar on refoulement is not automatically lifted. The individual has an opportunity to rebut the presumption that they are a danger to the community in the UK. Only individuals who are unable to rebut the presumption will be considered for removal. I also flag the UK’s other international obligations, in particular those under the European convention on human rights. An individual would not be removed from the UK if doing so would breach our obligations under the convention. Instead, they would be granted shorter, more restricted forms of leave to remain, and would be removed at the earliest opportunity, when it is safe to do so.
Mr Goodwill
Is the Minister aware that in the Representation of the People Act 1981 the same 12-month sentence would disqualify a Member of Parliament—so what is sauce for the goose, I guess?
Tom Pursglove
My right hon. Friend puts the matter in a way that only he can. To raise the definition to a level that captures only crimes that have resulted in a sentence of four years or more imprisonment would be reckless, and would undermine the aims of the new plan for immigration to build a fair but firm immigration system. It would clearly send the wrong, and dangerous, message that the UK welcomes and rewards serious offenders. I do not believe that the people of the UK want that. The amendments would mean that individuals who commit some of the most serious crimes would continue to receive the generous benefits of refugee status in the United Kingdom. Their continued presence in the UK could also lead to avoidable reoffending. The Government would not be upholding their responsibility to protect the public of the United Kingdom by supporting the amendments.
The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate queried the process for a person who has been trafficked. I can confirm that such a person will be tested under the second limb for whether they amount to a danger to the community. With regard to offences committed overseas, section 72(3)(c) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 contains a provision to ensure that any convictions abroad would result in a sentence of 12 months or above in the UK for a similar offence.
In the light of those points, I hope that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East will withdraw the amendment, and that the Committee agree that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
It is useful to have that on the record. I do not think that all the points were addressed, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36
Interpretation of Part 2
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 55, in clause 36, page 35, line 14, at end insert—
“‘protection in accordance with the Refugee Convention’ means a legal status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2-34 of the 1951 Convention”.
This amendment would define – for the purposes of Part 2 of the Bill – what constitutes protection in accordance with the Refugee Convention.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 135, in clause 36, page 35, line 27, at end insert—
“‘protection in accordance with the Refugee Convention’ means a legal status that is inclusive of the rights and obligations set out at Articles 2-34 of the 1951 Convention.”
This amendment would clarify the meaning of “protection in accordance with the Refugee Convention” and ensure that it includes the positive rights and obligations necessary to ensure durable and humane solutions, and not merely protection against refoulement.
Stuart C. McDonald
Certain very important provisions in the Bill refer to a state providing protection in accordance with the convention. In particular, it is incredibly important to the inadmissibility provisions in justifying removal to so-called safer countries. We need to define it, and we would do so through amendment 55 by referencing all the rights set out in the refugee convention. We thereby seek to ensure that the standards of that convention have been fully upheld. The amendment poses the question to the Government of whether they are a champion of the full range of rights in the convention, or are requiring people to claim asylum in countries where little more than lip service is paid to it, and nothing more than a protection against refoulement is provided. That is the issue at stake, in a nutshell.
Bambos Charalambous
In order to save time—I know that we have had a very long day—I will bear in mind that the wording of amendment 135 is almost identical to that of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. He did it justice when speaking to it, and we will support it.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for tabling the amendments. I have listened carefully to the arguments that they have put forward. I agree about the importance of the United Kingdom continuing to meet its obligations under the refugee convention, including through the rights that we provide to refugees. The amendments to clause 36 relate to the inadmissibility provisions set out in clause 14. I understand the spirit of the amendments in wishing to define protection in accordance with the refugee convention where we may seek to remove an individual to a safe country. However, clause 14 as drafted ensures that the principles of the refugee convention should be met if we are to remove an individual to that country.
If individuals have travelled via, or have connections to, safe countries where it is reasonable to expect them to have claimed asylum, they should do so. They should not make unnecessary and often dangerous onward journeys to the UK; however, if they do, we will seek to remove them to a safe country. We will only ever return inadmissible claimants to countries that are safe and where the principles of the refugee convention are met. For those reasons, I cannot support the amendments, and I ask that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East withdraw amendment 55.
Stuart C. McDonald
Again, it is useful to have that on the record. The Minister defends the clause as it is by referencing the protection that clause 14 provides on the principles of the refugee convention, but when I asked him what that meant earlier I was not remotely satisfied by the answer. It is another clause that is completely undefined, so I wish to press amendment 55 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Building Safety Bill (Fifteenth sitting)
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is technical and ensures that the hard stop to occupation intended at gateway 3 will apply when high-rise residential buildings that are 18 metres or more in height, or at least seven storeys, are occupied in phases. These are defined in part 4 of the Bill as higher-risk buildings. Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendation was that duty holders meet applicable building regulation requirements before starting work and before occupation begins. Gateway 2 will take place at the current deposit of plans stage, before building work starts. Gateway 3 will take place at the current completion certificate stage when building work is complete. At gateway 3 the duty-holder will make a completion certificate application, reflecting the “as built” building. The Building Safety Regulator will assess the application, carry out a final inspection of the building work and, if satisfied, issue a completion certificate as evidence that the building work complies with all applicable building regulation requirements. Once a completion certificate has been issued, the principal accountable person will be able to register the building and legally commence occupation. The Bill therefore creates a hard stop, via clause 73, which makes it an offence to occupy two or more units of a higher-risk building before registration.
The registration of higher-risk buildings will be a one-off. As buildings are often occupied in stages, that means that there would not be a hard stop for subsequent phases of occupation. That does not meet the policy intent of ensuring that building work is signed off as compliant with building regulation requirements before the building, or parts of it, is occupied. The new clause would therefore make it an offence for an accountable person to allow occupation of a single residential unit, or more, in part of a higher-risk building unless a completion certificate has been issued for the relevant building work. That will apply to new builds and extensions to higher-risk buildings, or to works that create a higher-risk building. The prohibition would apply to any new residential units created. Additionally, we wish to make an accountable person liable if they permit occupation of the building, or parts of it, without a completion certificate, with the principal accountable person’s knowledge.
The Chair
Just for my pedanticness, may I say that Members may take their jackets off if they so wish?
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Dowd. The new clause is technical and the Opposition do not wish to oppose it.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. May I ask the Minister, where would the completed certificate be displayed within the building so that residents might see it?
Eddie Hughes
In line with other elements of the Bill, the certificate would be displayed in a prominent location.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 21 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New clause 3
Duty on the Secretary of State to report on designations under Part XVI of the Housing Act 1985
“(1) Within the period of six months beginning with the day on which this section comes into force, the Secretary of State must—
(a) consider the financial impact on leaseholders in England and Wales of building safety advice given by his department since 14 June 2017; and
(b) in conjunction with the Treasury and the Prudential Regulation Authority, consider the impact of building safety advice given by his department since 14 June 2017 on the supply of mortgage finance for leasehold flats in England and Wales; and
(c) publish a report setting out his determination, in light of the factors identified in paragraphs (a) and (b), as to whether designations under section 528 or section 559 of the Housing Act 1985 would improve conditions for leaseholders, or would improve the supply of mortgage finance for leasehold flats in England and Wales.
(2) If the Secretary of State’s report under subsection (1) concludes that designations under section 528 or section 559 of the Housing Act 1985 would improve financial conditions for leaseholders in England and Wales, or would improve the supply of mortgage finance for leasehold flats in England and Wales, then at the same time as publishing his report he must—
(a) make arrangements to provide all necessary funding;
(b) make the appropriate designations under section 528 of the Housing Act 1985; and
(c) advise local housing authorities to make appropriate designations under section 559 of the Housing Act 1985.
(3) Before making any regulations bringing into force any section in Part 4 of this Act, the Secretary of State must make arrangements for—
(a) a motion to the effect that the House of Commons has approved the report prepared under subsection (1), to be moved in the House of Commons by a minister of the Crown; and
(b) a motion to the effect that the House of Lords to take note of the report prepared under subsection (1), to be moved in the House of Lords by a minister of the Crown.
(4) The motions required under subsections (3)(a) and (3)(b) must be moved in the relevant House by a Minister of the Crown within the period of five calendar days beginning with the end of the day on which the report under subsection (1) is published.
(5) If the motion tabled in the House of Commons is rejected or amended, the Secretary of State must, within 30 calendar days, publish a further report under subsection (1) and make arrangements for further approval equivalent to those under subsection (2).
(6) The Secretary of State shall make a further report under subsection (1) at least every 90 calendar days beginning with the day of any rejection or amendment by the House of Commons under subsection (5) until otherwise indicated by a resolution of the House of Commons.
(7) In this section—
‘leaseholder’ means the registered legal owner of a long lease; and
‘long lease’ has the same meaning as in section 76 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.
(8) This section comes into force on the day this Act is passed.—(Daisy Cooper.)
This new clause places a time-limited duty on the Secretary of State to consider making designations under Part XVI of the Housing Act 1985 to provide funding for cladding and fire safety remediation and for Parliament to approve the plans for doing so.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. The new clause places a time-limited duty on the Secretary of State to consider making designations under part 16 of the Housing Act 1985 to provide funding for cladding and fire safety remediation and enables Parliament to approve the plans for doing so.
The principle behind the new clause will be well known to Committee members and, indeed, Members from right across the House. It comes from the eye-watering costs faced by fire safety victims. Earlier in Committee proceedings, we took evidence from Alison Hills, Stephen Day and End Our Cladding Scandal. All talked about the enormous bills they face and the fact that they simply cannot afford to pay them. The new clause requires the Government to report on whether the process of designating these premises as defective could improve leaseholders’ financial position. The 1985 Act presents an interesting precedent of a Conservative Government intervening to establish a scheme to reimburse people who later found themselves to be living in defective premises. The grant funding under the Act covered only 90% of remediation costs; alternatively, it would purchase the home for 95% of the defect-free value.
As drafted, the new clause, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), has a couple of challenges, but neither is insurmountable. The 1985 Act scheme applies only to homes purchased from a public authority, but I am sure the Government can find a way to amend that Act—through primary legislation or perhaps by accepting the new clause—so that it applies to the current crisis and bring forward a new proposal to include defective private homes.
The other issue is that the definition of defects in the 1985 Act focused on modes of construction, rather than the specific defects that need to be remediated. It would be a little tricky, but not impossible, for the Government to capture all the fire safety defects they would want covered under the new clause. Indeed, they could introduce statutory instruments that list them, or they could put a duty on the new Building Safety Regulator to report to the Secretary of State on what should and should not be included.
There are obstacles to overcome, but as I say, they are not insurmountable. The question is whether the Government want to overcome them. If the Government continue to refuse to resolve this crisis, Back-Bench Members will continue to find every opportunity to use the Bill to make sure that we can protect leaseholders from these enormous, eye-watering costs. Thatcher’s Government had the compassion and foresight to ensure that those who bought their homes under the right to buy were not left with defective homes through no fault of their own. If even Thatcher’s Government could do that, we hope that Johnson’s Government can finally step up and do the same.
Mike Amesbury
Her Majesty’s Opposition support the new clause. Fundamentally, and collectively, we will use every opportunity to try to protect leaseholders from historical remediation charges. As the hon. Member for St Albans argued, where there is a will, there is certainly a way.
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I welcome the Committee to the last day of its deliberations on the Bill—and also, may I say, the 70th anniversary of the re-election of Sir Winston Churchill’s 1951 Government, which of course was a great home-building Government.
I thank the hon. Member for St Albans for having raised this important matter, and I entirely understand the motivations that lie behind her attempts to insert this new clause into the Bill, but I am afraid that I will not be able to accept it. Let me explain why, but first, by way of parenthesis, remind the Committee of the unprecedented commitment that the Government have already made: £5 billion of taxpayers’ money invested in grant funding for cladding remediation in buildings of 18 metres and above. As we know, that will protect hundreds of thousands of leaseholders from the cost of remediating unsafe cladding on their homes. We are also stepping in to provide a generous finance scheme for the remediation of lower-rise and, to that extent, lower-risk buildings, which we will say more about later.
I am afraid that our assessment of this proposed new clause is that, although it is well intentioned, it is disproportionate and does not strike the right balance between funding from the private and public purse. If passed, this new clause would mean that private and social buildings of any height could potentially be designated as defective and be eligible for grant funding of 90% of the property’s value, or repurchase by the local authority if we take the two measures together. New clause 3 lacks detail about the types of dwelling covered and clarity about the types of remediation or remediation works to be covered, which provides ample scope and grounds for all sorts of legal interpretation. It is important that our funding decisions are proportional, to ensure that taxpayers’ money is used effectively and protected as far as possible.
I should also point out the unintended—and I am sure that it is unintended—but necessarily consequential effect that this new clause would have on local government. It would place a responsibility on local authorities to purchase defective properties, which in a number of cases would place significant strain on those local authorities. In the past two years, Wandsworth has seen an average uplift in funding of 4.5%. The figure in Lewisham is 5%, and in Enfield it is 4.8%. The Committee needs to recognise the excessive burden that potential costs may impose on local government.
The hon. Member for St Albans mentioned the Housing Defects Act 1984, which is the predecessor of the 1985 Act that this new clause seeks to amend. That Act was designed for very different conditions: the policy was introduced due to issues with the post-war social housing stock. If we compare the costs of the 1984 scheme to which she referred with those of today, we see that the cost burden then was substantially lower than the estimates for remediation required now. In today’s money, the Housing Defects Act was about three times less costly in terms of grant funding than present remediation costs.
The hon. Lady said in her remarks—I entirely understand why she made them—that there are obstacles to the success of this new clause, and that it is for the Government to find a way. I gently say to the Committee that it is for whoever tables a new clause to find a way to make it work, because it is not the job of this Committee to make bad or defective laws, suggestions or reports to the House of Commons. Proposed new clauses or amendments need to be able to work; otherwise it is the Committee’s duty to ask the proposer to withdraw the motion or to vote against it because it does not do the job for which it is intended. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her suggestions, but I respectfully ask that she withdraw the proposed new clause.
Daisy Cooper
I will respond briefly before deciding. I thank the Minister for his considered response. He said that the funding required under the new clause would create a disproportionate burden on the public finances. He will of course be aware that new clause 4, which we will discuss next, proposes a mechanism to enable the Government to recoup some of the costs from those responsible.
The Minister’s second point was about the excessive burdens that would stem from the new clause, but if those burdens do not fall on the state, they fall on leaseholders, who are the innocent parties—the only innocent parties—in all this, so I ask him and the Government to reflect on that.
The Minister’s third point was that it is not the role of the Committee or the Government to fix the new clauses. I respectfully say that it would be entirely possible for the Government to fix this particular problem without requiring any amendments or new clauses at all, because they have set up the building safety fund without creating legislation. They could extend the fund and get on with the job of making people’s homes safe within months, but they choose not to, which is why it falls to Back Benchers to bend over backwards to find ways of forcing the Government to do the right thing. None the less, I am happy at this stage of proceedings to beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 4
Building Safety Indemnity Scheme
“(1) There shall be a body called the ‘Building Safety Indemnity Scheme’ (referred to in this Act as ‘the Scheme’).
(2) The purpose of the Scheme shall be to collect money from levies and to disburse the money raised from those levies in the form of grants to leaseholders to pay all or any part of the following types of costs—
(a) remediation of any defect in any external wall of any building containing two or more residential units; or
(b) remediation of any defect in any attachment to any external wall of any building containing two or more residential units; or
(c) remediation of any internal or external defect other than a defect described in paragraphs (a) or (b); or
(d) any building safety works carried out by an accountable person under section 84; or
(e) any other cost of a type specified by the Secretary of State in regulations made under this section.
(3) The Scheme may disburse money for the benefit of leaseholders in any type of building, whether or not a higher-risk building and whether or not the building was completed before the coming into force of this Act.
(4) The levy imposed by the Scheme shall be determined by reference to each of the following—
(a) the Scheme’s best estimate of the reasonably likely total cost grants to cover any type of cost described in subsection (2);
(b) the Scheme’s best estimate of the costs of raising and administering the levy; and
(c) the Scheme’s best estimate of the costs of processing applications for grants to leaseholders and disbursing funds to leaseholders from monies raised by the levy.
(5) Members of the Scheme subject to levies shall include the following—
(a) any person seeking building control approval from the Regulator;
(b) any prescribed insurer providing buildings insurance to buildings containing two or more residential units, whether or not the buildings are higher-risk buildings;
(c) any prescribed lender providing mortgage finance in the United Kingdom, whether or not secured over residential units in higher-risk buildings; and
(d) any other person whom the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(6) The Scheme is to consult with levy paying members before determining the amount and duration of any levy.
(7) The Scheme must provide a process by which leaseholders, or persons acting on behalf of leaseholders, can apply for grants for the types of costs specified in subsection (2).
(8) The Scheme must provide an appeals process for the Scheme’s decisions regarding—
(a) the determination of the amount of any levy; or
(b) the determination of any grant application.
(9) A building control authority may not give building control approval under the Building Act 1984 to anyone unless—
(a) the person seeking building control approval is a registered member of the Scheme, or that person becomes a registered member of the Scheme; and
(b) the person seeking building control approval pays all levies made on that person by the Scheme under subsection (3).
(10) Any liability to pay a levy under this section does not affect the liability of the same person to pay an additional levy under section 57 of this Act.
(11) Within a period of 12 months beginning with the coming into force of this section, the Secretary of State must make regulations providing for—
(a) the appointment of a board to oversee the Scheme;
(b) the staffing of the Scheme;
(c) the creation and maintenance of a register of members of the Scheme;
(d) the preparation of the best estimates described in subsection (3);
(e) the amount, manner and timing of payment of the levies on members of the Scheme under this section;
(f) the process of joining the Scheme;
(g) the process of leaseholders applying to the Scheme for grants towards any of the types of costs specified in subsection (2);
(h) the process for handling any appeals against decisions of the Scheme on any levy or any grant;
(i) the Scheme to make an annual report to Parliament; and
(j) any other matters consequential to the Scheme’s operation.
(12) Regulations made under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.
(13) A statutory instrument under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(14) In this section—
‘building’ has the same meaning as in section 29;
‘building control approval’ has the same meaning as in paragraph (1B)(2) of Schedule 1 to the Building Act 1984;
‘building control authority’ has the same meaning as in section 121A of the Building Act 1984;
‘defect’ means anything posing any risk to the spread of fire, the structural integrity of the building or the ability of people to evacuate the building, including but not limited to any risk identified in guidance issued under Article 50 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/1541) or any risk identified in regulations made under section 59;
‘external wall’ has the same meaning as in Article 6 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/1541);
‘higher-risk building’ has the same meaning as in section 59;
‘prescribed’ means prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State;
‘remediation’ means any step taken to eradicate or to mitigate a defect, including employment of any person to temporarily assist in evacuation of any part of a building, and whether or not the defect in question existed at the date any residential unit in the building was first occupied. Remediation does not include anything required in consequence of omitting to effect reasonable repairs or maintenance to all or any part of the building over time, or anything which is the responsibility of an occupant of a residential unit within the building;
‘residential unit’ has the same meaning as in section 123.
(15) This section shall come into force on the day this Act is passed.”—(Daisy Cooper.)
This new clause would require the government to establish a comprehensive fund, equivalent to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, to provide grants to remediate cladding and fire safety defects of all descriptions, paid for by levies on developers, building insurers and mortgage lenders.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Daisy Cooper
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would require the Government to establish a comprehensive fund, equivalent to the Motor Insurers Bureau, to provide grants to remediate cladding and fire safety defects of all descriptions, paid for by levies on developers, building insurers and mortgage lenders. The End Our Cladding Scandal campaigners have made it clear that they would like the Government to find, fix and fund all historical fire safety defects, or, as I have put it on a number of occasions, stump up the cash, make homes safe and go after those who are responsible. New clause 4 is an attempt at doing that last bit—going after those responsible.
The Minister mentioned in his answer to the previous debate on new clause 3 that the Government have put forward £5 billion, but he will be aware that the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government estimates that the cost of remediation could be from £10 billion to £15 billion, and that in the absence of a scheme to legislate to ensure that those responsible pay those sums of money, they will fall on the shoulders of innocent leaseholders.
We do not know the exact figure, because we still do not have the full data on all dangerous cladding on buildings under 18 meters. There is no complete data for non-ACM cladding on buildings of all heights. There are numerous fire safety issues beyond flammable cladding where the data has not been collected: missing firebreaks, flammable balconies, non-compliant fire doors and so on. In Victoria, Australia, as we have learned, they moved quickly to find it, fix it and fund it.
In the new clause the hon. Member for Stevenage has proposed another solution that could be adopted to fund the remediation. The building safety fund of £5 billion is insufficient. The Government have so far refused to tell us whether they agree with the polluter pays principle, on which we took evidence from Steve Day. I tabled a parliamentary question a while ago asking the Government what assessment they had made of the polluter pays principle, and the answer is overdue.
We have also heard mixed messaging. On the one hand, Ministers tell us that they are considering in detail the proposal for the polluter pays principle. On the other hand, they tell us that they are not sure it will work. It would be useful for the Committee to hear the Minister clarify what the Government’s thinking is on the polluter pays principle. None the less, the new clause is before us.
Of course, there are drafting concerns with this new clause, but they could probably be fixed in the fullness of time. However, I repeat that this is an attempt by Back-Bench MPs to find a way to fix the cladding and fire safety scandal and to go after those who are responsible.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Member for St Albans for introducing and explaining the new clause. Again, Labour supports the fundamental principle of rectifying the situation for the hundreds of thousands of people caught in the building safety scandal—to find, fund, fix and recover, using the polluter-pays principle.
Christopher Pincher
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Albans for the new clause and for how she comported herself. She mentioned the outstanding parliamentary question and, once the Committee concludes today, I will search for it, search for the answer, and ensure that she receives it as quickly as possible.
While I understand the intent behind the new clause, I am unable to accept it today. I believe it is unnecessary, as its intention is already being met. As the hon. Lady said, and as I have expressed previously, significant funding for leaseholders and for remediation is being made available, and I will unpack some of that for the Committee.
The hon. Lady will know that we are spending a significant amount of money on the remediation of in-scope high-rise buildings that are clad with ACM. For 97% of ACM-clad buildings, remediation has either happened or is under way. For socially owned ACM-clad buildings, 100% have been or are being remediated. We have also made available money through the building safety fund to ensure that non-ACM-clad buildings are made safe. So far, £734 million has been allocated. A significant number of buildings have begun their remediation process and 689 have been allocated support.
We have also said that we will bring forward proposals to ensure that appropriate support is available to leaseholders and building owners in the 11 to 18-metre cohort. We are doing further work to assess the prevalence of such buildings, and that will inform the final solution that we land on. We are considering all options to ensure that leaseholders are protected and helped.
The hon. Lady asked whether we believe in the polluter-pays principle. It is a rather—how can I put it?—crude term, but we certainly want to ensure that those who have the responsibility for the defects that have bedevilled so many buildings, and those who own them, pay what they are due. That is why we have announced a residential property developers tax, which we estimate will raise £2 billion. Clause 57, which we have agreed to, gives powers for a building safety levy on high-rise developers. We estimate that that will account for some half a billion pounds of income, and that is due at the gateway to approval stage for the new building safety regime. We certainly believe that those who have the broadest shoulders and those who are responsible for the defects that affect a great many buildings should pay their way, but we believe that the new clause will not work because implementing it will be costly, slow and disproportionate to the financial returns and their timely receipt, and that the Government will need to create a new administrative board to manage the fund.
I should tell the hon. Lady and the Committee that the new clause also risks the mortgage and insurance industries bringing significant and protracted legal challenges. We want them to undertake a much more proportionate and sensible approach to value ascription and risk definition, rather than the risk-averse, computer-says-no approach that they have taken to date. I think this amendment would obscure that sensible and simple objective.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Why is something along the lines that the hon. Member for St Albans proposes not appropriate here but appropriate for the Motor Insurers Bureau? What else is the Minister doing to address the retrospective challenge of those buildings that are already built? The proposal he mentioned is for new buildings that will be completed only once this legislation is enacted.
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady is simply wrong; what I am saying is entirely retrospective. The £5.1 billion we have allocated for high-rise in-scope buildings is already allocated, and that is for buildings that already exist. The funding mechanism we will bring forward for buildings in the 11 to 18-metre cohort is for buildings that already exist, and the moneys that will be collected through the levy and the tax can be used for buildings requiring remediation that already exist.
Ruth Cadbury
With respect to the Minister, the point that this amendment makes is to ensure that the polluter pays. The grant from the Government appears to be all taxpayers’ money and, from what I can tell, the Government are taking no action to hold to account financially those developers and builders who are the cause of the problem for residents now.
Christopher Pincher
Again, the hon. Lady is wrong; the residential property developer tax is a tax on the developer sector. The high-rise levy is a levy on the developer sector. We want to ensure we have a mechanism, and we believe we do have one, that is speedy, targeted and suitably flexible to meet the challenges of what we know to be a new—in the sense that it was not recognised until the Grenfell disaster—and evolving terrain.
Daisy Cooper
On the point about the residential property developer tax, which has been leaked to the press in advance of tomorrow’s Budget, can the Minister confirm whether that will bring in additional money beyond the £5.1 billion that the Government have put forward, or will the residential property developer tax bring in money that will then add up to the £5.1 billion? Is it new money on top of that, or will it reduce the amount of money the Government have to spend?
Christopher Pincher
Whatever the hon. Lady has read in the newspapers before the Budget and the spending review, I can assure her that I will not add to the Chancellor’s woes or indeed the annoyance of Mr Speaker by making further comments about it before it takes place.
With respect to the new clause, we believe there is a risk that it will not allow us to levy moneys effectively from the builders insurance and mortgage sectors. We do not believe that the design and implementation challenges of the amendment will result in a material return for the resources that will be expended to deliver it.
Finally, there may be an unintended and undesirable further outcome, which is that a levy on insurers and lenders could very well—indeed, probably will—affect insurance premiums and the cost of borrowing for leaseholders. Given the challenges they already face, that is something I am sure we would wish to avoid.
Mike Amesbury
The hon. Member for St Albans asked whether the levy, the proposed tax that was leaked to the press by Her Majesty’s Treasury, made up part of the £5.1 billion. I note that the Minister did not answer that point, but it would be useful in terms of the journey of today’s new clauses if he could answer that question.
Christopher Pincher
I am happy to say that we expect that to be additional funding, but I will certainly not comment further on what the Chancellor may or may not say in his remarks—[Interruption.] It is in the newspapers; it is not on the record. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale is heckling from a sedentary position, but he needs to recognise the essential difference between what Ministers say and what newspaper journalists interpret them as saying, even before they have said it. There is a fundamental difference. He may be sitting at the feet or bending the knee at the altar of Lord Mandelson, but we must not do that.
In effect, by levying on builders and mortgage providers, the cost will rightly fall on the doorsteps of all homeowners, and potentially on those in the rental sector too. I entirely understand where the hon. Member for St Albans is coming from, and where she wants to go to, but I respectfully request again that she withdraws the new clause, not least because—finally—a number of such amendments and new clauses have been tabled over the past several months, some of which were associated with what is now the Fire Safety Act 2021.
Those proposed amendments were wide-ranging in their ambit and would have allowed, potentially, for a leaseholder to claim for a defective fire alarm that was 10 years old—defective potentially as a result of their own action. We would all—most reasonable people—accept, and those who are suffering the terror, the horror, of being trapped in a building they cannot sell because of this terrible scandal would also accept, that such a liability on a freeholder or builder would be unfair and improper, and might indeed risk what one might call a remediation industry building up, which would not help anyone. I am afraid that the wide ambit of new clauses such as this present an opportunity for that sort of misuse to occur.
I understand all the points that the hon. Lady has made, but I invite her again to withdraw her new clause.
Daisy Cooper
I was particularly struck by an analogy on “Newsnight” last night. A Facebook whistleblower was asked about how Facebook responds to accusations. She said, “It is a bit like my partner saying to me, ‘Have you done the washing up?’, and my answering, ‘I have done the washing up 150 times in the past year and I have spent £3 billion on washing-up liquid’, which is of course a way of not answering the question whether I have done the washing up.”
In answer to the first question, therefore, I was struck that the Minister was at pains to point out the progress that had been made on removing, specifically, ACM Grenfell-style cladding on high-rise buildings—very specific progress. In being at pains to highlight that progress, he sidestepped—I would say, respectfully—all the other fire-safety defects that exist and on which we have taken evidence through the proceedings on the Bill so far.
I was particularly disappointed that there was no answer to how constituents such as mine, who are expecting to receive bills of between £80,000 and £100,000 for fire safety and cladding remediation work, should foot those bills. The Minister’s third point was on the polluter-pays principle. I was a little confused to hear it described as a crude term. It is a very well-established legal principle that exists in other pieces of legislation, notably in domestic and international environmental law. Given the clarity of the situation—innocent lease-holders who have done everything right being left to pick up the tab versus everybody else in the industry, who are to varying degrees responsible for failures—it is actually a very simple principle that is quite easy to understand.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19— Review of Hackitt recommendations—
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out and publish a review on the Government’s implementation of the recommendations of Building a Safer Future, the final report of the Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, published May 2018.
(2) The review must include an assessment of how legislative changes and Government policy have affected the wider building industry culture in respect of building safety.
(3) A report setting out the conclusions of the review as set out in subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament no later than one year after the day on which this Act is passed.”
This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment of the Government’s implementation of the Hackitt recommendations.
Mike Amesbury
The two new clauses speak to the recommendations of the Hackitt review—one more generally, and one on a specific point raised in the review. I will speak first to new clause 8, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). She has raised the issue before, and I believe she will do so again in the passage of the Bill. The new clause does not require any immediate action from the Government, other than carrying out a review of the impact on building safety of payment practices and associated commercial practices such as lowest-price bidding and onerous contracts. It embraces concerns expressed by Dame Judith Hackitt in chapter 9 of her May 2018 report, “Building a Safer Future”.
In her review, Dame Judith Hackitt lamented the lack of any “requirement or incentive” to prioritise building safety in procurement decisions, stating that the situation is further aggravated by
“unhelpful behaviours such as contract terms and payment practices which prioritise speed and low-cost solutions”.
The new clause requires the Secretary of State to review the impact of lowest-price procurement, poor payment practices and onerous terms and conditions on building safety, and to make recommendations to Parliament for regulatory and policy changes. It presents an opportunity not just to reset the regulatory framework but to address the commercial behaviours that compromise building safety.
New clause 19 was tabled in a similar spirit, despite its wider scope. The Government committed to implement the recommendations of the Hackitt review at the end of 2018. The Bill holds many of the reforms that were recommended. The new clause simply ensures that the Government publish an assessment of their implementation of the Hackitt recommendations within a year of the Bill passing. Given its centrality in implementing the recommendations alongside the Fire Safety Act 2021, and the significant amount of secondary legislation yet to be published even in draft form to support it, it is right that we take stock of how well it reaches its intended goal of implementing the findings after the regulations come into force.
As well as the issues covered by the new clause, there are questions to be asked about the extent of the review’s implementation of aspects including the regulation of building control for buildings under 18 metres and changes to the future testing regime for construction products—both important parts of Dame Judith’s recommendations. The new clause also includes mention of the need to assess changes to the construction culture in parts of Hackitt’s recommendations—something shared by all members of the Committee throughout the last three weeks. It is mentioned more than 40 times in the Hackitt report as an essential factor, alongside changes to regulation, developing good practice and ensuring well-built and safe homes in the future.
I ask the Minister to accept the new clause.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue. I understand his intent and desire, through new clause 8, to ensure that common practices in the way that payments are charged and made within the built environment industry are incentivised so that building safety and quality are central to decision making. I also recognise—I think we all do—the argument that poor, adversarial practices can lead to unsafe, low-quality building safety outcomes, as well as poor value for money. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that we agree that this is an important issue.
Work with the industry to ensure fair and prompt payment and procurement practices is being addressed across several Departments. The Government’s construction playbook, which captures commercial best practices, is resetting the relationship between the construction industry and the Government. Making the process more strategic and collaborative, and focused on delivering a more sustainable, modern industry, better able to deliver high-quality built assets for its clients, is essential and crucial.
The Construction Leadership Council also has a business models workstream, whose work includes collaborative contractual practices; adoption of fairer payment practices; eliminating the need for retentions; and supporting the introduction of other complementary procurement approaches, such as the value toolkit and the construction playbook, which I have already mentioned.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Hackitt report. Following the Hackitt report, we also set up the procurement advisory group to advise on procurement practices in higher risk buildings and to provide independent advice on implementing the recommendations of chapter 9 of the report, which focuses on procurement. As part of that, we have sponsored the creation of guidance on how the industry can implement collaborative approaches to procurement, to deliver those safe buildings and to tackle poor behaviours across the supply chain. It will outline how those approaches support the future regulatory regime as set out in the Bill.
The group will then work with the industry to implement the principles of the guidance as widely as possible. The guidance will be iterative and will be reviewed in line with any amendment to the Bill ahead of Royal Assent; of course, as the hon. Gentleman will know, amendments can be tabled on Report as well as in the other place.
Our approach is to support the industry to develop industry-led solutions, rather than further regulation: creating regulation when that is necessary, rather than when we can do it. We want it to be meaningful and owned by the industry, which is vital in order to create the leadership and culture change we have agreed is needed to support the important changes introduced in the Bill.
Through our engagement, we encourage a focus on obtaining the best value, rather than the lowest cost in procurement practices. We recognise the importance of setting clear parameters for how construction services are procured at the start of a project, and how that drives the correct behaviours throughout the project supply chain. We encourage those involved in procurement practices to show leadership in that regard and to embed good practice.
The competence of those involved in procurement was also considered in detail by the industry-led competence steering group, and we encourage the industry to continue to develop and implement the competence framework for the sector. The Bill already ensures accountability for safety throughout the lifecycle of a building—I think we have agreed on that—and that risks are held and managed by the appropriate people. Our efforts are therefore rightly focused on delivering a more risk-proportionate building safety regime where life safety risks are tackled swiftly, but disproportionate caution and excessive costs are avoided.
We do not believe it would be proportionate to legislate for the way the construction industry charges or for the payment practices of private and commercial businesses. The new clause would be a significant expansion of the scope of the Bill, and could risk the timetable of our introduction of the new regime. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important matter, and I do not for a moment dispute his commitment to it. However, I respectfully ask him to withdraw the new clause.
I will briefly cover new clause 19. The Committee knows that the Bill provides a widely-framed review of the whole building safety regime, covering in-scope higher-risk buildings and out-of-scope buildings in clause 139, which was debated and agreed last Thursday. By comparison, the new clause would provide for a limited, one-off review within a year of Royal Assent. I do not believe that would practical, or that it would allow sufficient time for the new building safety system to be established or give the new building safety regulator the opportunity to deliver against the recommendations set out in the independent review of building regulations and fire safety. Therefore, I do not think that requiring an early review would have the intended effect.
The Government believe it is important to protect the independence of the review. As a result, we have not specified with whom the reviewer must consult when conducting the review and have allowed them to consult as widely as they see fit. The independent reviewer may choose to accept evidence from any interested party.
Clause 139 requires the Secretary of State to appoint a reviewer within five years of the Bill receiving Royal Assent and, thereafter, within five years of the previous appointment. It also allows the Secretary of State, in extremis, to ask for an earlier review within that five-year cycle. Therefore, unlike new clause 19, which is a one-off assessment, we are providing for an ongoing check on the building safety and construction products regulatory systems throughout their lifespan.
Given the establishment of a new system of regulation for building safety, including fire safety and defect remediation, it may not be practicable to conduct another comprehensive review similar in scope to the one undertaken by Dame Judith Hackitt sooner than the five-year limit stipulated by clause 139, unless in extremis the Secretary of State directs otherwise.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the Minister for his response. Assessment planning implementation reviews are essential components of good policy. Given the significance of what we are collectively trying to achieve in Parliament and beyond this place, a review is vital. We argue that that five-year mark, while crucial and hard-wired into the proposed Bill, needs further checks and balances and assessment. However, in the spirit of co-operation and collaboration that we have had so far, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 9
Devolved Building Safety Standards Co-operation Review
“(1) The Secretary of State must conduct a review exploring how a formal mechanism of co-operation and information sharing on building safety standards across the United Kingdom could operate.
(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) must include reviewing—
(a) the feasibility of establishing a duty to consult with the government of Northern Ireland and Scotland on the best practices for building safety, including on—
(i) funding;
(ii) grants;
(b) the provision of funding of fire safety remediation work, and
(c) the provision of funding in place to prevent costs being passed to leaseholders.
(3) A report setting out the conclusions of the review as set out in subsections (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament no later than 3 months after the day on which this Act is passed.” —(Daisy Cooper.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of formal co-operation on building safety standards across the United Kingdom, in recognition that sharing best practice could promote improved building safety standards in all four nations.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Daisy Cooper
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 9 would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of formal co-operation on building safety standards across the United Kingdom, in recognition that sharing best practice could promote improved building safety standards in all four nations.
There are two reasons behind new clause 9. First, the UK Government could learn from our neighbours, particularly in Scotland. Although only one high-rise building in Scotland—in Glasgow—has been found to have the ACM cladding that was responsible for the Grenfell tragedy, all owners of flats who have cladding have been offered free safety assessments to see if other types of cladding need to be removed.
In addition, the Scottish Government have established a ministerial working group on mortgage lending and cladding; this includes homeowners, insurers, legal professionals, housing associations and the fire service. When we were discussing a previous new clause, the Minister made it clear that he wanted to look at these issues. New clause 9 would provide the forum within which the UK Government could look at this model, and see what could be learned from the ministerial group on mortgage lending and cladding.
The Scottish Government made swift moves to ensure that the unnecessary EWS1 form certification was no longer needed. Arguably, there is also the case that through a forum like this the UK Government could reflect on whether Scottish building regulations, which have diverged from UK-wide fire safety standards since 2005, were able to prevent a widespread crisis like the one we have had here in England.
There is a second, less obvious reason why the clause could establish improvements in building safety standards. During the course of the evidence sessions, we heard from the Fire Brigades Union, who described the current state of affairs as “pretty abysmal”. They gave as an example the fact that fire officers had, for many years, noticed that fires were starting to spread faster and there was no way of getting that information to those in power. They cited as the problem that the Central Fire Brigade Advisory Council, which was established by the Fire Services Act 1947, had been abolished by the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.
This new clause, which looks at best practices across all four nations, could perhaps be part of a new tapestry, where any new problems that arise in the future as a result of new materials or new modes of construction could quickly be discussed across all four nations and be brought to the attention of Government.
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady may find that a theme is developing here and it is one of collegiality—I trust she will agree. I thank her for raising this important matter. Given that it is a Union matter, it is sometimes rather more complicated and, shall we say, delicate. I applaud the intent of the new clause, but I again ask her to withdraw it rather than asking us to accept it, because I do not think that it would achieve its intended effect. It could also, we believe, impede already existing and pretty effective relationships with the devolved Administrations.
However, I assure the hon. Lady that the Government have already established very close official-level working relationships on building safety with the devolved Administrations, as part of the BSP—the building safety programme. In fact, meetings with representatives of all three devolved Administrations take place at least fortnightly, enabling the sharing of information and latest policy developments and intentions. I will give the Committee an example. We have been working closely with the Welsh Government, including in relation to applying part 3 of the Bill to Wales. We are also liaising closely with both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Bill will create a stronger and clearer construction products regulatory regime, which will apply to the whole United Kingdom. Building safety is a devolved matter, but the products regime will apply to the whole UK, and that will pave the way for a national regulator for construction products with a UK-wide remit to lead and co-ordinate enforcement of the new rules.
In January this year, we announced that that national regulator will be established within the Office for Product Safety and Standards, which gave evidence to this Committee in the witness sessions and which will receive up to £10 million this financial year to set up the new function. There is in the Bill a range of other provisions that apply to one or all of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and which we have debated previously.
As the hon. Lady will appreciate and as I have said already, unlike the regulation of construction products, building safety is a devolved matter and rightly, therefore, decisions on policy in that area ultimately rest with the devolved Administrations themselves. It is therefore important that we maintain the existing, well established relationships rather than perhaps foisting new and unexpected ones on those Administrations.
Taking all those factors into account and entirely understanding what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve, I hope that she will accept our assessment that formalising information-sharing and consultation mechanisms as she is suggesting could impede and slow down our existing mechanisms to ensure building safety standards in each of our four nations. I respectfully invite her to withdraw the new clause.
Daisy Cooper
I am grateful to the Minister for his reassurances about the close working relationship with the devolved nations, and interested to hear about the fortnightly meetings. If those meetings are happening every fortnight, that does, I say respectfully, beg the question as to why the Scottish Government have set up the ministerial working group on mortgage lending and cladding, and dealt with the EWS1 form, yet the UK Government are still battling with both.
The Minister mentioned that it is important not to step on the toes of the powers of the devolved nations. I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with that, but my suggestion was that the UK Government could in fact learn from the devolved nations rather than imposing anything on them. None the less, I am grateful to have those reassurances and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 10
Assessment of building safety and emergency status
“(1) The Secretary of State must, as soon as reasonably practicable, conduct an assessment of the overall state of building safety and building fire safety defect remediation in England and lay before Parliament a report of that assessment.
(2) The report must include an assessment of whether the matters in subsection (1) constitute an emergency for the purposes of Section 1(1)(a) of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom).
(3) In conducting the assessment, the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) fire safety experts,
(b) leaseholders and their representatives,
(c) social housing tenants,
(d) local authorities,
(e) trade unions, and
(f) safety and construction industry bodies.”—(Daisy Cooper.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of the state of building safety and fire safety defect remediation in England.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Daisy Cooper
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Colleagues will be pleased to hear that this is the last new clause from me. It would require the Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of the state of building safety and fire safety defect remediation in England, and to specifically assess whether it constitutes an emergency, as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
We are now four years on since the Grenfell tragedy. We have heard that so many times in the Chamber and here in Committee. Not only are we more than four years on from the tragedy, but there are suggestions that, at the current rate of reform, it could potentially take up to 10 years to sort out all of the existing fire safety issues faced by existing leaseholders. That is simply not good enough.
It is clear that the fire safety scandal is an emergency. In Victoria, Australia, they treated it as a public health emergency. When we took evidence, everybody that we asked, “Do you consider this to be an emergency?” said, “Yes”. It is clear that the overall building and fire safety scandal
“threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom”.
That is part of the definition of what constitutes an emergency under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
We have seen, over the past 18 months, what can be done by Government when there is a crisis. We can see the scale and pace of change and reform when something is treated as an emergency. Waiting for two years, five years or 10 years is far too long, so I respectfully request the Government to reflect on whether four years so far, and potentially several years to come, is good enough; whether they could usefully use the Civil Contingencies Act; and whether the new clause—which would require the Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of whether the state of building safety and fire safety constitutes an emergency under the 2004 Act—would be a useful mechanism to ensure that we can move much faster and make all homes fire-safe within at least the next 12 months.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Member for St Albans for powerfully arguing the case for the new clause. As she stated, it is now nearly five years since Grenfell, when 72 people tragically lost their lives. A broad-scoped, urgent assessment is now needed, so the official Opposition support the new clause.
Christopher Pincher
If you will indulge me for a moment, Mr Dowd, I will briefly respond to a point that the hon. Member for St Albans made previously about the reasons behind the Scottish Government setting up a particular committee. Scotland has a different legal infrastructure and different financial mechanisms; that may well be one of the reasons why they have chosen to set up that committee, but that is, as I am sure she will appreciate, a matter for them.
I appreciate the hon. Lady raising this important point, in a similar vein to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale and new clause 8. However, in a similar vein, I trust that she will feel able to withdraw the new clause once I have concluded my remarks. The Bill already provides for a widely framed review of the whole building safety system. That will cover in-scope high-rise and higher risk buildings, and out-of-scope buildings through clause 139, which we debated and agreed to last week. By comparison, it is also rather akin to new clause 8. This new clause covers a more narrow subject matter, giving—entirely unintentionally, I am sure—no consideration to the independence of the review. When included alongside clause 139, which already stands part of the Bill, it would cause duplication and confusion.
As I said previously, I want to assure the hon. Lady that we recognise the intention behind her new clause, but we submit that it has been met in clause 139, which creates a non-prescriptive framework for the appointment of an independent person to review the work and the effectiveness of the Building Safety Regulator, the regulatory system for building safety, the national regulator for construction products, and the regulatory system for construction products. We therefore believe that the topics specified in new clause 10 are already covered by clause 139.
Daisy Cooper
I am grateful to the Minister for responding. I would highlight two points. The first is that the Minister suggested that new clause 10 was not necessary because of clause 139, but I respectfully highlight the fact that clause 139 relates to an independent review of the building regulatory regime and the regulation for construction products, so this is a process. Clause 139 relates to future regulation; it does not apply to the remediation of historical fire safety defects.
Secondly, although the Minister was at pains to highlight that he appreciates the urgency, I would highlight that clause 139, on the future review, requires only that the Secretary of State appoints a reviewer within five years of the Act passing. We have tens of thousands of innocent leaseholders who cannot wait another five years for their houses to be made safe so that they can get on with their lives. I said before that the purpose behind the new clause was to highlight the emergency and the urgency with which we would like the Government to act. Many of us feel as though the Government are not acting with the necessary urgency, but I hope the Minister hears that point. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 11
Assessment of mental health impact for leaseholders in dwellings with building safety risks
“(1) The Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of building safety issues on leasehold tenants’ mental health.
(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, and must consider the effect on leasehold tenants’ mental health arising from but not limited to—
(a) residing or being a leasehold tenant in a building which has had or currently has building safety issues;
(b) any financial pressures on leaseholders as a result of charges due to building safety work, conducted based on advice given by his department since 14 June 2017;
(c) supply of mortgage finance.
(3) The review shall include recommendations on any mental health support to be provided to leasehold tenants’ as a result of findings under subsection (2).”.—(Ruth Cadbury.)
This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment considering the impact of the building safety risks on leaseholders, and whether further specific mental health support is required.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Ruth Cadbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Dowd. The new clause seeks an assessment of the mental health impact for leaseholders in dwellings with building safety risks.
It may be normal in areas such as health, social care and justice to consider in legislation the mental health impact on victims, but it is unusual in matters of the built environment. I hope in my comments to address the impact that the crisis is having on the mental health of millions of people across the country. Any MP who has looked into their postbag will know the turmoil and trauma that the crisis has caused to leaseholders. As the hon. Member for St Albans said earlier, they are innocent parties—the only innocent parties—and they have had the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
The new clause makes three aspects clear. First, there is the trauma caused to people by living in a building that is unsafe and that they fear could go up in flames. Then there is the trauma of the financial bills that so many leaseholders face, which can run into tens of thousands for many. Finally, there is the trauma caused by being trapped and unable to sell or remortgage a home. That is a toxic trio that we know is impacting people’s mental health. Survey after survey has confirmed the huge impact.
In a survey for Which?, a leaseholder called Georgie said:
“I don’t know of any leaseholder whose mental health isn’t affected in some way due to this horrendous situation.”
That chimes with the findings in the landmark report by the Cladding Action Group, which found that nine out of 10 of those surveyed said their mental health had
“deteriorated as a direct result of the situation”.
Some 94% said they were anxious and worried, 83% said they were angry—rightly, I might say—and 59% felt abandoned, which is a point I will come back to later. People also said they had had to take time off work. Health conditions had been made worse. Many were seeking or planning to seek medical help for stress. Some 67% said their mental health had got worse since they were last interviewed. Those numbers should serve as a chilling reminder of the impact, toll and misery of this crisis—a crisis that this Government have effectively caused.
It is hard to convey just what the fear of living in an unsafe building must feel like—how it must feel for people to go to sleep at night not knowing if they are safe in their bed. A constituent who wrote to me after the fire at Grenfell told me that they went past and saw the fire raging from their bus. The images of that night are seared on that constituent’s brain, as it is in the minds of so many other people, even if we just saw it on the TV.
Grenfell was, of course, not the only residential fire with serious consequences. The Cube fire in Bolton and Richmond House in south-west London are just two in recent years. Locally, there are many more examples. Luckily, Sperry House in Brentford was caught in time before the fire raged across the full building—before life was lost. Thanks to the fire services, it was caught in time.
Mike Amesbury
Yesterday, Sky highlighted the case of Zoe, who lives in a cramped, one-bedroom flat with small children, but is unable to move out of the flat because of the toxicity of the building safety standards. That is having a huge effect on her mental health issues, including about schools in the future and just the anxiety my hon. Friend illustrates.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend gives yet another illustration of the stress and mental health impact of this crisis. On the subject of people almost frightened to go to sleep at night, people with disabilities and their carers face even greater anxiety and worry over fire safety risks and whether they would be able to get out of their home to safety. Many are struggling to get adequate personal emergency evacuation plans sorted with their building managers.
Paragraph (b) relates to those facing staggeringly high bills. Every day, we see more and more reports of the skyrocketing costs facing leaseholders. One of my constituents, who is a shared owner in Brentford, is facing a bill of £15,000, and says:
“I fear it will be significantly higher...I don’t have this money and it will bankrupt me. I fear homelessness...I’m going to lose the home I worked so hard for.”
Leaseholders across the country are facing staggering and life-changing bills to fix cladding and fire safety defects, and more. Service charges are skyrocketing and, for many, insurance premiums are also shooting through the roof. Two of my constituents are facing an extra £2,000 on their annual insurance bill. Many people face bankruptcy. That is bad enough in itself, because of course it means a lifelong impact, whatever one’s financial future. However, for accountants, lawyers and others, their professional status is permanently destroyed if they are declared bankrupt.
Overall, there is the fear of homelessness for people who got on the housing ladder—they did the right thing, as we often say—but are now falling to the bottom of the snakes and ladders board.
Ian Byrne
On the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, we had three sessions of evidence from many people across the country who have gone through covid, have lived since 2017 in unsafe buildings, as my hon. Friend has outlined, and are now in danger of bankruptcy and potentially losing their jobs through professional indemnity being withdrawn. It was heartbreaking to listen to the three sessions and see how life changing this was going to be and the consequences they will have in years to come, affecting their lives, their children’s lives and future generations of the family’s lives. The impact this is having on people’s mental health should not be understated. As I have said, it could not have come at a worse time, with covid, being locked in a house or a flat that was potentially dangerous during lockdown, or fearing for their own lives in a flat they believed was unsafe. They had the pressures of covid and of living in an unsafe building, so for me this new clause is hugely important, after having listened to the evidence sessions with my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South—
The Chair
Order. To clarify, if people are going to intervene, can they make it short and sharp? If they want to make an intervention, that is the way to do it. If they want to speak on the substantive issue, they can do, but this is an intervention, rather than a more substantive contribution.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for the work it did on this important issue. It has put these issues on the public record in a way that we do not have time for today, so our thanks go to the Committee.
Paragraph (c), on mortgage finance, is about the inability to move as one’s family or job situation changes. Normally, one would be able to sell and move somewhere nearer a new job or more suitable to one’s current family situation. Being unable to move causes further stress, even for those in flats with minimal risks. End Our Cladding Scandal estimates that last year there were around 1.2 million mortgage prisoners, and that figure will be growing. All this is largely due to the Government’s inept handling of the EWS1 survey process—an issue that is still not resolved, despite the grandiose claims from Ministers every three months when they want an easy headline.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I add my support for the new clause, for the reasons so well set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth.
I believe that there needs to be an assessment of the mental health impact for all leaseholders. My hon. Friend spoke about the impact of the financial bills that many leaseholders face. I would like to add some points from the leaseholders I have spoken to in my constituency about their fear of bankruptcy and the pressure that is placing on them, particularly those who would lose their professional title. I have spoken to a teacher and a social worker, who in their day jobs are dealing with young children who are already in temporary accommodation, or are supporting the needs of the Afghan refugees who have been placed in Luton.
Those constituents are working incredibly hard, in incredibly important jobs, but they are struggling because they are fearful that if they cannot meet the costs of the bills that they might have to face, they will lose their professional titles, not be able to pay those bills, be made homeless and then fall on to the responsibility of Luton Council, which we already know is incredibly pressured when it comes to providing housing. Our council house waiting lists are huge, with people living in temporary accommodation for many years. I did not need to watch the “Dispatches” programme on television last night—these emails come into my office inbox every day.
Finally, there are also wider mental health issues for those living together as partners and considering whether to start a family, when they are living in a home that is not safe and when they have concerns about when they will be able to remedy that, given the lack of action from the Government. The new clause on the need for a mental health impact report is therefore hugely important, and not only for the benefit of the leaseholders.
Mike Amesbury
Yesterday, Sarah Corker highlighted the case of a leaseholder in a flat who was finally going through remediation after waiting for years. The flat was wrapped in plastic and there was very little wraparound mental health support. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should be within the scope of an assessment?
Rachel Hopkins
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I agree that we need to look at everything in the round and bring it into scope to understand the longer-term impacts of unsafe cladding, and the lack or slow progress of remediation, particularly on leaseholders.
I really feel for those who cannot start a family because of those deep concerns, and the pressure they experience because, as time ticks on, it becomes more difficult. I want to add my support for leaseholders who are struggling in those situations by supporting this incredibly important new clause.
Daisy Cooper
I will speak briefly to add my support for the new clause. Colleagues have covered many issues, but my constituents in St Albans have told me that their mental health has deteriorated because they do not feel safe in their own homes. Some cannot sleep at night and others have had to move out, so that they are paying not only for the mortgage on their flat, but for rent. That creates financial worries, which in turn worsens their mental health. Some can afford to buy those properties only with the support of the bank of mum and dad, who are possibly retired and have put their savings or their pensions into buying the properties, so we have people living in fire traps who are concerned for the welfare of their ageing parents.
As colleagues have pointed out, there is a concern about those who want to start a family. Some do not feel able to start a family because they feel too stressed to go through that process in the home that they are in, the flat is not large enough or they cannot afford in vitro fertilisation, given the eye-watering bills for remediation.
The mental health impact goes way beyond the people who live in the properties. It starts with them, but it has ripple effects on their families and the people in the community who know that the properties are not safe. Nobody wants to live in a community where they might see something even half as bad as Grenfell. The crisis has enormous and wide-ranging mental health impacts and I fully support the new clause.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth for raising this important matter and to other Committee members for speaking honestly and eloquently on it.
The Government recognise—I certainly recognise—the difficult situation that many leaseholders have found or find themselves in, not least the financial implications and the emotional strain that it has placed on many people. We are aware of the research that has been conducted in the sector on the effects of building safety on leaseholders and their wider family and friends. The findings are sobering. They highlight the significant effect that building safety issues have on leaseholders and further demonstrate the importance of our work to improve building safety.
However, an important principle underpins access to mental health support: it must be based on clinical need. That must be right. It should be the right of everyone who needs that support to get it, without regard to any legislative or political pressure. If any individual, regardless of where they live, requires mental health support, they can contact their general practitioner to discuss those issues so that they may be referred to mental health services as appropriate. Information is available at GP surgeries and on the NHS website about how to access that. While I appreciate the points made by Committee members, we need to be careful, because the new clause cannot and, indeed, should not change the current approach to delivering these important services.
That is why, while I understand the motivation behind it, the Government cannot support the new clause, and why I will in due course ask the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth to withdraw it. It has implications not simply for building safety and my Department, but for how the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care provide such services.
Making homes safer will benefit leaseholders, and that is what we must be and are focused on. The Government are fully committed to making homes across our country safer, and that is why we are implementing the recommendations of the Judith Hackitt report. We also want people to be safe, and that is why we have since 2017 invested in more mental health nurses and services.
Throughout the work to reform building safety, the Government have regularly and extensively engaged with leaseholder groups. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor have done that extensively since the Grenfell disaster. We recognise and understand the effects on a leaseholder who lives or who has lived in an unsafe high-rise building. That is why the Government have taken a range of steps to support leaseholders.
Given the tone of the debate on the new clause, I will not reamplify and recapitulate the support that the Government have given, and will continue to give, to leaseholders. There may be some disagreement about that support, but there is common understanding of our intent.
Through the Bill, we have a common intent to bring through new stronger protections for leaseholders and residents, providing them with the assurance that their buildings and the risks are being effectively managed, and that they are well informed and are given the chance to participate in the decisions that affect their building’s safety. Where the performance of those responsible for building safety falls short, there will be a clear route to have concerns heard and dealt with, backed by the new Building Safety Regulator. The regulator will have the powers necessary to put things right and tackle underperformance, giving residents and owners peace of mind.
We do not believe that a Government review of the effect on mental health is an appropriate or practicable approach. The practical effect of such a report might well be to recommend that mental health service provision be made to all leaseholders and possibly the wider community.
Mike Amesbury
How will the Minister and the Department approach helping the 90% of leaseholders surveyed who are affected by anxiety and mental health issues? What co-ordination is there between the Department and, for example, the national health service or other appropriate services?
Christopher Pincher
The national health service has well-established means of providing services through both primary and secondary care to the people, based on need and at no cost to them at that point in time. That has been a well-established principle since 1948. GPs can signpost their patients to appropriate resources in the NHS to provide them with the services they need, as can services such as 111 or the Government website, which indicate how people with difficulties can use the NHS.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank the Minister for his response to new clause 11. I am not sure whether he truly understands the impact of the building safety crisis on people, or he does but has no intention of dealing with it. I fear sometimes that it is the former. Only yesterday, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Ministers were advocating shared ownership—a subset of leaseholders. They are advocating that more people get into this mess, rather than addressing the impact on those who are already in it.
My colleagues spoke about the impact of homelessness, which causes mental health stress. On that point, people never expected to be a burden on the state for their housing situation. People did the right thing and got on the housing ladder—an aspiration of over 90% of people in this country. They got a loan and are paying for their home. Sometimes they are paying less in mortgage payments than they were in rent. That was before the charges started going up, of course. When those people become homeless, they add to the numbers of those who are already homeless. That situation will only apply to those whom the council have a duty to house, such as those with school-age children or who are vulnerable in some way, adding to the pressures on councils and the taxpayer. Of course, it will also add to the pockets of many private landlords.
Homelessness has a mental health impact, but it also has other impacts. There is an educational impact on children, who have to move schools because the only home their family is given is miles away. Many have to give up their job because they have been moved so far away that they can no longer travel to work. The Minister said, very helpfully, that anybody suffering from mental health problems can make contact with their GP. Is he not aware of the pressure on GPs at the moment? When did he or a member of his family last get an appointment within two weeks, which is often the wait time?
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Lady seems to be conflating the timescale to the end of this difficult pandemic, the point at which the Bill will become law and when the report she asks for, if the new clause is accepted, will be made, and therefore the effect of the new clause on GPs. It is the case that GPs are under pressure. I am simply making clear the present process for people to access mental health services, which I think was the point that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale made to me.
Ruth Cadbury
The Minister was obviously not aware of the crisis in the primary care workforce before the health crisis; certainly, at our GP surgery, we were waiting more than two weeks for an appointment before March last year. The Government have known for years that there are too few GPs, and of course the pressure is getting even worse through covid. However, let us move on.
If one sees a GP because of a mental health concern and the GP accepts the seriousness of that concern, they will then have to do a referral. Waiting times for a clinical assessment, and beyond that, treatment, are growing all the time, and already were before covid struck.
Christopher Pincher
Will the hon. Lady explain how the making of a report will practically improve access to mental health services for the people who she quite properly says are affected by the building safety crisis?
Ruth Cadbury
First, it will acknowledge, in property law, that there is an impact on people of the lack of appropriate action by the Government. Secondly, when the Government actually accept the polluter pays principle, including builders and developers of existing homes, which is where the main concern is at the moment, they could recoup some of the costs from those builders and developers, which could contribute to additional mental health support. The importance of the new clause is to acknowledge that the building safety crisis is an awful lot more than a building safety crisis; it is a people crisis.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I want to understand this from a practical point of view, so could the hon. Lady clarify—I apologise if she has covered this; I am listening intently to what she says—who would draft these reports? More broadly, given the obviously untold scale mental health impact this crisis has had, what assessment has she made of the impact on existing services, from which we would have to take professionals out of stream to draft these reports? I am keen to understand that point.
Ruth Cadbury
If we were to push the new clause to a vote and it was accepted, the details of that are in there. This is not unique in legislation. It can be done and it can be enacted if the Government will is there. We are trying to establish whether the Government actually care about the people who are impacted by this crisis.
Mike Amesbury
When 90% of leaseholders surveyed by UK Cladding Action Group and End Our Cladding Scandal cite mental health and anxiety as a major concern, and when 25% have considered taking their own lives—suicidal thoughts—there is a big issue. It is nearly five years on from Grenfell. My hon. Friend, a good colleague, makes a powerful case for the new clause to be included in the landscape of the new building safety regime in this country.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend confirms the power of this issue. Finally, I will address the Minister’s point about the Building Safety Regulator. To be honest, the point of the regulator is not generally, as drafted, to be concerned about people. The Minister said that the regulator will engage with leaseholders, but engaging with a leaseholder does not actually make them feel better.
My other concern is the growing number. We talked about the UK Cladding Action Group survey. It will have surveyed people who are probably aware of the situation they are in, but we know that people are still buying flats in buildings and more and more people are becoming aware of these issues. I would not buy a flat in a leasehold block, particularly one with a term of less than 20 years, because I have been enmeshed in this issue as a representative MP since before Grenfell. I know what it is like, but too many people are not aware, and are continuing to buy, get mortgages, set up homes and settle down in buildings that they then find are affected. I met the son of a friend of mine a couple of months ago, and he asked, “Could you explain to me this EWS1 problem? I am not moving, but some of my neighbours want to sell, and they did not know anything about it.” I said, “Well, how long have you got?”
Daisy Cooper
A number of colleagues have asked what the practical effect of this clause might be. It seems to me that, as the hon. Lady has just said, there is a lack of understanding and information about the impact this situation has on those leaseholders who are caught up in it. We could imagine that, under subsection (3) of the new clause where it says,
“The review shall include recommendations”,
some of those recommendations could, for example, include mental health first aid training in the blocks of flats that are affected, particularly during times when those buildings will be wrapped in plastic. They could include providing information sheets about the impact on people’s lives that those who are affected could take to their GPs, their councillors or others, so a number of practical things could be recommended as a result of a review that could be conducted under this new clause.
Ruth Cadbury
The hon. Lady makes a useful suggestion. I feel conflicted when somebody tells me excitedly that they are moving, or that they have just bought, because what do I say? Do I say how pleased I am for them, or do I ask, “Have you thought about this? Did you know about this? Was your solicitor employed by the developer?” and so on. These issues will lead to the mental health problems of the future among people who now are very happy and excited.
I will not press this new clause to a vote, but I am concerned about the rising tide of mental health problems, particularly among leaseholders, but generally among all residents in these blocks. I do wonder how many suicides there have to be before the Government take this on as yet another aspect of the emergency. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 12
Assessment of the impact of building safety issues on access to insurance
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of building safety issues, including the provisions of this Act, on access to insurance.
(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) shall include assessment of the United Kingdom insurance market.
(3) The review must consider the impact of building safety issues, confidence in the building safety industry and the impact of advice given by his Department on building safety given since 14 July 2017 on—
(a) the availability and cost of insurance for residential blocks;
(b) the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance for workers in the building safety industry;
(c) requirements placed on buildings in order to access building insurance; and
(d) the wider insurance market.
(4) The review must make recommendation as to any further action needed by Government or the industry to improve access to affordable residential and professional insurance across the United Kingdom.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment of the impact of the building safety risks on the UK insurance market for residential buildings and professional indemnity insurance for those working in building safety.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Insurance costs are suffocating leaseholders up and down the country. I know that the Minister is keen for me to bring up casework during these sittings—indeed, the hon. Member for Bolton North East did so just last week—and it is a very relevant and appropriate piece of casework, so I make no apology for bringing it up. There is a development that is just outside my constituency, called The Decks. One part of the development is above 18 metres; the other part is below 18 metres, so one part is within the scope of the Building Safety Bill as it stands, and one is not.
The resident leaseholders in that development, regardless of whether they are in scope or out of scope, have faced a shocking rise in insurance premiums of 1,400% over the past two years. Their insurance rose from £34,000 in 2019, before the current problems with building safety were identified, to £254,000 in 2020. Despite the problems having been identified and work done with the local fire authority to put alarms in place to mitigate and reduce risk, the insurance then more than doubled yet again to £522,000 at the start of this year. Risk reduced, but premiums yet again going up—a situation mirrored the length and breadth of this country. That is just one case out of nine that I looked at in research published in The Sunday Telegraph this week, which provides a rough snapshot of the costs involved when leaseholders are hit by rocketing, sky-high, scandalous insurance premiums.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for again raising this important matter. I appreciate the issue that the new clause seeks to tackle: the challenge of freeholders and leaseholders of some residential buildings, in particular those that need remediation, who are struggling to obtain affordable buildings insurance; and the challenge faced by some construction professionals —the fire-safety professionals in particular—in obtaining affordable professional indemnity insurance.
As the hon. Gentleman said, engaging with the insurance sector and other relevant stakeholders—which the Government are doing on an ongoing basis—is vital to understanding the effects of building safety issues on insurance provision. We want—he has heard me say it before, and in no way do I apologise for saying it again— insurers to take a more proportionate approach in terms of the availability and cost of insurance, just as much as we want lenders to take a more proportionate approach with respect to mortgage lending.
The intention of the hon. Gentleman’s new clause—to improve access to affordable residential professional indemnity insurance—we believe should be met by other provisions in the Bill. Efforts to remediate existing buildings, as he knows, are supported by the building safety fund and other measures that we will bring forward shortly. A combination of those measures and this Bill ought to ensure that buildings are safer. Therefore, both professionals and residents should be able to access more affordable insurance. He will also know that Lord Greenhalgh and others have worked closely with the insurance sector to ensure that appropriate professional indemnity insurance in extremis is available to professionals so that they may carry out their duties.
Mike Amesbury
The evidence is crystal clear. Despite interventions by Lord Greenhalgh—just mentioned—premiums are still going up, regardless of whether a building is 11 to 18 metres or 18 metres-plus, which is in scope. Again, I urge the Government to accept the new clause and to add the amendment to the Bill.
Christopher Pincher
I understand where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, but I was going to say that the Government have of course spent £700,000 to ensure that more fire risk assessors are available to undertake risk assessments to evaluate the challenges to building safety, thereby also contributing to a more proportionate risk and lending regime.
The hon. Gentleman said that this was straightforward. On one level it is, but on another it is not, by which I mean that is hard to disentangle the effect of building safety issues on the availability and cost of insurance from other issues and where other market trends apply. For example, heavy rains or flooding can also have an effect on market trends, lending, and risk assurance availability and its price.
In conclusion—this is important—following Royal Assent to the Bill, and indeed before it, we will continue to monitor closely the provision of insurance and we will work with stakeholders, including freeholders and leaseholders, to encourage a much more proportionate approach for insuring, for pricing insurance, and for ensuring and delivering its availability.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the Minister for giving way again. He is generous with his time. To help focus minds in the insurance sector, will the Government consider a referral to the Competition and Markets Authority? For the life of me, I cannot understand how, when risks are reduced in some buildings up and down the country, we are seeing this pattern emerge of increases of 1,000%—
Building Safety Bill (Sixteenth sitting)
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
I remind the Committee that the House has asked Members and staff to take a covid lateral flow test twice a week if they are coming on to the parliamentary estate. Tests can be done at the testing centre or at home.
With the parish notices over, we will continue with new clause 12. The Minister was in the middle of his speech when we adjourned, so I invite him to complete his remarks.
New Clause 12
Assessment of the impact of building safety issues on access to insurance
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of building safety issues, including the provisions of this Act, on access to insurance.
(2) The review as set out in subsection (1) shall include assessment of the United Kingdom insurance market.
(3) The review must consider the impact of building safety issues, confidence in the building safety industry and the impact of advice given by his Department on building safety given since 14 July 2017 on—
(a) the availability and cost of insurance for residential blocks;
(b) the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance for workers in the building safety industry;
(c) requirements placed on buildings in order to access building insurance; and
(d) the wider insurance market.
(4) The review must make recommendation as to any further action needed by Government or the industry to improve access to affordable residential and professional insurance across the United Kingdom.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would ensure the Government publish an assessment of the impact of the building safety risks on the UK insurance market for residential buildings and professional indemnity insurance for those working in building safety.
Brought up, and read the First time, and Question proposed (this day), That the clause be read a Second time.
Question again proposed.
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I was concluding my remarks in response to a comment from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, who had asked about interventions that the Government may consider to ensure that the insurance industry is proportionate and fair in its pricing and its availability. He asked about the Competition and Markets Authority, and while I would not want to bind the hands of Her Majesty’s Government on one particular intervention, it is certainly the case that nothing is off the table as we try to ensure that the insurance sector lives up to its responsibilities to deliver a fair and proportionate insurance-based set of products to its customers.
In concluding my contribution to the debate, the Government believe that a one-off review, as proposed under new clause 12, is not necessary or proportionate, and may well add inflexibility to the Government’s response, which needs to be swift and flexible. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to welcome you to your place, Mrs Miller, for the final time on this Committee’s journey. I will withdraw the new clause, noting that we have the opportunity for more conversations on this matter on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 13
Assessment of the impact of Act on access to mortgage finance
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must carry out a review of the impact of the provisions of this Act on access to mortgage finance for leaseholders.
(2) The review shall be laid before each House of Parliament.
(3) The review must consider the impact of building safety issues, confidence in the building safety industry and the impact of Government advice on building safety given since 14 July 2017 on—
(a) the availability and cost of mortgages and related financial services for leaseholders in the UK;
(b) difficulties accessing mortgage finance on the wellbeing of leaseholders; and
(c) the impact on the housing and housing finance markets.
(4) The review must recommend what industry changes and Government action are necessary to improve accessibility to mortgage finance for leaseholders.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would ensure that the Government publish an assessment considering the impact of the building safety crisis on leaseholder access to mortgage finance and its impact on the wider housing market.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 13 would ensure that the Government look into the impact on access to mortgage finance and make recommendations to Parliament on policy changes. Some estimates of the number of properties affected by this scandal put it at 1.3 million flats, and some indications suggest a cooling effect on the market for flats—up to 60% compared with three years ago.
Over the weekend, the Bank of England announced that it is looking into the potential impact on mortgage providers and their ability to cope with the crisis should leaseholders be unable to keep up their mortgage payments—something leaseholders across the country have told me they are increasingly worried about given the costs pushed on to their shoulders by the crisis. It is therefore vital that the Government and the Minister seek to properly understand the impact of allowing the current situation to continue, in terms of both the effect on the overall property market and the devastating consequences for individual leaseholders. The Minister will point to the Government’s interventions—several interventions now—that announced the unlocking of the market by trying to create restrictions on which buildings need EWS1 forms and require remediation. The evidence suggests that those announcements have not worked.
It is clear that the market is still making its own decisions, with the media reporting only weeks ago that several of the UK’s largest mortgage lenders still require some buildings under 18 metres to obtain the EWS1 surveys. Some lenders have previously stated that they are waiting for the Government to withdraw advice note 14—something that the former Secretary of State promised would be coming within weeks at the start of last month, alongside everything that the Government need to do. However, it has not arrived.
The impact of the market impasse on the lives of individual leaseholders can be huge. Without being able to move, leaseholders are putting off having families, as has been documented throughout the passage of the Bill so far. Some are forced to sell their property at a discount to predatory cash buyers, and some even declare bankruptcy. Thanks to the slow roll-out of the building safety fund and the fact that the Government have still not announced the details of the loan scheme, more than eight months after it was first announced, leaseholders are trapped worrying that they will be left paying remediation costs—many are getting the bills as we speak.
The new Secretary of State has said he will look afresh at the situation, to ensure that the Department is doing everything it can to support leaseholders. I urge Ministers to accept the new clause, so that a full review can be carried out on what decisive Government action must be taken to fix this mess.
Christopher Pincher
To respond to something that the hon. Gentleman said earlier—that we might return to some matters in the future—the future, like the past, is another country. We will see what the Report stage has to offer us.
I can assure the Committee that the Government are working with industry to unlock the mortgage market for those in leasehold flats, to ensure that lenders act in a proportionate and sensible way. We are conscious that there are flat owners who cannot sell their properties and who remain stuck in them because of the excessive industry caution. Such people should not feel that they are living in homes that are unsafe.
To assess the effect of EWS1 on the market, we have secured an agreement from banks and building societies to publish aggregate lender EWS1 data, so that homeowners can see how the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ EWS1 guidance is being applied and the effect of the process on mortgage applications, and we will continue to challenge industry on the inappropriate use of EWS1 forms. We have seen the expert advice that we received earlier this year from Dame Judith Hackitt and Ken Knight, who said that the use of EWS1 forms has got out of proportion. The degree of risk aversion is out of proportion, and it needs to be brought back into proportion—for example, EWS1 forms should not be used for buildings beneath 18 metres in height.
That advice has been accepted by a number of lenders to whom we have spoken, but to support the sector as we transition into a new regime, we have commissioned the British Standards Institute to produce a publicly available specification, the PAS 9980, which is a code of practice for professionals undertaking external wall assessments. That will provide a standard for professionals to follow, encouraging a consistency in approach that we have not seen to date. When it is published by the BSI, it will set out a methodology for professionals to follow and explain when a detailed assessment of an external wall is necessary. That code of practice will set out a methodology for professionals to follow, enabling us to withdraw the consolidated advice note to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The flexibility that we want is in line with our overall message on proportionality and the work that we are doing to ensure that more proportionate assessments of the external wall are carried out.
The Committee is well aware of the funds that the Government have allocated to high-rise buildings above 18 metres, and of the support that we are proposing to provide for buildings below 18 metres and above 11 metres, on which more detail will follow. Support will also be provided as a result of the Bill’s passage. We are considering how residents’ voices can be further strengthened in the remediation process. I will perhaps be able to say more about that at a later date, but we are minded to increase the voice of residents.
The Government also recognise and understand that construction professionals are struggling to obtain adequate professional indemnity insurance. We will continue to encourage the market to provide greater availability of adequate PII, and we will also make sure that our in extremis backstop measures are in place.
In view of the measures that we have already undertaken to encourage a more proportionate approach by industry, and the Government funding that we have made available so that residents and leaseholders have the peace of mind that they desire, I trust that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale will recognise that the new clause is unnecessary and that he will withdraw it.
Mike Amesbury
Although we will withdraw the new clause, we may come back to this issue on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 14
Agency to manage building safety works and funding
“(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must create an agency referred to as the Building Works Agency.
(2) The purpose of the Building Works Agency shall be to administer a programme of cladding remediation and other building safety works, including—
(a) overseeing an audit of cladding, insulation and other building safety issues in buildings over two storeys;
(b) prioritising audited buildings for remediation based on risk;
(c) determining the granting or refusal of grant funding for cladding remediation work;
(d) monitoring progress of remediation work and enforce remediation work where appropriate;
(e) determining buildings to be safe once remediation work has been completed;
(f) seeking to recover costs of remediation where appropriate from responsible parties: and
(g) providing support, information and advice for owners of buildings during the remediation process.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would create a new body set up to oversee a programme of cladding remediation, including assessing the need for remediation, overseeing the process of remediation, managing funding of remediation and recouping costs where possible from appropriate parties.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
We have had the same strategy for at least 35 years. The Government’s laissez-faire approach simply picked at the edges of a scandal threatening to engulf the whole housing market, mimicking the deregulation and the lack of accountability that caused the scandal in the first place, and leaving leaseholders caught up in a perfect storm. The individuals least able to bear the costs are not responsible for those mistakes.
We have tabled a lot of amendments and new clauses because although in many ways the Bill represents a step forward—at last—we want to highlight the large areas of this ongoing scandal that are not covered and will not be fixed by the Bill. It is clear, from looking at the amendment paper and considering all the aspects of the crisis that we are trying to address, that what is really wrong with the Government’s approach is that there is no central plan. By tabling the new clause, we repeat our call for the Government to act across the piece to solve the crisis, to put in place a building works agency, and to do what should have been done in 2017. We need a more interventionist, hands-on approach.
We propose a team of experts to do what the Government have not done: to go from building to building to assess real risk and decide what needs to be fixed and in what order, use the building safety fund to get those buildings fixed, and oversee the work. Crucially, the Government could then sign off the buildings as safe and sellable, bringing certainty back to the market.
Finally, the Government could then take on those who are responsible for creating the crisis and who need to pay. That approach was put in place by a cross-party group of politicians and experts in Victoria, Australia, after the fire in Australia and, later, at Grenfell Tower. It requires our Ministers and the new Secretary of State to be prepared to step up, look afresh, as the new Secretary of State said, and lead from the front, rather than rely on a broken market and leaseholders on the precipice of bankruptcy. I hope that the Minister can accept the new clause. It will not be the last time that a variation of it is brought before the House.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a good to see you in the Chair again, Mrs Miller, on our final day of deliberations. I agree with the sentiments behind new clause 14, and what the hon. Member for Weaver Vale said about ensuring that, going forward, we do not face such issues. He mentioned the example of Victoria in Australia, which we have heard about a lot today. We have to be mindful that in the state of Victoria the number of properties that would fit within the category that we are talking about is 2,000, while in England it is 100,000. Although I see what he is saying, we cannot use the Victoria example as a direct crossover.
We also have to look at the structures in which the current remediation programme sits, because ultimately the new clause will effectively centralise the programme through the establishment of a building works agency and the prevention method. I agree with the sentiment: in the longer term, we will need to have a prevention mindset, as was touched on in the deliberations on previous clauses in this important Bill. However, we need to be mindful of the process in which remediation already sits. Clearly, enforcement is being done by local authorities at present.
Members from across the Committee have been very insistent, and we have had a lot of cross-party support—particularly from myself and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby—when we have said that local authorities need to have the funding to follow through. I know what the hon. Member for Weaver Vale is trying to do with the new clause, which is effectively to say that, if we centralise it with a building works agency that not only deals with remediation but goes further to prevent the problem before it happens, we streamline the process. I can see the logic, but my concern is that we might end up, as an unintended consequence—we have talked a lot about unintended consequences in our deliberations—detract from the work that is already being done.
The new clause could come in within six months of the day on which the Bill is passed, but I am conscious that work is already happening to remediate ACM cladding in particular, which is obviously at the heart of this. My understanding from research is that 95% of the cladding either has already been remediated or is in the process of being remediated. As I said, from a philosophical point of view I am relatively comfortable, but we also have to be mindful of this measure being able to be utilised operationally. My concern is that we have a scheme in place at the moment that is not perfect and needs scrutiny but is working in its aim around remediation.
A big concern that the new clause attempts to address is the lag within that. Perhaps that is something that we need to be mindful of. It could be argued that centralisation, which is what the new clause seeks, could streamline the process, but we also have to be mindful of the reality that there will always be a delay between application and a decision on works and funding coming through. That is a practical reality. I do not know whether a new building works agency would completely eliminate that. That would concern me as well. We have got a process in place already, but does it really achieve the aims?
The Building Safety Regulator has been established. When we build new regulatory landscapes, we do not want to make them inaccessible and convoluted by bringing so many different players to the table.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mrs Miller, to serve under your chairship. I thank the hon. Gentleman for letting me intervene. He talks about this being “convoluted”, but we talked last week about a diagram to help the leaseholder understand where to go for help. Would not a single agency or body with oversight of funds, grants and levies, that controls the various streams of money and approves the schemes once completed, make it easier for the leaseholder to tap into what is there and have an innate understanding of what they can actually do? At the moment, as he rightly says, there are many agencies, and the aim of the new clause is to bring them all under one body.
Shaun Bailey
The hon. Member makes an interesting point. On the face of it, we could say that the new clause streamlines the approach, but I still have a concern. For example, why could the agency not sit within the BSR or within the new regulator that we have just established? Why do we need to establish another one? I get his broader point—
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
Unless I have missed something, these are two entirely separate proposals for two entirely separate bodies that have two completely different functions. The Building Safety Regulator is there to regulate. The building safety works agency would oversee the remediation works. One regulates and one does the actual building work. They are two separate bodies. There is no confusion at all. A further amendment could put the building safety works agency within the regulator, but there is no need for that. They are two completely different bodies with two completely different remits.
Shaun Bailey
I can certainly see the hon. Lady’s point, but my point is: why do we need to bring so many actors to the table? We are trying to build a system that is accessible. I get what she says, but we both know that for vulnerable leaseholders, things might not seem straightforward. When someone is in distress and difficulty, they will not know the difference between the building works agency and the BSR. I can show her that from my casework.
Daisy Cooper
I think it became incredibly clear in our evidence sessions that there are many innocent leaseholders who have effectively become lawyers. They understand the legislation in great detail, and it is hugely disappointing that the hon. Gentleman thinks that many of these innocent leaseholders would not be able to understand the difference between two different bodies when they themselves have effectively become experts on the legislation. As I say, they are two different bodies. Leaseholders themselves are calling for a programme of find, fix and fund, and the building works agency would be there to do the fixing.
Shaun Bailey
We did see that, and I certainly do not want to undermine the work that individual leaseholders have done to get a grasp of the system. That is not what I am trying to say. I want to see a system that is as easy as possible to navigate. Yes, we have seen those examples and I completely get that, but I could equally refer to individuals in states of absolute emotional distress who would have to deal with this system, as we have touched on under previous new clauses.
Mike Amesbury
We have the Building Safety Regulator, as the hon. Member rightly pointed out, centralising what works in co-operation with the other stakeholders, including local fire services and local authorities, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby advocated for. We also have the building safety fund. However, there sometimes seems to be a black hole in things. Things disappear and drift, and there is dither and delay. The new clause is about turbocharging the process, providing that leadership and drive that not only leaseholder residents require, but us collectively as legislators of the nation require to deal with this scandal.
Shaun Bailey
I think that we agree with the idea of turbocharging and streamlining the process, but where we disagree is on how we go about doing that. I question whether a building works agency in the form prescribed in the new clause would do that. My other slight concern is that we are already part way through a process of remediation. I want to see that process improved in the ambits in which it already sits. That is the point that I am trying to hammer home.
My concern is about the practical application. The hon. Member for St Albans rightly said, and I do not disagree with her, that many people have had to learn to navigate these difficult systems. On the flip slide, there will be many people who are totally lost and because of the circumstances they find themselves in, they may not be able to navigate these systems in the same way—notwithstanding her point, which I totally take on board; she is right.
To reiterate, I do not disagree with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale and other hon. Members who have intervened. We do need a system that is accessible to those who have been most affected. My concern is about the practical application of new clause 14 and how it would work. I am conscious that we are already going through a process of remediation. The focus should be on ensuring that my right hon. Friend the Minister gets it absolutely right in the first instance.
Mike Amesbury
This is an emergency and an urgent crisis. We have a new Secretary of State, so we can look afresh at the matter. We have looked across the water at something that works. I know that Ministers, shadow Ministers and other stakeholders have spoken to governments in Victoria and New South Wales, looking at what has worked and sharing notes to take things forward. This is a crisis, so I would hope that the new Secretary of State can work with all stakeholders and politely bash heads together at almost a building safety summit. I hope that the matter will be looked at seriously to drive the process forward.
Shaun Bailey
The hon. Gentleman is right in what he says about moving things forward in the longer term, which is how I took it. It is incumbent on me and him to get the new Secretary of State to ensure that this works in the way that those who have been affected would expect. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister is waiting with bated breath for the representations that I will make to him to ensure that this works.
The hon. Gentleman has drawn on the example of the Australian state of Victoria and the conversations that have taken place. Of course, it is important that we look at international examples when we are deliberating the best way to solve this problem—he is right to label it as a crisis, because it is a crisis. I have already articulated this point, but my concern about drawing direct parallels with Victoria is the quantity and scale involved. As I said in my opening remarks, there are 2,000 properties in Victoria that fit the criteria and would fall within new clause 14, as opposed to 100,000 in England alone. My concern is about how we ensure that this system is practically operational, but I do not disagree with the philosophical sentiment behind new clause 14: the idea of streamlining the process, of having a culture in the longer term that is about prevention, and ensuring that those individuals who need to access the system can do so.
The Chair
I think the hon. Member for West Bromwich West can continue, and then when we come to the vote, I will note that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale wishes to withdraw the clause. Mr Bailey, do you want to finish your remarks?
Shaun Bailey
In light of the hon. Gentleman’s decision to withdraw the clause, I will conclude my speech. I would just like to get it on the record that I am very grateful for his intervention, and to all Members who have intervened. I do not disagree with the sentiment they have expressed: it is incumbent on all of us to work together to put pressure on Government to ensure that the Bill develops a system that works and looks after the most vulnerable.
Christopher Pincher
I will be brief. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West: I do not think I have ever before seen the official Opposition withdraw an amendment at the behest of a Back-Bench Member. They usually wait until the Minister has spoken. That has put me in my place, if nothing else. [Laughter.]
I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for withdrawing his new clause. I understand what he is attempting to achieve by it; I think I am right in saying that it was a manifesto commitment that the official Opposition made, and perhaps at the time it was a sensible and appropriate thing to do. However—it is sad to recall—that general election was nearly two years ago, and things have moved on.
A well-established remediation programme is already in place, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West has mentioned: some 97% of buildings clad in ACM have either been remediated or are being remediated, and we believe that all ACM-clad buildings in scope have now been identified. As a result of the joint inspection team that we developed, which works with local authorities and housing associations to identify buildings with unsafe cladding that are in scope, that work is now over 80% complete, so it is hard to see how the time, effort and expense of setting up a new body to do that work would be well used.
I welcome the interest of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale in this matter. He raised the issue of Victoria, where—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West has said—there are something like 2,000 buildings above three storeys. In England, we have something like 100,000 buildings above three storeys, and the hon. Member for Weaver Vale’s new clause calls for an assessment of buildings over two storeys, so we are talking about a very significant extra degree of effort that would take time, expertise and expense that would be better served pursuing the mechanism that we are presently utilising.
However, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I do not propose to spend any more of the Committee’s time debating this point, because I appreciate that we may vote very soon. I am sure we will come back to this point in future. Yes, we must knock some heads together and move rapidly to ensure that remediation is done as expeditiously as possible.
The Chair
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale has already indicated that he wishes to withdraw the new clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 15
Waking watch
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out and publish a review of the impact of the advice of his department since June 2017 on—
(a) the implementation of 24 hour ‘waking watch’ fire patrols and other interim fire safety measures in residential buildings in England awaiting fire safety works;
(b) costs arising from waking watches and other fire safety measures on leaseholders; and
(c) building insurance premiums and safety requirements of building insurance;
(2) The review must include an assessment of the effectiveness of waking watch as an interim fire safety measures, and a comparison with other measures must be included.
(3) The review must recommend industry changes and Government action necessary to reduce reliance on waking watch and interim fire safety costs for leaseholders.”—(Ruth Cadbury.)
This new clause would ensure the Government undertake a review of waking watch policies.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. New clause 15, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and others, addresses waking watch. It says that within a year, the Secretary of State must
“carry out and publish a review of the impact of the advice of his department since”
the Grenfell fire on
“the implementation of 24 hour ‘waking watch’ fire patrols and other interim fire safety measures in residential buildings in England…costs arising from waking watches…building insurance premiums and safety requirements of building insurance”,
and the cost of other interim fire safety measures. Subsection (2) would require
“an assessment of the effectiveness of waking watch as an interim fire safety measures, and a comparison with other measures”.
Subsection (3) would require the review to
“recommend industry changes and Government action necessary to reduce reliance on waking watch and interim fire safety costs”
that leaseholders face.
After the Grenfell Tower fire, waking watches were one of the solutions—one then thought of as temporary—to the cladding and fire safety crisis in residential buildings. All involved assumed that the crisis would pass as either buildings were deemed safe or remediation works rendered them safe before too long. Sadly, more than four years on, too many residential buildings constructed in the last 20 years and awaiting remediation are still deemed by fire safety experts to be so unsafe that they require waking watch services—a 24-hour building patrol of at least two people, and more for larger buildings.
I will deal first with the other fire safety measures implied in the new clause. Subsection (1)(b) and (c) crucially focus on the costs that many leaseholders have faced because of waking watch programmes and others, along with the impact of insurance premiums, while awaiting a permanent solution to a building’s fire safety risk. As we have heard many times before, insurance is one among a mounting series of costs hitting leaseholders. Research in The Sunday Telegraph recently showed that insurance premiums have increased by up to 1,200%. For one of my constituents, the cost has risen from £234 a year to £1,734.
I will now address waking watches. One of my constituents, a leaseholder in a flat in Hounslow, wrote to me about their experience and that of their neighbours. They live in a small block of 25 flats, half of which are for social rent. The block is being charged £48,000 per calendar month plus VAT. My constituent described the £48,000-a-month service as “three men” who
“sit in a cleaning cupboard in the lobby and periodically patrol the small corridors connecting the flats and the stairwell to check for fires.”
We have heard many serious concerns raised about the quality and standards of waking watches in our postbags. A report in The Times found that staff had joked about running out of Netflix programmes to watch, and a report by Which? in 2020 found similar concerns about staff even sleeping when they were on site. In my constituency, when flammable cladding went up—cladding that was awaiting removal—the waking watch in the adjacent block did nothing. Residents called the emergency services, not the waking watch service being paid to do so.
However, this is not about individual staff members; rather, it is about the wider system. Are there basic standards for waking watch contracts in residential buildings, or numbers of personnel per floor or per 10 flats? Are there stated skill levels, a job description or on-the-job reporting? For instance, anyone using a toilet in a restaurant, or even in the Palace of Westminster, will know when it was last cleaned and what to do if they feel that it does not reach a specific health and safety standard. Do leaseholders have an equivalent assurance as to the safe operation of the waking watch in their blocks, which is somewhat more serious than the cleanliness of a toilet? Certainly, they do not feel safe, based on our postbags.
Is waking watch really an interim measure? For my constituents in one block, a new management company came in and slightly reduced the price of the waking watch. A new fire alarm was fitted, which they were told would get rid of the requirement for waking watch, but—such luck—new guidance issued by the Government meant that the waking watch had to remain, so they continue to pay for it. There is nothing to help people in this situation. It is a rather fitting epitaph for the Government’s approach not only to the cost of waking watch but to the fire and building safety crisis. As my constituent said,
“nothing has changed in terms of leaseholders incurring a monthly expense. The announcement last year of a £30 million Waking Watch Fund (which has yet to pay any money out) will do nothing to help people in this situation.”
Some buildings with a waking watch will soon be re-clad or their fire safety defects otherwise remediated; the owners will have done the right thing, or their building safety fund application will have been successful. However, sadly, too many buildings will continue to require a waking watch for the foreseeable future for a number of reasons, which in my constituency alone include: ineligibility for the building safety fund, as the fire risk is not one of inflammable cladding; the building being below 18 metres; or the owner or head lessee being in dispute with the builder over where the responsibility lies. If the owner or the head lessee is a housing association and some flats are for social rent, for which the building safety fund is not to be used, the housing association will have to fund the remediation from its precious capital fund, which is allocated to build new social rent housing, not to make good faults for which that housing association is not responsible, particularly when the block was built by a volume housebuilder and the housing association took over as part of a section 106 agreement. Finally, the other reason why waking watch may continue and safety defects go unrectified is if there is a disagreement between safety professionals as to the actual level of fire risk.
The specifics of each waking watch vary, but generally people are employed to monitor buildings, both internally and externally, for fire and to alert residents in the blocks should there be a fire—that is the theory anyway. A report by the National Fire Chiefs Council said that waking watches alone are
“impracticable for a long-term solution”,
yet they have become widespread and long-term. In London alone, nearly 600 buildings require a waking watch, and there are an estimated 1,000 buildings nationally. These waking watch services have to be funded somehow. The Minister will no doubt refer to the £30 million funding pot that is largely being spent on new alarms, but many reports have pointed out that that funding will not end the need for waking watches, as I pointed out.
I spoke this morning about the toll of the building safety crisis on the mental health of leaseholders. I know from listening to those in my constituency that widespread use of waking watch patrols only adds to their anxiety, on top of the rising bills. One constituent told me how hearing the footsteps is a constant reminder of the risk that so many leaseholders face. I urge the Government to consider the review that the new clause seeks and to provide real answers to the many thousands of leaseholders who hear those footsteps.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this important point. I am aware that the use of waking watches, especially those put in place by building owners since Grenfell, is causing concern to residents. It is vital that they are used appropriately and only in the most limited circumstances. I hope that the hon. Lady will feel able to withdraw her amendment, although I understand the motivations behind it.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank the Minister for his considered response to new clause 15. He said that the review our amendment seeks provides no practical use to leaseholders. I would suggest that having a review and putting it on the public record would be very valuable, because it might expose some of the issues.
Christopher Pincher
I sat down a little prematurely. What I might have said is that, as the hon. Lady will know, the House of Commons has many and varied methods to bring Ministers to the Dispatch Box to address questions or answer debates. I think she will find a way for her voice and the voice of leaseholders to be heard in this matter if she thinks it appropriate.
Ruth Cadbury
I hear the Minister’s point. A review being incorporated into legislation would have a little bit more weight, particularly with a response being drafted by the Government, rather than through MPs bringing anecdotal evidence as part of their casework.
The Minister said that the waking watch mitigation is only there while the removal of unsafe cladding and the installation of fire alarms is awaited. As I have explained—he would know this if such a review was to take to place—the taking of those actions has not stopped waking watch being considered essential by the fire safety professionals employed by building owners and managers.
In the spirit of collaboration and collegiality, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 16
Monthly building safety updates
“(1) The Secretary of State must within three months of the day on which this Act passes and monthly thereafter lay before each House of Parliament a report on the progress of cladding remediation.
(2) The report must include an overview of—
(a) the progress of the remediation of non-ACM cladding;
(b) the remediation progress of—
(i) social residential buildings,
(ii) private sector residential buildings,
(iii) student accommodation,
(iv) hotels,
(v) hospitals,
(vi) care homes, and
(vii) publicly owned buildings identified has having in need of remediation due to unsafe cladding of any height,
(c) data collected from fire authorities, including—
(i) the numbers of waking watches,
(ii) other interim safety measures, and
(iii) fire alarms installed in residential buildings awaiting remediation or other building safety work.
(d) estimated dwelling numbers in all estimates.
(3) The report as set out in subsection (1) shall include—
(a) regional breakdowns of all data points;
(b) identify whether remediation has been funded through government funding, developer or freeholder funding, through warrantee or by other means; and
(c) detail what proportion of government funding has been allocated and paid out in the period since the last report was published.
(4) The report will no longer have to be published when all buildings identified as having cladding in need of remediation have completed remediation.”.—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would ensure the Government provide regular written updates on the progress of the remediation programme of non-ACM cladding in line with what is currently published on ACM cladding.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause takes its lead from the Government’s statistics on ACM remediation. The most recent release, the September 2021 “Building Safety Programme: monthly data release”, covers 34 pages and breaks down in detail the types of building with ACM and the progress made in removing and replacing the dangerous cladding over time. It also covers the allocation of funding and gives an update on enforcement proceedings against owners of buildings yet to make their buildings safe. It is a detailed look at what progress is being made to tackle the ACM safety crisis.
We are not getting the same amount of information about non-ACM buildings. Instead, we receive an update covering the funding status of the 3,175 buildings that applied for the building safety fund. Although we are grateful that the Department is now releasing more information than previously on non-ACM funding, there is much more to be done to ensure that the Government’s progress in fixing the crisis is as transparent as possible without risking the security of individual buildings.
The new clause suggests one additional point to be included in a non-ACM monthly report, which could also be included in the ACM monthly report—information collected from local fire authorities outlining the interim safety measures that have been put in place. As we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth, waking watch and other interim safety costs are playing a large part in pushing leaseholders to the brink. It is important that they are included in released information on our progress fighting this crisis.
I would be grateful if the Minister could outline why there is a difference in the data release for ACM and non-ACM remediation funding and progress. Does he agree that transparency and being able to track the progress of remediation, as well as the safety measures involved, are necessary to build back trust in the system and in the Government’s interventions? If so, I hope that the Minister can accept the new clause.
Christopher Pincher
I hope that in responding relatively briefly to this new clause I can help the hon. Gentleman. I think that the new clause is unnecessary, and I want to assure him and the Committee that his intention has already been met by the Government, and will continue to be met.
In addition to the data released showing progress on ACM remediation, we also separately publish monthly data related to the progress of the building safety fund, covering remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding, as well as monthly data on the waking watch relief fund. We will continually review the information we hold on cladding remediation and publish all appropriate information when it is ready, which involves undertaking necessary quality assurance. As we have done with the ACM database, we will expand the amount of data and analysis on remediation progress for buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding when the data is available and once it has been appropriately quality assured.
The hon. Gentleman asks if we will do more; the answer is yes, but we will do it when we are able to provide quality data, properly quality assured. For example, further analysis is being undertaken related to the building safety fund, the data collection on the external wall systems on high-rise residential buildings and the material that is in use on residential buildings between 11 and 18 metres. Data on these areas will be published in due course, adding to what we already publish monthly.
The Committee has acknowledged that the data published on the progress of ACM remediation is high quality, full and transparent. We look forward to being able to do the same with non-ACM remediation and waking watch relief fund data as they are available. Given that explanation, I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his new clause; we intend to deliver just what he is looking for.
Mike Amesbury
I welcome the Minister’s commitment to expand the data that will be available in the public domain when it is quality assured. However, as a point of clarity: when is due course?
Mike Amesbury
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 17
Presumption of allowing urgent building safety remediation work
“(1) If a leaseholder or tenant has identified urgent building safety work needed to the property they occupy they should notify the freehold owner in writing.
(2) Should the freehold owner not reply to the written notification under subsection (1) within 90 days of receiving it there should be a presumption in favour of allowing the work to proceed.
(3) It is the freehold owner’s responsibility to ensure that all leaseholders and tenants have the correct details to provide them with a written notification as set out in subsection (1).
(4) The Secretary of State may issue guidance on the application of this section.
(5) A court considering a matter relating to this section must have regard to any guidance issued under subsection (4).” —(Daisy Cooper.)
This new clause would introduce the presumption of consent for leaseholders to carry out urgent building safety work, where absent freeholders cannot be contacted, or refuse to respond.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Daisy Cooper
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I spoke too soon early in proceedings; I thought I had finished all my new clauses for the day, but I forget about new clause 17. This new clause would introduce the presumption of consent for leaseholders to carry out urgent building safety work where absent freeholders cannot be contacted, or refuse to respond. I have moved this new clause following the evidence from the National Housing Federation, which spoke in detail about the challenges its members had faced when dealing with absent or offshore freeholders. Kate Henderson said in evidence to this Committee:
“We can have buildings that are owned by freeholders that are shell companies, and sometimes those companies then demise the internal parts of the building to a long-term leaseholder…Our members have told us that it can be really difficult to engage with the freeholder in this sort of set-up, especially when they need to do things such as assess external wall materials or identify what needs to be remediated.”––[Official Report, Building Safety Public Bill Committee, 9 September 2021; c. 48, Q46.]
This new clause seeks to give the Government an opportunity to fix that specific problem.
There is, of course, a precedent for the concept of a presumption of consent, because the Government introduced it in their own legislation on broadband earlier in the parliamentary session. When I put that to the National Housing Federation during our evidence session, Members may recall that the NHF said there were concerns that the legislation to enable residents to get fast broadband into their homes could cause fire safety defects if the people installing the broadband inadvertently went through firebreaks. I recognise that my proposal is not without problems, but given that leaseholders have been given a presumption of consent in order to get faster broadband put into their buildings—whether or not that might cause problems with firebreaks—if those buildings face fire safety problems, one can see why a presumption of consent might be a good thing.
At an earlier point in proceedings, the Minister and I had an exchange about this new clause, and I believe he raised the question of unintended consequences from that presumption. I hope he may be willing to expand on his concerns and provide assurances that he is aware that this is a challenge for social housing providers, and that the Government will look to address it either through this new clause or in an amendment of their own.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged again to the hon. Lady for raising this matter, which we recognise is an important one. She asked me to expand on the concerns that I raised about the applicability of the new clause, as opposed to the motivation behind it. We have three concerns, essentially, but I hope that she will be further reassured as I explain what we are doing to ensure that tenants and leaseholders are protected.
My first concern is that the new clause does not make it clear what type of work constitutes urgent building safety work, how that would be funded or the rationale regarding the introduction of a 90-day notice period. That lack of clarity presents opportunities for all sorts of legal interpretation that might see the proposal and the wording challenged in the courts.
My second concern is that tenants would have to wait at least 90 days before beginning remediation. I know that the hon. Lady will say to me that a lot of people have been waiting a lot longer than 90 days for their properties to be remediated, and I hear that concern, but I do not see how putting a 90-day window in law will help them or anybody else who might be affected by this challenge.
My third concern relates to the common parts of the building, which are not the responsibility of the leaseholders and tenants. The new clause therefore runs the risk of undermining the role of accountable persons and their building safety responsibilities over the common parts of the building, which we are mandating as part of the new building safety regime.
Those are my three concerns, but I want to offer the hon. Lady some reassurance that we consider that the Bill already delivers the policy intent of her new clause by ensuring that there is a robust definition in place that identifies the accountable persons for buildings that fall within scope. The Bill automatically places statutory obligations on those persons, making them responsible for effectively managing building safety in accordance with the new regime. That is in addition to their active repairing obligations in the lease.
If leaseholders or tenants raise a complaint about an urgent building safety works matter with an accountable person and the accountable person does not adequately address those concerns, rather than the tenants or leaseholders carrying out the work themselves, there will be mechanisms enabling them to raise their concerns directly with the Building Safety Regulator. The Building Safety Regulator will be well equipped to use their expertise and resources to assess whether urgent building safety works are required, and subsequently to take the necessary compliance and enforcement action. Because of their expertise, they will properly be able to identify what is urgent, and that will stand the test of any legal interrogation.
I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that there are some practical challenges with the new clause, notwithstanding the intent that lies behind it. I hope that she will also see that, vested in the Bill that she has already been voting on—almost entirely favourably, I am pleased to say—is provision that gives leaseholders and tenants the sort of protections that she is looking for. I hope that she will withdraw the new clause.
Daisy Cooper
I thank the Minister for his assurances. I note that the issue was still raised by the National Housing Federation. I will go back to it to ensure that it feels comfortable that the definition of the accountable person and the mechanism that has been set up for other properties will in fact operate well enough if the freeholder is absent. I trust that the Minister will be happy to receive any representations from it if it sees any further issues. But at this point in the proceedings, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 20
Assessment of the impact of building safety issues on social housing sector homebuilding
“(1) Within one year of the day on which this Act is passed the Secretary of State must carry out and publish a review of the impact of building safety issues on properties provided by registered providers of social housing.
(2) The review must consider in particular—
(a) current and future housebuilding,
(b) current maintenance of homes provided by registered providers of social housing, and
(c) homelessness.
(3) The review must in particular consider the impact of building safety issues on social housing provider finances, including the amount of funding provided to registered providers of social housing to remediate buildings with combustible cladding and the advice given by his Department on building safety since 14 July 2017, on—
(a) the proportion of registered provider of social housing funds that was previously allocated to social homebuilding or the maintenance or improvement of current social housing which has instead been allocated to building safety work, and
(b) projections of future housebuilding by registered providers of social housing in comparison with Government housebuilding targets and national homelessness rates.
(4) The review must make any recommendations for Government action necessary to ensure–—
(a) homebuilding targets are reached,
(b) current housing provided by registered providers of social housing is maintained and improved, and
(c) any rise in homelessness is prevented.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
This new clause would require the Government to publish an assessment of the effect of building safety requirements on the maintenance of current homes and building of future homes by registered providers of social housing, and rates of homelessness.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would ensure that the Government published an assessment of the impact of building safety costs on registered providers of social housing. The National Housing Federation last week announced that one in 10 affordable homes planned by housing associations will no longer be built, because of the costs of making buildings safe. The impact of the Government’s decision to effectively lock out social landlords from funding, because costs are less likely to fall on the shoulders of leaseholders, is clear in the report: 12,900 out of 116,777 new affordable homes will be cut from plans in order to prioritise spending on building safety. Earlier this year, the G15 group stated that their bill would be £3.6 billion by 2036. Nationally, housing associations stated last year that it would cost £10 billion to make all homes safe from fire risk over the next 10 years. The National Housing Federation also announced last week that social rent homes would be the hardest hit, because they build the majority of that tenure within their own income envelope rather than with Government grants.
I need hardly remind the Minister that the country managed to build only 6,644 homes for social rent in 2019 and 2020, but lost 24,120 from the stock, resulting in a net loss of 17,476 homes for social rent. With one in 10 households stuck on waiting lists for more than five years to get a home, we absolutely cannot afford to be losing more social homes. We must build them at scale.
I was glad to hear that the new Secretary of State appears to agree with me and so I hope that addressing this aspect of the building safety crisis can form part of the thinking in this respect. It is not just home building itself that will be impacted. The 61 housing associations surveyed by the National Housing Federation said that they would have to divert £730 million away from routine maintenance such as upgrading kitchens or bathrooms or doing other essential safety work. Half a million social homes are considered to be non-decent—as we have seen in the coverage on ITV. Shockingly, 40% of those are classed as unfit for human habitation. These homes may have mould or damp, rodent issues, or physical damage.
Ruth Cadbury
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent description of the current state of much social rent housing. That is partly because the landlords—councils and housing associations—have not had adequate funding to bring them up to scratch, and the building safety crisis in relation to social rent homes is adding to that. The Minister may want to attack the Labour Government, because that is what Conservative Governments frequently do, but does my hon. Friend agree that, while the Labour Government brought 1 million social rent homes up to standard 20 years ago, such a programme needs to happen again now and this crisis is only making that pressure worse?
Mike Amesbury
I concur with my hon. Friend. When I was a councillor in the Manchester area, I saw the results of that very standards programme. But we cannot excuse landlords; it is on their shoulders to ensure that the types of horrific cases that we have seen are sorted quickly. We cannot afford to allow money to be taken away from tackling these issues. Analysis has shown that housing associations have paid six times as much as developers to get buildings fixed. Given the huge profits that have been made in the private sector, it is a scandal that it is not doing more to pay to fix faults, many of which it created.
The first amendment that Labour tabled in the Committee centred on the impact of climate change on building safety. Building safety considerations are competing with building green houses. The Government have announced funding, but it will take much more to ensure that social homes are warm and energy efficient. With housing accounting for 14% of our emissions, we must make that a priority.
The new clause would ensure that the Government looked at the impact of this crisis on future levels of house building in the UK by social home providers, on homelessness and on the maintenance of social homes. It would require them to make recommendations for action necessary to ensure that building safety issues do not inhibit our ability to reach the house-building targets, and that current provision of housing is maintained and improved.
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful again to the hon. Gentleman for raising an important matter. I do not believe that his amendment is necessary because a great deal of the information that he seeks about registered providers’ finances, their house building and the decency of their properties is already published. For example, the global accounts published annually by the regulator of social housing contain detailed financial information about individual private registered providers of social housing that own or manage 1,000 or more homes. That includes how much they invest in new homes and in maintaining their existing properties. A summary of those providers’ financial forecasts is typically published alongside the global accounts that set out their investment and development plans for the next five years.
The most recent global accounts published earlier this year reported increased spending by private registered providers on repairs and maintenance in 2019-20. They also showed a 13% increase in investment in new housing supply compared to the previous year, driven by greater spending on delivering new social homes for rent. That speaks volumes about how private registered landlords are continuing to invest in both new and existing homes, despite challenging circumstances. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale will know—we have debated it in the Chamber and elsewhere on a number of occasions—that the new affordable homes programme is worth more than £12 billion. It is the largest cash injection into affordable housing in a 15-year cycle. Of that, £8 billion has already been allocated and has been taken up by registered providers who are determined to build the homes that we require and that the hon. Gentleman has asked for.
Mike Amesbury
Residents in my constituency and across the country would not accept that definition of affordable homes: the Government have vandalised that definition over a number of years. How many homes were built for social rent last year?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question. Since 2010, we have built nearly 150,000 homes for social rent, and 32,000 will be built in the new affordable homes cycle, market conditions permitting. That is double the number that were built under the current mechanism. We are building more social homes through the affordable homes programme. We are allowing councils to build homes, if they wish, by reducing the borrowing cap on the housing revenue account. We have created a hub in Homes England to help local authorities that do not have the wherewithal or the experience to build social homes to get that experience so that they can build those homes.
We are building affordable homes of a variety of types and tenures and we will continue to do that, market conditions permitting. We are also investing a significant amount of public funds in retrofitting properties in the social sector that absolutely need it to bring them up to the required standard. The heat and building strategy was announced just a few days ago. Before that, the social housing decarbonisation fund was making available £3.8 billion to decarbonise social properties to ensure that they are more energy efficient. The announcement that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy made a few days ago will ensure that further hundreds of millions of pounds are made available for such things as home improvement grants. That is why we can say that we are dealing with this challenging issue and that the new clause is therefore unnecessary.
The quarterly survey produced by the regulator of social housing shows that private registered providers forecast £70.5 billion of investment in the development and acquisition of housing properties in 2021-22. That exceeds the amount in the 12-month forecast reported by the quarterly survey in the year before the pandemic.
I hope that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale will see that we are making significant investment, which will ensure that homes are brought up to a fit standard, and that the available global account data is transparent and clear. Although I am sure that we will have further debates about how much money is being allocated and where it is being spent, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see that, in this particular instance, the new clause is unnecessary.
Mike Amesbury
I am sure we will have further discussions on Report, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 22
Assessment of the impact of building safety issues on shared ownership
“(1) The Secretary of State must carry out a review of how the following issues impact on leaseholders of shared ownership leases—
(a) building safety issues,
(b) the amount of funding provided to the social housing to remediate buildings with combustible cladding, and
(c) rules surrounding shared ownership schemes and subletting, and the impact of advice given by his Department on building safety given since 14 July 2017.
(2) The review shall assess whether the issues listed in subsection (1)(a) to (c) has impacted on—
(a) costs incurred by leaseholders of shared ownership leases for remediation and other building safety related costs,
(b) access to mortgage finance by leaseholders of shared ownership leases, and
(c) the mental health and wellbeing of leaseholders of shared ownership leases.
(3) The review must make a recommendation as to whether Government action is necessary to—
(a) ensure adequate transparency is readily provided for leaseholders of shared ownership leases in relation to building safety issues,
(b) ensure future confidence in shared ownership schemes, and
(c) encourage increased rates of leaseholders purchasing remaining shares of their shared ownership lease home.
(4) A report setting out the conclusions of the review as set out in subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament no later than 3 months after the day on which this Act is passed.
‘shared ownership lease’ has the same meaning as in section 76(3) of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The very notion of shared ownership implies to me—and I am sure to others in Committee—an element of joint responsibility. Yet it is abundantly clear that, when it comes to picking up the remediation costs to fix a plethora of faults throughout the landscape of shoddy development, there is nothing shared about it. I know that Ministers and departmental officials will have seen the emails, letters and case studies, many of them exposed by the media, that shine a light on the desperation of many residents in shared ownership properties. I was recently made aware of one such building in London, which was covered in flammable cladding and has wooden decking. It is under 18 metres, so leaseholders are not covered by the Bill. They are not classed as high risk. A bill for £85,000 per household from their housing association has just landed through their doors. Some residents own as little as 25% of their flat, but risk being responsible for 100% of the cost.
Ruth Cadbury
Does my hon. Friend agree—from what he was saying, I think he does—that the Government must address this iniquity in shared ownership, where shared owners own only a proportion of their flat yet are responsible for 100% of the cost? Does he also agree that for constituents such as mine, fire safety has been a crisis? They were evacuated from their homes at a week’s notice by their social rent landlord from a property built by Berkeley Group. They are homeless, and they cannot get on the housing ladder, even though the housing association has been able to repay them the market cost of the share they own. Does he agree that that is wholly iniquitous?
Mike Amesbury
I do agree with my hon. Friend. That is a horrendous case and I hope things are resolved in the not-too-distant future.
Of course, elsewhere in the country, people who own as little as 10% of their flat face astonishing costs. Again, this is despite the Government’s statement that buildings under 18 metres do not generally meet the definition of high risk. This situation requires a rethink of not only how the current crisis is impacting shared ownership leaseholders, but how our shared ownership system is set up and how risks are communicated to shared ownership leaseholders. Shared ownership should mean shared responsibility, not a grotesque responsibility put on people, often on low incomes, that will prevent their being able to join the housing market in other ways, trying to get a foothold on the property ladder, or indeed staircase, into full ownership.
This new clause would ensure that the Government look holistically at the impact of the crisis on shared ownership and their response to it. It would also ensure that the Government provide transparency on the potential building safety implications of shared ownership contracts and reinstate confidence in the shared ownership system.
Christopher Pincher
Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising an important point. He is right to draw attention to the effect of building safety issues on leaseholders who purchased their home on a shared ownership basis. However, I do not think that this new clause is necessary, as the Government are already taking decisive action to support building owners to make their buildings safe without passing unavoidable costs to leaseholders of whatever type or tenure.
The Government, as the hon. Gentleman will know, are committed to providing grant funding for the cost of replacing unsafe cladding for all leaseholders in residential buildings of 18 metres and over in England. Shared ownership leaseholders can benefit from that funding on the same terms as other leaseholders. Fire risk is lower in buildings under 18 metres, and costly remediation work is usually not needed, as we have heard from the evidence provided by Dame Judith Hackitt and Sir Ken Knight, the former chief fire officer, earlier this year. Where fire risks are identified, they should always be managed, but managed proportionately.
We are looking closely at the specific issue of the 11 to 18-metre cohort to ensure that everything is being done to protect and support leaseholders, including those who purchased their home on a shared ownership basis. We will bring forward further detail on the support offer for leaseholders in those residential buildings once all the options have been fully considered; we have collected more data, as I may have said previously here and certainly mentioned in the Chamber yesterday.
I appreciate that not all building safety issues relate to unsafe cladding. However, long-standing, independent safety advice has been clear that it is unsafe cladding that poses the greatest risk to buildings because it can fuel a fire. The Government’s approach prioritises action on the risks of unsafe cladding as the costs of remediating it are high and the risks posed are also very high.
That does not mean, however, that we absolve building owners of their responsibilities to ensure that their buildings are safe—far from it. They should continue to pursue all routes to meet the costs, protecting leaseholders from costs where they can. We voted on and agreed to that following our discussion of earlier clauses. We have introduced proposals for a residential property developers tax and for a levy—also a means of ensuring that those who can and should pay do pay.
The new clause refers specifically to the rules around subletting. Let me tell the hon. Member for Weaver Vale that I will be happy to consider how we might make it easier for shared owners affected by building safety issues to sublet their homes when that would help them. That will, of course, depend partly on the acquiescence of their mortgage lender, if they have one. I will have a look at that issue for him.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the important issue of access to mortgage finance. Earlier this year—in July, I think—the Department published an expert statement saying that we do not think there is any systemic risk of fire in buildings under 18 metres, so EWS1 forms should not be required by lenders for those buildings. We have had positive feedback from a number of lenders on that.
The Government introduced a new model of shared ownership in April; it is being delivered through the 2021 to 2026 affordable homes programme that I referred to earlier. That will ensure that shared ownership is more consumer friendly, easier to access and fairer, and leads to a better experience for a future generation of shared owners. The new model of shared ownership reduces the minimum initial share required for purchase to just 10%, down from 25%, and implements a 10-year period during which the landlord will support shared owners with the costs of maintenance and repairs on new build homes. That will certainly encourage shared ownership.
In the roll-out of the new affordable homes programme, the first £8 billion of the strategic partnership funding has been successfully allocated, which suggests that our strategic partners—local authorities, but largely housing associations—see the opportunities that the new model provides and are prepared to build new shared-ownership properties at affordable prices for more people.
We believe that shared ownership will continue to play a vital role in helping more people to realise their ambition to own their own home; that is why we are investing heavily in it and reforming it. It is also why we are determined to make sure that funding is available to protect shared owners from the unaffordable costs arising from the need to replace unsafe cladding.
In light of the assurances and reassurances that I have tried to provide the hon. Gentleman, I hope that he will withdraw the motion.
Mike Amesbury
I welcome the Minister’s assurance and comments on actually doing an assessment of the subletting landscape; opportunities may exist in future. We might come back to the whole area of shared ownership, not only on Report but at other stages of the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 23
Review of use of combustible materials
“(1) The Secretary of State must conduct a review on the use of combustible materials on external walls of buildings.
(2) The review set out in subsection (1) must include an assessment on whether the ban on the use of combustible materials on the external walls of buildings should be extended in scope with regard to—
(a) the types of materials used;
(b) the height threshold of buildings included; and
(c) the type of buildings included
(3) A report setting out the conclusions of the review must be laid before each House of Parliament no later than 6 months after the day on which this Act is passed.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 23 would ensure that the Government publish a review, which they have yet to do, on the use of combustible materials and whether the scope of the current ban should be extended to other materials that are not covered at present; on whether the ban should be extended to a greater number of buildings, by lowering the height; and on the types of buildings included.
Of course, the Government have already commissioned a public consultation on the use of combustible materials on external walls of buildings. It was announced in June 2018, it opened in January 2020 and it closed five months later, but the outcome and Government response have yet to be published. The Government have introduced this Bill, which centres on building safety and seeks to define high risk, before it is clear exactly what the Government will consider to be unsafe cladding.
The Government consultation centred on other aspects, and the new clause raises other aspects, but again we come back to the problem of 18 metres. The scoping document for the consultation states:
“We consider that buildings with a residential use between 11-18m may be subject to similar levels of fire risk to many of those taller than 18m.”
The document states that in the absence of “robust scientific evidence” to support that,
“the best option…is to reduce the height threshold to 11m now”.
Is that still the Government’s opinion? The consultation proposes that that should only apply to buildings going forward. Given the caution we have seen in the market in response to the changes in previous Government guidance, I understand that that could very well have further implications for existing buildings, but the alternative is to continue to allow new buildings to go up with materials that may be unsafe.
It is not acceptable that in the middle of a cladding crisis, the Government still have not published the outcome of the consultation after 18 months, when the consultation itself closed three and a half years after the Grenfell fire. It is not acceptable that, as reported earlier this year, around 70 schools and 25 hospitals and care homes have been constructed with combustible cladding since Grenfell. I urge the Minister to accept the new clause and publish such a review.
Christopher Pincher
The Committee should know that the level of risk in buildings is proportionate to their height. That has been reported to us here and in other forums, and it is well understood, so it is appropriate to focus the strict ban on high-rise buildings.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that his new clause, and the intention behind it, is being met by the Government. The Government have already amended the building regulations to ban the use of combustible materials in and on the external walls of new tall buildings in the Building (Amendment) Regulations 2018—SI No. 1230. Combustible materials are not permitted on the external walls of new buildings over 18 metres containing dwellings, or on new hospitals, residential care premises, dormitories in boarding schools and student accommodation over 18 metres in height. We have restricted the use of materials in the external walls and specified attachments of those buildings to those achieving the top two “reaction to fire” classifications.
We are already committed to reviewing the ban annually through advice from bodies such as the Building Regulations Advisory Committee, as made clear in the explanatory memorandum published alongside the amendment made to the building regulations to ban the use of combustible materials in and on the external walls of buildings.
As the hon. Gentleman has identified, a review was conducted in 2019 and the Government subsequently published in January 2020 a consultation on proposed changes to the ban. The consultation included proposals to amend the scope, using a height threshold and the buildings covered. The consultation received, I think, 850 responses. We continue to analyse those responses to ensure that we achieve the right and proper, and best, outcome. I am entirely determined to make sure that that happens as rapidly as possible, and certainly to make sure that we respond effectively to that consultation. With that assurance, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the new clause.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the Minister for his response. In terms of publication, can he put a date on that?
Mike Amesbury
In the spirit of collaboration, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 24
Review of Government support for building safety matters
“(1) The Secretary of State must conduct a review of Government support of building safety matters, including but not limited to an assessment of the adequacy of—
(a) the measures in this Act, and
(b) the Building Safety fund and its use.
(2) A report setting out the conclusions of the review as set out in subsection (1) must be laid before each House of Parliament no later than 3 months after the day on which this Act is passed.”—(Mike Amesbury.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is fantastic to be able to say this: this final new clause—[Hon Members: “Hear, hear!”]—gives us an opportunity to look both at the Bill’s measures and at the support available for building safety, because it relates to the adequacy of the building safety fund. I want to concentrate primarily, and fairly briefly, on the use of funding with regard to management fees, agents and product managers, and on the role of managing agents and freeholders in agreeing funding contracts.
Recent Government statistics show that 600 buildings had remediation costs of £2.5 billion. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether the Government’s building safety funding covers that total cost, or are parts of it not covered? The cost per building is about £4 million. Having been contacted by leaseholders across the country, I know that the fees charged by some managing agents and project managers are taking up to 14% of the total building remediation costs, as is the case with a building in Manchester. If the remediation costs of that building reach the £4 million mark, over half a million pounds will go to managing agents and project managers.
Back in June, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the shadow Housing Secretary, was told in response to a question that the Government were not tracking the management and administration fees that leaseholders were being charged for applications for grants from the building safety fund. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have begun to look at the overall amount that agents are charging for applications to the building safety fund? Is the Department looking at the management and professional fees that are being charged for individual applications? With only £5.1 billion in the Government’s pot, we cannot afford for agents to charge the taxpayer and resident leaseholders more than is fair for their time and work.
Fees are even higher for the waking watch relief fund, with one agent charging over a third of the cost of installing a fire alarm. I have also recently been made aware of a case in which agents are threatening to charge leaseholders for the cost of the failed building safety application. A failed application, on top of the threat, also means that leaseholders face the cost of being issued with invoices to fix the mess in that particular building. There is clearly little impetus for professionals to adopt a true risk-based approach if fees are based on percentage rates of works required. The situation is only made worse with concerns over professional indemnity insurance, leading to risk-averse advice on remediation from fire engineer experts, as we have heard throughout this Committee.
As I have said in debates on a good few amendments up until now, a centralised and co-ordinated building assessment strategy would go a long way towards mitigating the wide range of fees levied and would help guarantee a consistent approach to managing the current pot of funds. I hereby move this last new clause.
Christopher Pincher
Although the hon. Gentleman says that this is his last new clause, sadly it is not mine, but we are nearly there. I am grateful to the Committee for its indulgence, patience and good humour throughout the several sittings in which we have enjoyed one another’s company.
I will talk about the tracking of fees in response to some of the hon. Gentleman’s questions in a moment, but I assure him that his intentions are already being met in the Bill by clause 139, which we debated last Thursday. That clause provides for a widely framed review of the effectiveness of the building regulatory regime, which includes building safety. The review will form part of the programme of reviews conducted or commissioned by the Department, which includes a review considering whether architectural practices should also be regulated.
To clarify, during the debate on clause 135 it was mentioned that clause 138 deals with the regulation of architecture firms, but I ought to confirm that the Architects Registration Board regulates only individual architects, rather than practices. I was told to tell the Committee that and so, being a good Minister, I have.
Returning to clause 139, it provides the Secretary of State with the discretion to specify wider matters for the reviewer to consider. That could include an assessment of the performance of the building safety fund—the performance of the fee mechanism and how fees are charged and paid. The tracking of performance may be another area that the review could consider.
The three-month timescale indicated in the new clause is impractical. The transition plan, which was published alongside the Building Safety Bill, indicates that the majority of the provisions will not be enacted until 12 to 18 months after the Bill achieves Royal Assent. Therefore, a review after three months—when many of the Bill’s provisions will not have even begun or, if they have, will be very nascent—would be insufficient to assess the adequacy of those provisions. I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that practical challenge. Furthermore, we do not think that the short period of operation for those that will be in effect gives enough time to consider their effectiveness.
It is our position that five years is a reasonable period to allow for the establishment of the BSR, after which a reviewer will be able to consider an established regulatory system. If the hon. Gentleman has specific concerns about the building safety fund, I shall be happy to hear about them. We have always had a good relationship across the Chamber. I am conscious, as I am sure he will be, that there are many mechanisms that the House of Commons may use to achieve proper scrutiny of Ministers and arm’s length Government bodies and funds for which both are accountable. I look forward to that scrutiny and having a proper, timely review process to scrutinise and assess the way in which the building safety regime, including the building safety fund, is run over the longer term. With that explanation, I respectfully ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his new clause.
Mike Amesbury
We all have a shared interest in ensuring that the maximum amount of funding provided by the taxpayers goes towards remediating buildings and making them safe. I will follow up on the Minister’s kind offer to look at buildings on a case-by-case basis. I have referred to one, but people have certainly expressed concerns about the management and project fees charged for other buildings. Based on that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1
Overview of Act
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Christopher Pincher
Only in the wonderful, marvellous, mysterious process that is House of Commons procedure could we come to clause 1 at the end of our deliberations on all the clauses. None the less, I am pleased to invite the Committee to debate it now. The Committee will no doubt be very familiar with the clauses of the Bill, but for the purposes of total completeness—we have an hour and 13 minutes left—I will inform the Committee of what the clause sets out.
Christopher Pincher
The first clause—briefly, Mrs Miller—acts as an overview of its constituent parts, which for the benefit of the Committee I may just run through again—or maybe I won’t. There are six parts and they contain provisions intended to secure the safety of people in or about buildings and to improve the standard of buildings.
Part 1 is purely an introductory overview. Part 2 establishes the Building Safety Regulator, sets out its functions in relation to buildings in England and provides key powers to enable it to undertake its functions. Part 3 amends the Building Act 1984, setting out the provisions for the new regulatory regime during the design and construction phase of the buildings in scope of the said regime. It also provides for the registration of building inspectors and building control approvers to improve competence levels through better regulation. Part 4 is concerned with buildings in scope during their occupation. It defines and places duties on the accountable person for building safety risks in their building and improves on aspects of accountability such as engagement with residents and the transparency of building safety information.
Part 5 details further provisions regarding safety and standards. For example, it provides arrangements for a new homes ombudsman scheme, requiring developers to become and remain members of it. It creates powers to make provisions about construction products. It removes the democratic filter that requires social housing residents to refer unresolved complaints to a designated person or wait eight weeks before they can access redress through the housing ombudsman. It also changes certain provisions in relation to the procedures of the Architects Registration Board. The aim is that an architect will be able to appeal against a decision taken by the ARB to remove them from the register, and I will consider whether a non-judicial appeal route should also be made available for architects to challenge such a decision.
Finally, part 6 contains general clauses about the commencement of the Bill’s provisions and covers applications to the Crown and other standard clauses. Clause 1 is uncontentious. It is an important overview intended to detail the Bill’s thematic structure, which is perhaps why it is so very dry. It may have been surmised during the passage of this Committee’s deliberations that many of the individual clauses and their amendments are rather dry. None the less, they have an important intent: to ensure that this country’s building safety is improved significantly, so that all sectors of society, be they developers, local authorities, architects and designers, building owners or residents, can have confidence in the industry that designs, builds and supports the homes in which people live. Members may have disagreed from time to time on matters in the Bill, but none of us disagrees about what we intend of it.
I am grateful to you, Mrs Miller, and the other Chairs for the occasional indulgence that you have allowed us. I am grateful to all the Clerks and the officials of the House for their support in bringing this Committee stage to a conclusion. I am grateful to my officials for all that they have done to provide us with the details and data to allow us to debate these provisions effectively. I am grateful to the Committee for the collegiate and collaborative way in which everybody has contributed to what we will report to the House. On that basis, and with an hour and eight minutes in hand, I commend clause 1 to the Committee.
Mike Amesbury
I thank you, Mrs Miller, and Mr Davies, Mr Dowd and Mr Efford for chairing proceedings professionally and impartially over the past few weeks. I thank the Clerks and all the staff on the parliamentary estate. I also thank every member of this Committee, from both sides of the House. We have had passion, consideration and great, appropriate humour from time to time. I am sure that on Report, and during the other stages of the Bill, we will collectively contribute towards making people safer in safer buildings.
The Chair
Before I put the question, I should say, because the Committee has quite a lot of new Members, that sometimes those thank yous are done as points of order right before the close. I am grateful, as I am sure others are, for those thanks—it is very kind.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Elections Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 26 October 2021 - (26 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 2 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. I remind colleagues, first, to wear masks when they are not speaking, secondly, to observe social distancing and, thirdly, to switch off electronic devices. Could they also note—this is slightly new—that Members and staff are asked by the House to take a covid lateral flow test twice a week if coming on to the parliamentary estate? That can be done either at the testing centre in the House, which is located in the Attlee Suite, or at home. These things can be booked on the intranet, as colleagues will know. Finally, Hansard would be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Thank you for your attention.
We now resume line-by-line consideration of the Bill. Members wishing to press a grouped amendment to a Division should indicate that they wish to do so when speaking to it.
Clause 35
Definitions relating to electronic material and publication
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
The provisions pertain to the Government’s proposed new digital imprint regime. The new regime will require promoters, and those promoting on their behalf, behind digital campaign material targeted at the UK electorate to declare themselves, providing greater levels of transparency to online campaigning. In clause 36, “the promoter” of electronic material is defined as
“the person causing the material to be published”
and to publish means to
“make available to the public at large or any section of the public.”
The imprint rules will apply to all material in electronic forms that consist of or include speech, music, text, and moving or still images. It is important that the definition of electronic material is comprehensive to reflect the wide scope of the regime. At the same time, we must remain cognisant of the practicalities of imprint requirements for certain mediums. For that reason, telephone calls and SMS messages will not be in scope of the regime, due to the impracticalities of including an imprint in an SMS or a telephone call.
Clause 36 defines key pieces of terminology that are relevant to the digital imprints regime, specifically the political entities that will be required to adhere to the new regime and that are prominent actors in political campaigning in the UK. The definitions in the clause cross-reference other pieces of legislation to ensure that there is consistency with the terminology used throughout the Bill. Both clauses provide clarity to campaigners who will be subject to the regime and provide consistency to the enforcement authorities that will enforce the regime and wider electoral law. For these reasons, I urge that the clauses stand part of the Bill.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
We are pleased to see provisions in the Bill on the regulation of digital content. The Electoral Commission has advocated digital imprints since 2003. While digital technology and campaigning have proceeded at quite a pace, legislation to ensure that the ways electronic communications are used are transparently portrayed to the electorate has been somewhat slow by comparison. Extending the imprint rules will help voters to make more informed choices on the arguments presented and to assess the credibility of campaign messages in a digital space in the same way as with print material. When digital material is disseminated by a political party, voters who see that material will be aware of that fact and will be able to make their assessments accordingly.
It is right that political parties, candidates and campaigners should not be able to conceal their identity online, any more than they would if they printed out a leaflet and pushed it through doors. However, I want to flag a slight loophole in the legislation, which allows reshared content to disseminate without an imprint. I would be interested in working with the Government —I extend the hand of the Opposition here—to find a way of resolving this issue.
There do need to be requirements on online content to show who has made it, who is paying for it and how it is being promoted so that voters can make informed choices. Amendments to subsequent clauses may go some way to doing that, but broadly speaking it is a great relief to see this measure before the House in the Bill. It is something that we have called for for a considerable time, and it is great to see us moving slightly further forward, although there are still some loopholes left to be closed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 35 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 36 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 37
Requirement to include information with electronic material
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 87, in clause 37, page 46, leave out lines 24 to 26
This amendment removes the ability for promoters of electronic material to avoid placing an imprint on the material itself if it is not “reasonably practicable” to do so.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 88, in clause 37, page 46, line 24, leave out “not reasonably practicable” and insert “impossible”
This amendment raises the threshold needed for promoters of electronic material to avoid placing an imprint on the material itself.
Cat Smith
In its current form, without the amendments, the Bill allows promoters of electronic material to avoid placing an imprint on the material if it is not “reasonably practicable” to do so. Instead, it allows the imprint to appear
“in a location that is directly accessible from the electronic material.”
The amendment would make things clearer for voters so that material is more transparent, and allows voters to make more informed decisions.
As evidenced in Scotland’s recent parliamentary elections, the clause will in practice lead to almost all imprints appearing on a promoter’s website or home page rather than on the actual material. I do not feel that is strong enough. It cannot be classed as an imprint if the voter has to go and seek that information on the home page of a website. For most observers of the material, there will be no discernible change from the situation as we see it now—they will not be able to see a promoter’s details. It should be a requirement that imprints appear on the material itself. It would bring digital material in line with the imprints on printed material, where political parties have to include an imprint on every single piece of content.
While it is positive that Scotland’s recent parliamentary elections were the first in the UK to be conducted with a digital imprint rule in place, it was disappointing that a loophole was left in the legislation, which is now being carried forward into the Government’s Elections Bill. All political parties in Scotland took advantage of the loophole in May, placing an imprint on their home page and not necessarily on the material that was being promoted. This provision does not provide any security against sharing, downloading and re-promoting, where many voters will see material second or third hand as organic content as it spreads over social media.
Numerous stakeholders wrote to the Minister to highlight their concerns. I have certainly seen concerns expressed by the Electoral Reform Society, Fair Vote UK and Transparency International, who have highlighted to elections offices in Scotland that there is a risk that the imprint may be lost or removed, deliberately or accidentally, when the material is shared. A significant amount of sharing happens off the platform, as users download videos before resharing them on messaging apps that are often encrypted. The imprint is then, of course, disconnected from the content. This is a huge loophole; it could be the equivalent of attaching an offline political ad’s imprint using a paperclip. The first recipient would then clearly and inconspicuously remove it before showing anyone else. It is essential that the imprint be embedded so that it is always connected to the political advertisement. I urge the Government to close the loophole and make it clear that the video, image or online campaign materials must contain a clear imprint within the material, as is common practice with many political video advertisements in countries such as the United States.
These sensible and pragmatic amendments would close a loophole that we have seen in Scotland and stop the legislation being implemented for UK-wide elections with a glaring loophole in it.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Very briefly, we will support the amendments. There is no doubt that as a Parliament and a country we are behind the curve and are playing catch-up with those who are experts in digital campaigning. What we do have in our armoury is the demand for transparency. That is all we asking for here: transparency on who is funding and who is the source of these digital political advertisements. That is essential.
We have concerns about what the Government mean by “reasonably practicable”. We need a higher threshold than that. I fear that it would be far too easy for people who are expert in such matters to get around that and to present a convincing argument to the laity on what is reasonable and practicable and what is not. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood was right that we have an opportunity to get this right, or certainly to start to close that gap.
The Scottish Parliament elections showed that parties and campaigners largely understood the regulations and were able to comply with them. Anyone who followed those elections, particularly on Twitter, could not have failed to see every candidate changing their Twitter bio during the campaign to explain that. People understood it and people did it.
We have to be alive to the fact that there are people out there who are far more advanced in their technology and their understanding than we are. We should be closing every loophole available to them, to ensure that transparency is increased and that there is no way for them to come out. So we will support amendment 87 and 88.
Kemi Badenoch
The Government are opposed to amendments 87 and 88 because they seek to remove a much-needed element of flexibility in the digital imprint regime for campaigners. Under our proposals, an imprint must be included as part of the material being promoted. Only when it is not reasonably practicable to do so can the imprint be in an alternative location—one that must be directly accessible from the material.
We have looked at this issue closely. Clause 37 is not a loophole for campaigners to exploit, to avoid including an imprint in the material. Instead, it is a reasonable and practical provision that ensures that campaigners are able to comply with the requirement to include an imprint in digital material, regardless of the digital platform they are using. This is an essential provision that must be retained.
As Members will know from their own experience of campaigning online, there will be many instances where it is impractical to include an imprint within the material itself. For example, a text-based tweet on Twitter could constitute material that requires an imprint, but given the character limit, including an imprint would leave little room for anything else. That is why, under our provisions, where it is not reasonably practicable, a promoter could instead comply with the rules by including an imprint in a location directly accessible from the material. That could be done by including a hyperlink in the material or by placing the imprint in a user’s Twitter biography.
The Government are mindful that the digital imprint regime must strike the right balance between increasing transparency in digital campaigning and having a regime that is proportionate and enforceable. The Opposition’s amendments would undermine those efforts as they do not provide for any flexibility on the location of the imprint. That could have the unintended effect of incentivising campaigners to avoid certain digital platforms or mediums for a campaign, due to the unreasonable burden of doing so.
The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said that there was another loophole in terms of material being republished that would not include the imprint. That is not the case. Clause 37 does cover republished material—I am not sure whether she has a different interpretation—and I will come on to republished material when we debate clause 37, when I will explain more fully how the clause does that.
Digital campaigning has become an integral part of campaigners’ efforts to communicate messages and ideas to voters. It must continue to be facilitated, while providing the electorate with increased transparency about who is promoting campaigning material online and on whose behalf. Our provisions do that. For all the reasons that I have outlined, the Government oppose the amendments
Cat Smith
I am slightly concerned that the Minister has not learned all the lessons from the Scottish parliamentary election. By moving to import what we know has not quite worked in Scotland and applying it to the whole of the United Kingdom, we are missing an opportunity to learn from other Parliaments and make better legislation in this place, so I will push the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 38 and 39 stand part.
Government amendment 2.
Clauses 40 to 43 stand part.
Government amendments 21 and 22.
That schedule 10 be the Tenth schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 44 to 46 stand part.
Government amendment 3.
Clauses 47 and 48 stand part.
That schedule 11 be the Eleventh schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 49 and 50 stand part.
Government amendments 4 to 6.
Clauses 51 to 56 stand part.
Kemi Badenoch
I will now continue to present the Government’s proposed new digital imprint regime and the various requirements pertaining to it, which are outlined in clauses 37 to 56. I will also discuss the Government amendments to the clauses as and when relevant.
There are two types of electronic material in scope of the regime—paid-for and unpaid, or organic, material. I will define paid-for—that is, the electronic material— first. Following last year’s public consultation, we have taken on board the consultation responses and expanded our initial proposals to go even further. To that end, clause 38 requires all paid-for electronic material in scope of the regime to include an imprint at all times and regardless of who has promoted it. This aims to capture the type of digital political advertising that currently poses the greatest risk due to its impact and reach: paid-for electronic material that allows individuals to spend significant amounts of money, without identifying themselves, to publish material with the aim of influencing voters.
Two conditions must be met for electronic material to be considered paid-for material in scope of the regime. The first is that material can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve the purpose of influencing the public or any section of the public to give support to, or withhold support from, a registered party, a candidate or future candidate, an elected office holder, the holding of a referendum in the UK or any area in the UK, or a particular outcome of such a referendum. That is much wider in scope than the print regime, and rightly so. It reflects the realities of campaigning online, where content can be present all year round and is not restricted to specific electoral periods. The provisions have therefore been deliberately designed to capture a broader range of online campaigning material that is not solely linked to seeking to promote or procure electoral success at a particular election.
The second condition for paid-for material in scope of the regime is that the promoter of the material, or the person on behalf of whom the material is published, has paid for the material to be published. Payment does not solely comprise monetary payments, and includes a person providing any other form of payment in return for the publication of the material, including benefits in kind. Broadly speaking, our proposal for paid-for material is thus intended to capture all paid-for digital political advertising.
I turn now to defining “other electronic material”—organic or unpaid material—that is also part of our regime. Applying the regime only to paid-for material would leave significant transparency gaps, given the vast amount of electronic material that is unpaid or organic, which could include posts on a social media platform. Under our regime, therefore, certain political entities will also be required to include an imprint on their other electronic material. By contrast with paid-for material, that is material for which there has been no payment for its advertising.
Our provisions outline the two conditions that a piece of electronic material must fulfil to be considered other electronic material in scope of the regime. The first condition is that, broadly speaking, the material must reasonably be regarded as material that promotes or procures electoral success at certain UK elections, or that promotes or procures the success or failure of a recall petition that wholly or mainly relates to referendums in the UK.
The second condition is that the promoter of the material, or the person on behalf of whom it is published, is one of the following political entities: a registered party, a recognised third party, a candidate or future candidate, an elected office holder, a referendum campaigner or a recall petition campaigner. I wish to emphasise that we have purposefully chosen to restrict the unpaid side of the digital imprint regime to the unpaid material of those specific political entities. That is to avoid stifling political debate and imposing on the general public a requirement to include an imprint where they are expressing their personal political opinion. Additionally, the proposal strikes the right balance between providing a high level of transparency to voters and not placing an undue burden on key political actors to include an imprint on every piece of material they promote.
As campaigners can also share negative campaigning material—for example, about other parties and candidates —material that prejudices the electoral prospects of other parties, candidates and future candidates will also require an imprint. That includes candidates or future candidates on a party list. The concept of future candidates is introduced in clause 28. Future candidates are individuals whose intention to stand as a candidate at a forthcoming election has been declared, but whose formal candidacy has not yet officially begun. That could be someone else declaring on an individual’s behalf, such as an agent or party, or an individual self-declaring as intending to run for elected office on their social media channel.
As candidates become formally recognised at an advanced stage in the electoral cycle, they are able to campaign long before they officially become a candidate. An imprints regime that includes only candidates risks creating a gap in transparency for voters, which is why we are extending the new regime to future candidates. The provisions for the unpaid material of specific entities complement those applying to anyone paying to promote electronic material, thus creating a broad regime that goes further than the print regime and reflects the reality of modern digital campaigning.
Our provisions set out what information must be included in the new digital imprints. The requirements apply to both paid-for and unpaid electronic material that falls within the scope of the regime. As hon. Members will know, having an active online presence is crucial for political parties and campaigners in order to connect with the public and get their message heard. However, voters do not always know who is promoting material online and on whose behalf. Therefore, it is important that the provisions provide certain requirements that an imprint must meet, to ensure that all imprints provide the necessary level of transparency for the public. First, an imprint must be included as part of the material. Only when it is not reasonably practicable to do so can the imprint be in a location that is directly accessible from the material—for example, a hyperlink within the material or placed in a biography—when limited to a certain number of characters, such as in a tweet.
Secondly, the imprint must also be legible or audible and retained as part of the material when republished, if not altered by the person republishing, which I hope addresses the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. That is required to accommodate the design of various digital platforms and ensure that an imprint is accessible to voters, regardless of the platform on which the material is accessed. To ensure maximum transparency and effective enforcement, our provisions state that the imprint must contain the name and address of the promoter of the material, and the name and address of any person on behalf of whom the material is being published but who is not the promoter.
We must ensure that the digital imprints regime is capable of adapting to the fast-moving world of digital campaigning and technological advances. Therefore, the measures also provide for the information that is required to be included in the imprint to be modified, if necessary, using a regulation-making power.
The regime aims to strike the right balance between providing a greater level of transparency to voters while ensuring that the imprint requirements are proportionate and enforceable. To that end, generally the republishing or sharing of electronic material by another person will not require a new imprint, because the original imprint should be retained in the material. A new imprint may be required, however, if the material has been materially altered since it was previously published.
I wish to emphasise that we are not in any way attempting to regulate the press and other media through this regime. The regime should not act as a practical barrier to journalists by requiring them to include an imprint when they publish material of a political nature. The provisions therefore provide an exemption for material published for journalistic purposes—which is to say, electronic material the primary purpose of which is the publication of journalism—unless the material consists of an advertisement. Party political broadcasts or referendum campaign broadcasts are also exempt as both are already subject to regulation outside of the regime.
Breaching the digital imprint rules will be a criminal offence. That means that if electronic material in scope of the regime is published without an imprint or with an incorrect imprint, the promoter of the material and any person on behalf of whom the material is being published becomes liable for a criminal offence.
The Bill outlines a number of defences, which includes the defence that the contravention arose from circumstances beyond the person’s control. Furthermore, it is a defence that the person took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to ensure that the contravention would not arise. It will also be a defence for anyone charged with an offence to prove that they acted in accordance with the statutory guidance, which I shall turn to in detail in a moment.
To ensure consistency with wider electoral law, we will maintain for the digital imprints regime the division of responsibilities between the police and the Electoral Commission that exists for the print regime. As a result, the clauses provide for the Electoral Commission’s investigatory powers to apply to the digital imprints regime. That will enable the commission to investigate possible digital imprint offences effectively, as it does with the print regime. The police already have the necessary investigatory powers.
We will also give the Electoral Commission the ability to impose civil sanctions in respect of certain offences and only for material related to political parties and referendums. The police will be responsible for material concerning candidates, future candidates and holders of elected office. As with the print regime, the Electoral Commission will be able to refer any criminal offences to the police, if required.
A person guilty of that offence will be liable to a potentially unlimited fine on summary conviction in England and Wales. On summary conviction in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the fine will not exceed level 5 on the standard scale and would therefore not be unlimited.
In specific circumstances outlined in schedule 10, a candidate or their election agent may be guilty of an illegal practice for breaching the requirements when promoting electronic material without an imprint. That is consistent with the existing approach for printed material. That being said, evidence from the print regime suggests that the police and Electoral Commission already enforce imprint offences proportionately and effectively and that campaigners overall demonstrate high levels of compliance with the rules. We believe the existing enforcement approach will work equally well for the digital regime.
Material in which the imprint is incorrect or missing should not be able to remain online and influence the views of voters without providing them with the required level of transparency. Therefore, it is imperative that as part of our regime infringing material can be taken down. The clauses provide for access to material that contains an incorrect imprint or no imprint at all to be disabled or to be taken down from the digital platforms hosting the material, such as social media companies.
Notices to take down—orders to take down, when issued by the courts—can be sent by electronic means, or by post, allowing platforms to address the requests quickly. To ensure that due process is followed, the notices or orders may only be issued by the Electoral Commission or the courts once they have determined that material is in breach of the rules. The take-down notice must include the grounds for serving the notice, the consequences of non-compliance and the rights of appeal. No such provisions are required for court orders. It will be a criminal offence for any person who receives a take-down notice or order, such as a digital platform, to fail to comply with the notice or order without a reasonable excuse. It is important that digital platforms are aware of the consequences if they fail to comply with a notice.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 93, in clause 57, page 60, line 8, at end insert—
“(1A) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.”.
This amendment ensures that the Secretary of State must consult with the Devolved Administrations before making regulations under clause 57.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Clauses 58 to 62 stand part.
Patrick Grady
This is another technical amendment based on proposals that were submitted by the Law Society of Scotland in its written evidence to the Committee, which I know that Government Members have paid deep attention to.
The clause is relatively technical, providing the Government with powers to make amendments to references to subordinate legislation—it goes right down the rabbit hole of the sweeping powers of secondary legislation that the Government are increasingly taking for themselves. Even though this is a relatively technical part of that process, it speaks to the broader principle, particularly as it includes power to amend certain legislation made by the devolved Assemblies.
As Ministers take those powers, it is not unreasonable for us to ask that they be given a duty to consult the relevant Ministers in the relevant devolved institutions, which is what the amendment seeks to do. We requested consent in a previous amendment, which was rebuffed, but surely, in the spirit of co-operation and consensus, the Minister will agree to a formal consultation process. Everybody recognises there is a certain role for statutory instruments and secondary legislation—they are used by the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—but we have spoken several times in the Committee of the need to enhance scrutiny procedures and to improve the ability of Members of legislatures of all kinds to interact with them.
I hope the Minister will accept the amendment, but if she rejects it, as I suspect she will, I hope she will at least give some reassurances about the ongoing commitment to non-statutory consultation with Scottish Government Ministers and reflect on what these measures mean overall for the devolution settlement. The Government increasingly, at will, just take powers through this kind of clause—powers that until recently had been a more formal part of the devolution settlement and had been subject to more formal or informal consents.
Kemi Badenoch
The clauses in part 7 make general and miscellaneous provisions. Clause 57 provides for a power to allow amendments to the Bill, or any provisions amended by the Bill in other Acts, where references to secondary legislation become out of date in future. This is a necessary power that would allow, for example, a reference to a statutory instrument that is replaced to be updated to refer instead to the new statutory instrument, to ensure the provisions of the Bill remain workable when such changes occur.
The amendment proposed by the hon. Members for Glasgow North, and for Argyll and Bute, would require the Secretary of State to consult with the devolved Administrations before making regulations under clause 57. The hon. Member for Glasgow North asked for reassurance. This Government are committed to working constructively with the devolved Administrations to ensure that elections work well in the best interests of voters. He will have heard the Secretary of State, who is also Minister for intergovernmental relations, speaking at oral questions yesterday. He works very well with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations, and we should not pretend that things are otherwise in the House of Commons. We will of course liaise with the relevant devolved Administrations over any updating needed due to changes in their secondary legislation, which I think will satisfy the hon. Gentleman’s requirements.
The amendment is overly prescriptive. Some of the updating will relate only to reserved legislation, and some might relate to the secondary legislation of only one of the devolved Administrations, yet the amendment would require a statutory consultation with all of the devolved Administrations each time the power is exercised. That would not be proportionate. I invite the hon. Members to withdraw the amendment.
Clause 58 contains standard financial provisions. It explains that Parliament will pay for any costs that a Minister of the Crown incurs as a result of this Bill, and for any increased costs incurred under existing Acts of Parliament if they arise as a result of the Bill. It also provides that where the Bill increases sums already payable out of the Consolidated Fund under existing legislation, the increases will also be paid out of that fund, and then does the same for increases of sums payable into the fund.
Clause 59 defines a small number of terms used throughout the Bill. It also ensures that where the Bill creates or amends functions of the Secretary of State by amending other electoral legislation, those functions of the Secretary of State will be exercisable concurrently with the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
Clause 60 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill, namely the jurisdictions in which each provision of the Bill forms part of the law. Clause 61 sets out, as is common, that the provisions of the Bill will be brought into force using one or more statutory instruments. Those statutory instruments may bring different parts of the Bill into force on different days. Finally, Clause 62 cites the short title of the Bill—the Elections Bill 2021. These are all technical and necessary provisions and therefore I urge the Committee to allow the clauses to stand part of the Bill.
Patrick Grady
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 57 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 58 and 59 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 60
Extent
Amendment made: 7, in clause 60, page 61, line 36, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert—
“(a) the amendments made by paragraph 1(1) and (5) extend to England and Wales only;
(b) the amendments made by paragraph 1(2) to (4) and (7) to (12) extend to England and Wales and Northern Ireland only;” —(Kemi Badenoch.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 8.
Clause 60, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 61 and 62 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
Simple majority system to be used in elections for certain offices
‘Elections for Mayor of London
(1) The Greater London Authority Act 1999 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (5).
(2) In section 4 (voting at ordinary elections)—
(a) in subsection (1)(a), omit “(referred to in this Part as a mayoral vote)”;
(b) in subsection (2), omit “, unless there are three or more candidates”;
(c) omit subsection (3).
(3) In section 16 (filling a vacancy)—
(a) in subsection (3), for “a mayoral vote” substitute “one vote which may be given for a candidate to be the Mayor”;
(b) for subsection (4) substitute—
“(4) Section 4(2) (simple majority system) applies in relation to the election as it applies in relation to the election of the Mayor at an ordinary election.”
(4) In section 29 (interpretation of Part 1), omit the definition of “mayoral vote”.
(5) In Schedule 2 (voting at elections), omit Part 1.
(6) In section 165 of RPA 1983 (avoidance of election for employing corrupt agent), omit subsection (4).
Elections for elected mayors of local authorities in England
(7) The Local Government Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(8) In section 9HC (voting at elections of elected mayors)—
(a) for subsection (1) substitute—
“(1) Each person entitled to vote as an elector at an election for the return of an elected mayor is to have one vote which may be given for a candidate to be the elected mayor.”;
(b) in subsection (2), omit “, unless there are three or more candidates”;
(c) omit subsection (3).
(9) In section 9HD (entitlement to vote), in subsection (2), for “first preference vote, or more than one second preference vote,” substitute “vote”.
(10) In section 9R (interpretation of Part 1A), in subsection (1), omit the definitions of “first preference vote” and “second preference vote”.
(11) In Schedule 2 (election of elected mayor), in paragraph 1, after “authority” insert “in Wales”.
Elections for mayors of combined authority areas
(12) Schedule 5B to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 (mayors for combined authority areas: further provision about elections) is amended as follows.
(13) In paragraph 4 (voting at elections of mayors)—
(a) for sub-paragraph (1) substitute—
“(1) Each person entitled to vote as an elector at an election for the return of a mayor is to have one vote which may be given for a candidate to be the mayor.”;
(b) in sub-paragraph (2), omit “, unless there are three or more candidates”;
(c) omit sub-paragraph (3).
(14) Omit paragraph 5.
(15) In paragraph 6 (entitlement to vote), in sub-paragraph (2), for “first preference vote, or more than one second preference vote,” substitute “vote”.
Elections for police and crime commissioners
(16) The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is amended as follows.
(17) In section 57 (voting at elections of police and crime commissioners)—
(a) in subsection (2), omit “, unless there are three or more candidates”;
(b) omit subsections (3) to (5).
(18) Omit Schedule 9.’ —(Kemi Badenoch.)
This new clause makes provision for the simple majority system to be used in elections for the Mayor of London, mayors of local authorities in England, mayors of combined authority areas and police and crime commissioners.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Kemi Badenoch
These amendments move elections for police and crime commissioners in England and Wales, the Mayor of London, combined authority Mayors and local authority Mayors to the simple majority voting system, more commonly known as first past the post. The new clause amends legislation that provides for the supplementary vote system to apply when there are three or more candidates in an election or by-election for each of these posts. Under the new provision, each voter has one vote and the candidate with the most votes will be elected. Amendment 59 is consequential on that provision and modifies the long title of the Bill to include provision about the use of the first-past-the-post system in elections for certain offices.
The Government’s manifesto committed to supporting the first-past-the-post system. That reflects the will of the British people in the nationwide 2011 referendum, which saw two thirds of voters in favour of retaining first past the post for parliamentary elections.
Kemi Badenoch
All I can say is that that would have been a question for my predecessor. These discussions happened before I came into post. I know that this was a Government manifesto commitment, and I see no reason why, if there is a convenient Bill to allow us to fulfil a manifesto commitment, we cannot use it as a vehicle for doing so.
The Government’s manifesto committed to supporting the first-past-the-post system, as I have said, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced in March the initial recommendations of the review of police and crime commissioners. It recommended that the Government introduce legislation to change the voting system for all combined authority Mayors, the Mayor of London and police and crime commissioners to first past the post when parliamentary time allowed. The Home Secretary’s review of police and crime commissioners also extended to Mayors who can exercise PCC powers, to metro Mayors and to the Mayor of London. Changing the voting system for local authority Mayors, too, to first past the post will ensure consistency in voting method for all directly elected Mayors in England. This undertaking aligns with our belief that the first-past-the-post system is robust and secure and provides strong local accountability.
Kemi Badenoch
I believe it was a coalition Government who introduced PCCs, not a purely Conservative Government. We have had PCCs for 10 years now and there has been plenty of time to review the system and decide whether improvements can be made. There are many things that previous Labour and Conservative Governments have done that future Governments will change, and this is one of them.
Changing the voting system will ensure consistency, and this undertaking aligns with our belief that first past the post is robust and secure and provides strong local accountability. Moving to first past the post will make it easier for the public to express a clear preference. Additionally, as a simple, well-understood and trusted system, it will reduce complexity for voters and administrators alike.
On Monday 20 September, the House approved a motion to instruct this Committee to make provision in the Bill for the use of the simple majority voting system in elections for the return of the Mayor of London; an elected Mayor of a local authority in England; a Mayor of a combined authority area; or a police and crime commissioner. The House’s approval has enabled the Government to bring forward this new clause, and I therefore commend it to the Committee.
Cat Smith
I must say that I was very surprised when we received an instruction motion. To be honest, I had not seen one before during my time in this House, and I did not realise that the Government had been so disorganised that they had forgotten to put one of their manifesto commitments in the Bill, but by all accounts, that is exactly what has happened. It is not only chaotic, but deeply disrespectful to the House.
Our colleagues who do not have the privilege and joy of serving on this Committee got to debate the Bill on Second Reading, when we had no idea that this new clause would be included. Although we are able to debate this new clause, our colleagues were not able to raise concerns about it on Second Reading. It is disrespectful to our colleagues that they have not yet had the opportunity to raise concerns about this clause, but it is also disrespectful to this Committee. When, through the usual channels, we decided which witnesses should give evidence to the Committee, we did not know that a new clause was going to be tabled that would massively shake up the way in which many elections take place in England and Wales. We were not able to get witnesses who were experts in voting systems before the Committee, so that we had the opportunity to quiz them—to ask questions and explore whether the first-past-the-post system is as desirable as the Minister seems to think. We did not have the opportunity to explore how successful, or perhaps otherwise, the supplementary vote system has been in mayoral elections in England, or in police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. None of that was allowed for, which is disrespectful to this House, this Committee, and our colleagues who did not have the opportunity on Second Reading to ask questions and scrutinise the Government.
Moving beyond the incredibly disrespectful way in which new clause 1 has been tabled and turning to its specifics, I ask the Minister what consultation she or her predecessor have had with Mayors about whether this was a change they were seeking. Having spoken to many elected Mayors over the past few weeks, it strikes me that they did not know that this was coming, and it has come as something of a surprise. There was no clamour for it from their offices, and they are deeply hurt that the Minister has not reached out to them to consult with them on this new clause.
Specifically looking at London—I admit that I have had to swot up a fair bit on this issue, because I am not a London MP—in 1998, in the Greater London Authority referendum, Londoners were asked whether they wanted to have a Mayor and an assembly, and it was clear that that Mayor would be elected using a supplementary vote system. Londoners agreed, by a majority of 72.01%, that this was something that they wanted. Is this Committee going to overturn a democratic referendum—the democratic will of the people, we might say; in this case, the people of London—to change the voting system?
Last time we had a debate about changing the voting system in this country, the alternative vote referendum that everyone has clearly long since forgotten about, that question was put to the people, because this is a really major change. For us to be changing the voting system used in elections in this country not by referendum, not even by putting it in the Bill and debating it on Second Reading, but by slipping it in in Committee, is absolutely shocking and appalling. It is one of the lowest points of this Bill; as I have said at earlier stages, there are plenty of other things in this Bill that I disagree with, but I am deeply offended by the way in which the Government have gone about this. It is disrespectful, and it is riding roughshod over democracy.
Specifically in the case of the London referendum, every single London borough voted to elect their Mayor using a supplementary vote system. Who is this Committee—many of us are not even London MPs—to say to those people, “You voted in that referendum for that, but we are taking it away from you”? I had a little look at the breakdowns for different boroughs, because I was surprised when I saw that every London borough had voted for it—this is a diverse city—but in the lowest supporting areas, Havering and Bromley, it was still 60% and 57% voting in favour of that system, with the highest support being in Lambeth and Haringey, which had 81% and 83% respectively.
Aaron Bell
Of course, the voters in all those boroughs were voting in favour of the principle of a Mayor and an assembly and not specifically the voting system employed. But may I put a question to the hon. Lady? At the last London Mayor election, almost 5% of voters in London saw their votes essentially not count, because of the confusion that the system engendered. That is why the Government are proposing the change.
Cat Smith
I have completely forgotten the hon. Gentleman’s first point, but on the second, there were a lot of spoilt ballots in London this time and that was because the ballot paper was designed with two columns, rather than one column, for the first time. I have to be honest: I have seen the ballot paper, which was shared on social media, and it was shocking. It should never have been allowed to go to print. [Interruption.] It is amazing that it got past any level of scrutiny. There is probably a lesson to be learned about how we legislate and how we make sure that checks and safeguards are in place to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised, because I do not think—
The Chair
Order. Hon. Members should know by now that if they want to contribute, they can intervene or speak in the main part of the debate.
Cat Smith
Thank you, Mr Pritchard.
For more than 20 years, Londoners have been using the supplementary vote system to elect their Mayor without major incident. There were some issues with spoilt ballot papers at the last election—I concede that—but I think that it was very clearly because of the design of the ballot paper, as we did not see that in previous elections. Clearly, the ballot paper needs to be better designed.
I will raise again with the Minister the point about police and crime commissioner elections, which take place in England and Wales. It was a Conservative-led Government—she wishes to push her Liberal Democrat colleagues under the bus for the coalition, which is a pattern of behaviour that we have seen a fair bit—who chose the supplementary vote system for those elections, because there was a consensus, which new clause 1 is shattering, on a supplementary vote system. It is not proportional representation. It is not a radical change to the electoral system. But it is a fairer way of voters casting their vote, and I think there was a general consensus about that, which is why we saw it introduced for regional Mayors in England and police and crime commissioner elections—many of these under a Conservative Government, of course. It is why, since the year 2000, that system has been used pretty much consistently when bringing in new elections. I have counted them up: there have been 212 elections using the supplementary vote system in England and Wales since the turn of the millennium, and I think that voters are confident in using it now.
The only election that is not first past the post in my constituency in Lancashire is the election for police and crime commissioner, which uses the supplementary vote. The feedback I always get from my constituents is about how nice it is, in their words, “to be able to vote for the person who is my favourite candidate really, but then to have my vote count in relation to the people that we know the contest is actually between.” That is because the electorate are of course an intelligent electorate. People know whether their preferred candidate is likely to be in the final run-off of two, and they vote accordingly.
Aaron Bell
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way again. I am listening to what she is saying, and she may be interested to learn—in fact, both Opposition parties may be interested to learn—that in 2011 I actually voted for the alternative vote system, which makes me rather unusual on the Conservative side. In 2011, however, the country quite firmly did not vote for AV, and did not believe in the principle that people’s second votes should essentially count the same as their first votes. That is what the supplementary vote system means. SV is, in my opinion, far worse than AV, but I, on this side of the House, respect referendum results. I think both Opposition parties should do the same thing.
Cat Smith
I agree with the hon. Gentleman: we absolutely should respect a referendum result. That is why I am surprised to see those on the Government Benches riding roughshod over the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, in which it was very clear that the supplementary vote system for Mayor of London was what people wanted—by a huge majority. I do believe in respecting referendum results, and I respect the referendum results that he referred to. I voted against AV, so we were on different sides in that argument. I personally think that there are far better voting systems than AV, but this is not a debate about different voting systems. I think it is about riding roughshod over the democratic will of Londoners in 1998 by pushing through in Committee something that has not had the scrutiny of the full House. The way in which the Government have gone about this, whereby we have not been able to take evidence as a Committee and truly scrutinise the measure, is shocking. I know fine well that Government Members will just all vote for this anyway, but I ask them to look at their consciences on this new clause, because it is overturning the democratic will of the people of London.
The voting system has been working fine. I have to question why it is a Government priority suddenly to change it. The cynical part of me, and I am not normally a cynical person, would suggest that the Government feel that they cannot win an election under a supplementary vote system and perhaps think they have a better chance under first past the post. Perhaps it is a case of “If you can’t win the game, move the goalposts,” because it looks an awful lot like that.
Patrick Grady
I am unsure why Government Back Benchers are not rising in defence of their Minister on the implementation of this crucial manifesto promise. The Minister could not quite explain why it was not in the Bill when it was presented on Second Reading. Trying to blame a predecessor is an interesting approach, not least because the other Minister who spoke on the Bill in the House when the instruction motion was moved, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), said that the Government “speak with one voice”, so we would expect them all to understand exactly what the lines are.
Some of the earlier clauses related to local elections that are devolved, so it is not necessarily the place of the Scottish National party to get desperately involved in this debate, or to tell Members of Parliament in England what decisions they should or should not make, but it might be useful to offer at least some reflection on the effect of the clause, not least on the devolution settlement across the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister said that he is a champion of the devolution settlement, and when he forced through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and other aspects of Brexit legislation without the consent of the devolved legislatures much of that was on the grounds of his experience as Mayor of London, and that being Mayor of London was somehow equivalent to the entire institutional structure of the individual devolved legislatures.
What those institutions have in common is that they are elected on a proportional basis. At the moment, the Mayor of London has to win a supplementary ballot. Every Mayor has had to go into a second round to be chosen. The First Minister of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, has to command a majority across the legislature. That normally adds up to something very close to a majority of the votes that were cast in the election. I think I am right in saying that almost every First Minister in Scotland, except obviously in the majority Government, has required support from another party, or at the very least abstentions, in order to get elected.
In Scotland, our local authorities for several elections have been elected by single transferable vote. The effect of that is that the voices of all voters are heard. There is a ward in my constituency of Glasgow North, Partick East/Kelvindale, which was represented by four different parties—the Scottish National party, a Labour party councillor, a Conservative councillor and a Green party councillor. That meant that voters had a very wide choice of who they wanted to speak to. The distribution of votes was reflected proportionally, and people had someone they could go to whom they could trust—but voters in England, it seems, will not.
Patrick Grady
We have only to look at the results of the elections to this place—this is perhaps not the clause specifically to debate that—to see how well the Conservatives fare. When we SNP MPs were elected in large numbers in 2015, our parliamentary group leader at the time made the point that it did not reflect the result proportionally, but perhaps we are straying slightly. I want to come back to the election of the Mayor of London, and the results of first-past-the-post elections.
Perhaps Conservative Members—I look forward to hearing from them when they rise to speak in support of the Government—are quite comfortable with the idea that Ken Livingstone was elected on the first ballot with 39% of the vote in 2000, and with 36.8% of the vote in 2004. That is the mandate for someone to be the Mayor of a major European metropolitan city, which the Prime Minister himself has claimed is a kind of equivalent to the entire Scottish Parliament and the devolved Scottish Government. That is the equivalence that he has made between his role as Mayor of London and the entire devolution settlement in Scotland. It seems that Government Members are quite content with the possibility of someone being elected to that position on about 35% of the vote.
Aaron Bell
I was about to say that I was happy to see the hon. Gentleman returned to Parliament for Glasgow North in 2017 on 37.6% of the vote.
Patrick Grady
To be fair, I have already made that point. I am very happy to submit myself to the electorate under any proportional system that the Government want to introduce. The hon. Gentleman can be sure of the SNP’s support for a Bill introducing such a system; we have said that many times in this House.
The experience of preferential voting in Scotland is that results can change, and that has not always been to the SNP’s advantage. In fact, owing to the nature of Scottish politics at the moment, there is a clear trend with transfers. Where the SNP is a voter’s first preference, they cast their vote for that party. That is the very clear trend. In fact, in the ward that I mentioned, the SNP won the vote in the recent by-election, under first past the post; we got the most votes. We had an excellent candidate in Abdul Bostani. He got the most first preferences, but because of transfers, he lost out, so that ward is now represented by two Labour councillors, one Green councillor and one SNP councillor. It was a Conservative vacancy, incidentally; I say that for anyone who has not turned up to enough of the Committee sittings. That proves my point on the issue on which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was trying to catch me out. It proves the value of preferential voting systems.
Ultimately, it is for England’s Members to make a determination about what electoral system is used by their local authorities, but Government Members have to think very carefully about the consequences of this.
Brendan O'Hara
Does my hon. Friend agree that any lingering doubt that any of us may have had about the Government’s motivation in introducing the Bill is done away with by the parachuting in of this new clause? It is utterly self-serving, completely politically partisan and fundamentally undemocratic. Furthermore, does he agree that we and our colleagues should get out of here as quickly as possible, because Scotland needs to escape this nonsense?
Patrick Grady
If by “here”, my hon. Friend means the Union, yes, I entirely agree; if he means this Committee Room, I am afraid I do not agree, because I know how desperate Sir Edward is to chair our final sittings next Wednesday, so it is important that the Committee takes as long as it can to consider every one of these new clauses in great detail. I therefore look forward to all the speeches from the Conservative Back-Bench members of the Committee, who will now rise in defence of this major constitutional change that the Government want to bring forward. When they do, I urge them to reflect on the growing divergence that we have spoken about. This is not a levelling up or a coming together, but a growing apart of the constituent parts of the country, which have pretty fundamentally different perspectives on how democracy is, and should be, done. Although it is not for SNP Members to tell Members from England how their local elections should be determined and run, they ought to think about the issue carefully before they cast their vote.
Kemi Badenoch
I want to respond to a few points made by Opposition Members. On engagement, the policy was announced back in March. It is just that it was not a Cabinet Office policy; it was a policy from the Home Office and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, as it was known then. I am informed by officials that there was engagement with Mayors, but the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood may not have been aware of it.
The point about the procedure being disrespectful to the House is nonsense. The House voted for the procedure. It is also wrong to say that people have not had a chance to debate it if they are not on the Committee. I am sure that the Chair will correct me if I am wrong, but anyone not on the Committee who wants to take part in its debates can do so; they just do not have voting powers. No one not on the Committee has turned up today. That means that they did not want to debate this. If they did, they could have done so, just as we all have.
The hon. Lady made multiple references to the London mayoral and London Assembly elections. She is probably not aware that I was elected to the London Assembly in 2012, when I was a list candidate, and in 2016. She says that this is not something that people want. People repeatedly complained about how frustrating the system was. Going back to 1998, when a 2011 referendum occurred, is to ignore more recent evidence. Going back to 1998, when a 2011 referendum occurred, is to ignore more recent evidence. To say that 23 years after the 1998 referendum, which was not specifically on the voting style but really about whether or not to have a Mayor, is a very specious argument. I do not accept it at all.
I also found it mildly amusing to hear the hon. Lady say that the Committee needs experts to explain how first past the post works in relation to other voting systems. All of us here know how first past the post works, and also how the other systems work. I am not sure we can reasonably say we need so much expert advice on the way we are all elected.
Finally, the hon. Lady says that this is undemocratic, and I believe one of the SNP Members said that this was for political reasons. The fact is that in London mayoral elections, to which they are referring, no election would have had a different result, irrespective of whether it was first past the post or transferable voting. This is making things simpler and easier to understand for people who have complained.
Brendan O'Hara
To correct the record, I said that it is utterly self-serving, and completely politically partisan, and fundamentally undemocratic.
Kemi Badenoch
And I still reject the hon. Gentleman’s point. The fact is that we have a Labour Mayor at the moment; we have had more Labour Mayors than Conservative Mayors; and first past the post gives accountability and strength to the people who are elected.
Cat Smith
The Minister is absolutely correct about the London Mayors, and that first past the post would not have changed the results of any London mayoral elections. Is she aware of any mayoral posts currently held in England where the result would have been different using first past the post? Could she perhaps give an example of some of those?
Kemi Badenoch
No. I do not have a list of the mayoral elections that would be different, because the point is that we are not doing this for political reasons; we are doing it to simplify the system.
Kemi Badenoch
I will finish this point, because I know we want to finish this this afternoon. This was a manifesto commitment; people voted in the 2019 election knowing that this was in our manifesto. What would be undemocratic would be if we did not do this. That is why I urge Members to support the new clause.
Cat Smith
I will just let the Minister know the answer to my question, which is, of course, that there are some mayoral elections in England that would have been different if they had been held under first past the post. From the ones that I have seen, that would be because the Conservatives would have won under first past the post, while under the supplementary vote, they did not. I just thought I would help the Minister by pointing out that her amendment does very much help the Conservative party.
The Chair
Before I put the question, on a procedural point just for information, Members not on the Committee can attend this Bill Committee, but must sit in the Gallery. They cannot sit with Committee members, or indeed speak or vote. On delegated legislation, they can contribute from the floor, but not vote. Just to ensure that Members do not think I have come out as some sort of procedural genius like the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), that was on advice from the Clerk. It is always good to take advice. It would not be credible if it was from me, I know.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 1 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 2
Citizens’ assembly on electoral systems
“(1) The Secretary of State must establish a citizens’ assembly representative of the population aged 16 and over to consider electoral systems in the United Kingdom.
(2) The Secretary of State must, for each category of election reformed by section (Simple majority system to be used in elections for certain offices), provide to the assembly a report assessing the effects of the reforms on the matters in subsection (3).
(3) The matters are—
(a) voter engagement and understanding,
(b) electoral integrity,
(c) fairness and proportionality.
(4) A report under subsection (2) must be provided to the assembly no later than three months after the first election in each category of election after this section comes into force.
(5) The assembly must—
(a) consider the reports under subsection (2),
(b) consider other evidence relating to the matters in subsection (3).
(6) The assembly may make recommendations for legislative or policy change, including for parliamentary elections.”—(Patrick Grady.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Patrick Grady
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The introduction of new clause 1, and indeed amendment 59, fundamentally changed the scope and nature of this Bill. We made that point at the debate on the instruction given to this Committee. It is no longer just an Elections Bill tidying up vague aspects of electoral law; it is starting to make fundamental changes to the constitution of the United Kingdom. This is an elections Bill in the wider sense, so it is right that we should consider the various new clauses that flow from that as a consequence.
New clause 2 is quite appropriately placed because, throughout this process, we have heard about the kind of piecemeal and incremental changes that have been made to electoral law and election systems. This Bill is yet another example of that, with all the different little bits and pieces that it is doing. The new clause provides a chance to step back and to look at the effects of those changes, in particular those to the electoral system that have just been agreed by the Committee, with consequences across the United Kingdom—therefore, in the context of elections to this place.
Cat Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling the new clause and for his contribution so far. I read the new clause with interest. From the direction of his speech, I think he is arguing that a citizens assembly would be a far more consensual way of coming to a resolution on a binary choice. I wondered whether it was something that his colleagues in the Scottish Government are considering for another issue that polarises the population—rather than a referendum, perhaps a citizens assembly.
Patrick Grady
The hon. Lady was one of the few people in Committee who was paying attention to what I was saying earlier: the Scottish Government have used citizens assemblies not specifically on the matter of the constitution, but to test the views of the population and to help determine opinion and come to conclusions about policy development on both social justice and climate change.
Someone might want to argue that 2014 was polarising because it was a binary choice, yes or no, but I do not think that anyone could argue that it was anything other than a massive exercise in popular democracy. That referendum had the highest turnout until possibly the Scottish Parliament election we have just had—massive participation. That legacy continues to this day with political engagement. I encourage the hon. Lady to think about supporting my new clause.
As I said in one of the previous debates, the SNP supports the introduction of a far more proportionate system for this House. I referred to Angus Robertson, whose first contribution after the 2015 election was to recognise that the result was very disproportionate to what the result should have been. Incidentally, the 2017 result was probably more proportionate than that of 2015 in terms of how people had voted, and we would have been quite happy to have had 35 seats and been the third party in the House of Commons at that time, just as we have been happy with the results in both 2017 and 2019, which have represented overwhelming endorsements for the SNP manifesto and our commitment to allow people the right to choose Scotland’s future, but that is to stray from the point slightly.
The reality is that there is now a proliferation of electoral systems across the United Kingdom. People voting in mayoral elections and choosing police and crime commissioners are just about to experience yet another change—not to the status quo or something that existed before, because they never voted for them using FPP, but they will do so under the new clause. It is therefore appropriate to implement what is suggested in the new clause, and to take a step back in order to look at the implications of the Bill as a whole, particularly in the context of elections to this House. There is growing demand for that—it is not just an idea that we have had. There are a number of campaign groups, and a number of constituents have contacted me, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute, and probably other members of the Committee, as well as Members across the House, to say that the time is upon us to revisit this question. A citizens assembly provides the most effective mechanism for doing that in a modern democracy. I look forward to the Minister opposing all this.
Cat Smith
I had not planned to speak, but I think this is a good new clause. I do not know what electoral systems a citizens’ assembly would decide on, but I do know that we in this House do not have a monopoly on wisdom. We are 650 Members legislating in the House of Commons, and our unelected colleagues down the corridor in the House of Lords also legislate. There is also a broader case to be made about how our democracy works, given how fragmented and disparate it is increasingly becoming. A citizens’ assembly could actually give the Government even more of what they do not know they want yet, because the public do have wisdom. Bringing together a group of citizens who are representative of the country and allowing them to explore ideas and make decisions would add value to our deliberations in this place.
I draw the Minister’s attention to a citizens’ assembly or convention currently being co-ordinated by University College London, which is looking at many of these issues. Certainly since I was elected to the House, politics has increasingly felt quite divided. Are people leavers or remainers? Do people in Scotland want to remain part of the Union or do they want an independent country? All these things are dividing our population and create a lot of tension. We see it in the language used in political dialogue—I implore colleagues to be more thoughtful and kind in the language they use, and I hold myself to that standard as well. Surely a citizens’ assembly would be a new way to look at things and an opportunity to discover that we have more in common than what perhaps divides us.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I have to say that I have become a bit of a convert to citizens’ assemblies on complex issues such as climate change. We sit in the greatest citizens’ assembly, but is there not a difference between a set of complex issues around climate change and the effect of policy responses to that, where bringing the populace on the journey is as important as the policies themselves, and something such as electoral reform, where the policies are well known and quite discrete and it is a matter for this House to decide which one is the best to apply?
Cat Smith
It will always be a matter for this House to decide. A citizens’ assembly cannot change the law; only we parliamentarians can do that. A citizens’ assembly could put interesting proposals to the House, and it might throw up proposals that it had not even crossed our minds that the public might want.
I am glad the hon. Gentleman raised the example of climate change. Lancaster City Council has pulled together a citizens’ assembly on climate change and finding ways in which we, as a city, can be greener. The assembly has come up with proposals that were not in any party’s manifesto at local elections. Those things came forward from the public, who were given that space and opportunity to speak to experts and develop their own ideas. If we take that one small example of looking at climate change in a city in north Lancashire and apply it to a UK-wide citizens’ assembly looking at electoral systems and integrity, as it says in the new clause, the opportunities are far greater. In my time in this Front Bench role, which I have held since 2016, it has struck me that there is an awful lot of talk about electoral systems and democracy in this place, but we do not hear enough from the public. A citizens’ assembly would be a fantastic way of ensuring that the decisions we make can be inspired and influenced by people in this country—our electors.
Parliament is not a citizens’ assembly. We choose to put ourselves forward for elected office. I dare say that the kind of people who put themselves forward for electoral office are not all totally like the rest of the country. Many of the people who elect us look at the job we do and question why we do it. I can say, hand on heart, that both my younger sisters have said to me, “Cat, I have no idea why you do that job.” Being a full-time elected parliamentarian is a completely different experience from being a citizen on a citizens’ assembly, and I do not think we should equate the two.
We can learn lessons from the Republic of Ireland, which uses citizens’ assemblies to debate really complex ideas. That gives me confidence that UK citizens would, like Irish citizens, be able to come to policy solutions on very complex issues, including electoral systems and democratic accountability. We have a lot to learn from them. There is absolutely no obligation on us as parliamentarians to implement the outcome of the citizens’ assembly. We can take those recommendations and do what we do with many parliamentary reports—put them on the shelf and let them get dusty—although I would like to think we would not. However, there is no harm, and only opportunities for good, to come from supporting this new clause.
Kemi Badenoch
I have listened to the arguments carefully, and I am not persuaded that there is a need for a citizens’ assembly on this issue and for a statutory requirement, so I Members to oppose the new clause.
Patrick Grady
I am encouraged by the warm words of those on the Labour Front Bench. On that basis, we will test the will of the Committee.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 11—Automatic Voter Registration—
“(1) Registration officers must take all reasonable steps to ensure that all persons eligible to register to vote in elections in the United Kingdom are so registered.
(2) The Secretary of State must by regulations require public bodies to provide information to registration officers to enable them to fulfil their duty under subsection (1).
(3) Regulations under subsection (2) must apply to the following public bodies—
(a) HM Revenue and Customs;
(b) the Department for Work and Pensions;
(c) the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency;
(d) the National Health Service, NHS Wales and NHS Scotland;
(e) schools and further and higher education institutions;
(f) local authorities;
(g) HM Passport Office;
(h) police forces;
(i) the TV Licensing Authority;
(j) Job Centre Plus;
(k) the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities;
(l) the Department for Transport;
(m) the Department for Health and Social Care;
(n) the Home Office; and
(o) the Ministry of Justice.
(4) Regulations under subsection (2) may also apply to other public bodies.
(5) Registration officers must—
(a) use the information provided by the public bodies listed in regulations under subsection (3) to register otherwise unregistered persons on the appropriate electoral register or registers, or
(b) if the information provided does not contain all information necessary to register a person who may be eligible, contact that person for the purpose of obtaining the required information to establish whether they are eligible to register and, if so, register them on the appropriate electoral register or registers.
(6) If a registration officer has registered a person under subsection (5), the officer must notify that person within 30 days and give that person an opportunity to correct any incorrect information.
(7) Where a person is registered under subsection (5), that person shall be omitted from the edited register unless that person notifies the registration officer to the contrary.
(8) Nothing in this section affects entitlement to register to vote anonymously.
(9) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to registration officers on fulfilling their duties under this section.”
This new clause would require registration officers to enter eligible voters on the register, and provide for them to receive the necessary information from a number of public bodies.
New clause 13—Voter registration at universities and colleges—
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations require universities and colleges to provide to registration officers the information they hold that is required for the officers to register their students to vote.
(2) Universities and colleges must share with each student the information relating to the student that the university or college proposes to provide to the relevant registration officer, and must give students the opportunity to withhold consent to the provision of the information.
(3) If a student withholds consent under subsection (2), the university or college must not send their information to the registration officer.
(4) Nothing in this section affects entitlement to register to vote anonymously.
(5) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to registration officers, universities and colleges on fulfilling their functions under this section.”
This new clause would require universities and colleges to submit to registration officers the information necessary to register their students to vote.
Brendan O'Hara
For all the rancour and argument that there has been in this Committee over the last few weeks, I think we all agree that voting is a fundamental democratic right that has to be protected. As it is a fundamental democratic right, surely it is incumbent on those in power to seek to maximise participation right across our society and to encourage everyone in society to have their say and make their voice heard. It is our job in this House to ensure that the citizens we represent can exercise that democratic right.
Kemi Badenoch
New clauses 3 and 11 would impose a legal duty on public bodies, requiring them to provide information to electoral registration officers for the purposes of automatic electoral registration of identified electors. I am open to being persuaded, but the arguments need to be very good and, clearly, should not contradict the principles on which we stand for election or that can be found in previous legislation. We cannot agree to the new clauses as they contradict the principle that underpins electoral registration: that individuals are responsible for registering themselves. For those reasons, we cannot support new clauses 3 and 11.
In addition, new clause 13 broadly replicates existing legislation and is therefore unnecessary. The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 ensures that the facilitation of electoral registration is a condition of the higher education framework, so I urge Members to oppose the new clause.
Cat Smith
I rise to speak to new clauses 11 and 13, which are tabled in my name. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have had discussions about the security of elections, and there has been much talk about whether individuals can fiddle results and how elections can be stolen. I tabled the new clauses with the hope of making our elections more secure, because we know that when the electoral register is more accurate and more complete, it is harder for malign actors to fiddle it round with just a few votes. At the moment, having 9 million voters either missing entirely or registered incorrectly is a weakness in our democratic system. It is a move to improve the security of our elections to have a more accurate electoral register.
I liked the point made by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute: we do not register to pay tax, so why do we register to vote? I believe that it is very important to vote, and I tell anybody who will listen how important it is to take part in our elections, but I am aware that many people do not have figures like me in their lives—they are probably grateful for it. Given that we know we can have automatic voter registration and a more accurate electoral register, it strikes me as utterly bizarre that we would not want that—that we would not want a more accurate electoral register and not want to know that when we go to the country everyone who should be registered to vote can vote and hopefully does vote. I would like to see increased voter turnout, but at the moment people are falling at the first hurdle when they find that they are not on the electoral register.
New clause 13 is specifically about colleges and universities, because we know that younger voters are far less likely to be registered than older voters. There is a real gap.
Brendan O'Hara
The hon. Lady has reminded me of our very first evidence session and what she said to Richard Mawrey QC, which was that increasing turnout and participation makes fraud harder. Much of the Government’s case in this whole debate has been about stopping fraud and cheating, and in response to her question, Richard Mawrey said,
“that is absolutely right, because fraud is obviously a relatively risky occupation, and the more bogus votes you have to put in, the more difficult it is.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 11, Q9.]
He agreed entirely with the hon. Lady that to widen participation and to increase the franchise is to diminish fraud. Does she agree that automatic voter registration would do exactly that and exactly what the Government have been calling for?
Cat Smith
I thank the hon. Member for reminding us of the evidence that we heard at the beginning of the Committee, or that at least some of us heard—those of us who were listening or who were members of the Committee at that point.
The new clauses—I agree with that tabled by the SNP, too—are all about improving the security of our elections. We did not spend so many hours of our lives debating clause 1, on voter ID, with the Government arguing consistently about the security of elections, only for them to look at these new clauses, which deal with just that, and say, “Well, not those ones.” One could say that it is starting to look a little partisan.
I implore the Minister to look carefully at the new clauses. I appreciate that she is new to the role, and I would be very willing to open a dialogue with her to find ways to get those missing millions on to the electoral roll, because I believe that cross-party consensus can be found. I do not think any member of the Committee would argue that people should be missing from the electoral roll. Our electoral roll should be accurate in reflecting where this country’s voters are and whether they are registered, giving them the opportunity to go and vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 8—Voting from age 16 in parliamentary elections—
“In section 1(1)(d) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (definition of voting age for parliamentary elections), for “18” substitute “16”.”
This new clause would lower the voting age to 16 in UK parliamentary elections.
Brendan O'Hara
It gives me enormous pleasure to move new clause 4, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North. The SNP believes passionately in this and has supported lowering the voting age for all UK elections since the 1960s.
Winnie Ewing, our first Member of Parliament, spoke about the franchise for 16 and 17-year-olds in her maiden speech way back in 1967, so we come at this as early adopters of the idea. It was with enormous pride that the SNP Government introduced the franchise for 16 and 17-year-olds in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. That gave us all an enormous sense of pride.
To give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote is to say that they have an equal say and as much of a stake in the future of the country as any other age group—[Interruption.] Sorry, was there an intervention or was that just a general murmur? That Scottish independence referendum set a precedent: it said that 16 and 17-year-olds should have a say on all constitutional issues that affect them. Subsequently, their voting record in Scottish parliamentary and local elections has proven that they are no more or less capable than any other age group in society of making an informed decision. We are absolutely delighted that the Scottish example was followed very quickly by the Welsh Senedd. Now, Welsh 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in elections for their own national Parliament.
The same young people, however, alongside their peers in England and Northern Ireland, cannot have a say on which Government is elected to this place. It is striking that the issue has become so divisive and partisan, particularly given that the last UK-wide lowering of the voting age—from 21 to 18 years old back in 1967—attracted little or no attention or controversy. It is even more remarkable not only because the UK was one of the first democracies to lower the voting age to 18, but because there is now overwhelming proof that lowering the voting age to 16 and 17 years old works. Scotland has shown that it works, so this is not a step into the darkness or a wander into the unknown, but unlike the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years old, it has become hugely controversial, divisive and partisan.
Brendan O'Hara
Unfortunately, my hon. Friend is not on the side I was looking for interventions from, but I will absolutely give way.
Patrick Grady
Indeed, but we have been arguing throughout the Bill that the Government are trying to suppress democracy, and this just goes to show that they are not even willing to allow their Back Benchers to engage with such a fundamentally important proposition. Is it not even more ironic that the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament supported votes at 16? Perhaps what that demonstrates is that the Government view the devolved Assemblies as lesser places, so they can have strange experiments and expand the franchise if they want to because they do not have the supremacy that this place enjoys.
Brendan O'Hara
I admire my hon. Friend’s powers of provocation, and still the Government Members slumber. Still nobody gets to their feet—[Interruption.] I will take that intervention. No, it was not an intervention. It was just a chuntering from a sedentary position. Perhaps the Minister could speak for them all. Can she explain to us why this is okay for Scotland and Wales? Why, when it has been so demonstrably successful in both of those devolved Administrations, are the Government so absolutely opposed to extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds? The Conservative party in Scotland is okay with it. Someone will tell me if the Conservative party in Wales is not, but, as far as I am aware, it did not oppose it. Why is it okay for Scotland and Wales, and not okay for young people in England and Northern Ireland?
Cat Smith
I rise to speak to new clause 8, tabled by me and my hon. Friends. It was good timing for the SNP spokesperson to open the debate on the age of enfranchisement. The Labour party would extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. The Welsh Labour Government have done it, and we have seen it work well for a number of years in Scotland. We know that the record of voting in the Scottish parliamentary and local elections proved that 16 and 17-year-olds are more than capable of casting their votes and making informed decisions.
Since this year’s Senedd elections, Welsh 16 and 17-year-olds can now vote for their Members of the Senedd. The experience of the Scottish referendum showed that, when given a chance, 16 and 17-year-olds have a higher rate of turnout than 18 to 24-year-olds, with 75% voting, and 97% say that they would vote in future elections. Only 3% said that they did not know. That flies in the face of some of the arguments that I have occasionally heard in opposition to this idea, although we have not heard any yet today, that say that young people would not be well informed. We know from analysis of the referendum in Scotland that 16 and 17-year-old voters accessed more information from a wider variety of sources than any other age group, so, arguably, they are incredibly well informed and not necessarily biased towards one political persuasion.
A lowering of the voting age has been called for many times over the years. I have called for it many times since I was elected. It would enable young people to have their first experience of voting, often when they are still in full-time education. I know from studies that I have read over the years that if an elector votes the first time that they are eligible to vote in an election, they are far more likely to go on to develop a lifetime habit of voting and engaging in democracy. Again, it comes back to security in elections. One of the best ways we can make our elections safer and more secure is by increasing turnout. A good way of increasing turnout in the long term is to maximise the number of people whose first opportunities to vote come when they are still in full-time education, when they are still very much supported to vote.
At the moment, with the voting age for England and Northern Ireland coming in at 18—it has been 18 for UK general elections, and in Scotland and Wales as well—for many young people their first vote comes at a time of great change in their lives. They might be starting out in the world of work, might have gone off to university to study, or might have recently moved out of the family home. It is far better that we give young people an opportunity to vote and give the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds so that we can increase the chances of an electorate that is engaged in the process and that votes. That is better for the security of elections.
Kemi Badenoch
I was amazed to hear the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute, who is clearly suffering from significant amnesia if he claims not to have heard the arguments on votes at 16. As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said, the subject has been debated time and again, certainly every single year since 2010. There is no need for me to rehash the arguments. I ask him to ask his parliamentary researcher to research Hansard. Given our manifesto commitment to maintain the current franchise at 18, and having been elected on that principle, the Government have no plans to lower the voting age. We will not support the new clause.
Brendan O'Hara
Yet again the Minister is outrageously dismissive. A part of her job is to answer questions in Committee. This is an important Committee. To say, “Go and ask an SNP researcher” is an absolute outrage. Minister, you have a responsibility to this House to answer direct questions and I am afraid you have been sadly lacking in doing that. We will not push the clause to a vote this afternoon, but we will test the will of the House on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 5
Voting by convicted persons sentenced to terms of 12 months or less
‘In section 3(1A) (exceptions to the disenfranchisement of prisoners) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, after “Scotland” insert “or a parliamentary election”.’—(Patrick Grady.)
This new clause would allow prisoners serving a sentence of 12 months or less to vote in UK parliamentary elections.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Patrick Grady
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
As with the other new clauses we are debating in this sequence, new clause 5 is about levelling up the franchise for election to the House of Commons with that of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020 is a genuinely historic piece of legislation. It introduced the widest franchise that has ever existed in these islands, possibly in western Europe. In May this year more people were eligible to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections—indeed, more people did vote—than in any other election ever held. That is even more remarkable given the context of the global pandemic and the severe restrictions on the practicalities of voting and the challenges that people faced in terms of social distancing. More people also voted for the SNP than had ever voted for the SNP before.
The 2020 Act was remarkable. It included, as we have just discussed, votes at 16, and the extension that we will come on to. It also included a small number of prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or less. The Electoral Commission reckoned from electoral returning officers’ data that about 38 eligible prisoners had registered to vote in the election. It is a small number—probably it could be larger—but it is nevertheless significant. In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights found that the blanket ban on prisoner voting in the United Kingdom meant that the country was in breach of article 3, protocol 1, of the European convention on human rights. The Scottish Government therefore see the introduction of this provision as an important step towards compliance with that judgment and respecting the fundamental rights that exist even for people who have been incarcerated.
The legal system in Scotland also now exercises a presumption against short sentences, but that approach and the right to vote if serving a sentence of 12 months or less are both rooted in the principles of inclusion and a desire for rehabilitation. There is therefore not only a human rights imperative to the new clause—to bring the United Kingdom further into line with the judgment handed down by the European Court of Human Rights—but the importance of aligning the franchise across the different legislatures of these islands. That is something that the Government ought to consider and support, although I suspect we will hear the opposite.
Kemi Badenoch
The Government believe that when citizens commit a crime that is sufficiently serious to detain them in prison, they have broken their contract with society to such an extent that they should not have the right to vote in prison. We were elected on a manifesto that makes it clear that we will maintain the ban on prisoners voting in jail. Prison means the loss of a number of rights and freedoms, not least the right to freedom of association and liberty. The Government believe that the loss of voting rights while in prison is a proportionate curtailment of such rights. As such, we cannot support the new clause.
Patrick Grady
I thank the Minister for that brief response. Nevertheless, it is important that we test the will of the Committee, because the new clause is about ensuring that the franchise is aligned and that we are compliant with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Patrick Grady
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This is the last in the sequence of new clauses that reflect the similar provisions in the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020. The new clause extends the right to vote to all those with settled status in the United Kingdom—in essence, refugees with a right to remain.
What better way is there to send a message that refugees are welcome here, people who have often fled regimes where universal suffrage and free and fair elections are unheard of? That is why people come to the United Kingdom—they are escaping persecution, because they were living under oppressive regimes. Extending the franchise to such people is an extremely important message to send, but it is also important to the decision-making process, because those voices ought to be heard. Important decisions are made affecting their wellbeing and, frankly, if people in such situations had the right to vote, the way in which they are treated—in particular by this Conservative Government—would be very different.
Most of us have constituents who are refugees or asylum seekers who have not only fled atrocious situations but find themselves living in atrocious situations when they experience the hostile environment that the Government force upon them, whether through the poor condition of their housing or being denied the human right to work. Everybody is born with an innate right to earn their own living, but that right is denied to them by the Government. That is not a right that the Scottish Government are able to extend, which is one reason why they have extended the franchise, because that is within their gift and they want to send that signal that we value the experiences, horrific though some are, and skills that refugees bring to this society and the contribution that they can make.
Brendan O'Hara
On the contribution that refugee communities can and do bring to Scottish society, will my hon. Friend join me in acknowledging and congratulating the contribution made by the Syrian community on Bute? They fled an atrocious, most awful situation in their homeland to come to Bute and are now business owners. Their children have grown, come through the school system and are now at university. These people work and contribute to Scottish society in every single respect, as every other Scot does. The difference is that they cannot vote when it comes to choosing a Government in this place.
Patrick Grady
I absolutely echo everything my hon. Friend says about the incredible contribution of Syrian refugees, particularly in his constituency but in others as well. Refugees from other parts of the world were delighted at the opportunity to take part in the Scottish Parliament elections in May and would dearly love the opportunity to make their voices heard in elections to this place, and indeed to stand as candidates. We spoke about a by-election held in a ward within my constituency boundary, Partick East/Kelvindale. Abdul Bostani, the SNP candidate who achieved a plurality of votes but was unsuccessful because of the preferential voting system, is a refugee from Afghanistan. Our proportional representation list in Glasgow was headed by Roza Salih, one of the “Glasgow Girls”, originally from Kurdistan, who has fought for the rights of refugees. What greater message of tolerance and inclusion can we send than by welcoming people in that situation right into the heart of our democratic system? Equally, what opposite message do we send when such people are excluded, denied the opportunity to vote and denied other fundamental rights that we should have as human beings—rights that cannot really be taken away from them but that are simply denied to them? The right to vote ought to be such a right.
Again, there are two principles behind the new clause. First, the right to vote—that innate right to participation and freedom of speech. In modern democracies, it is understood that the right to vote is part of that fundamental right to freedom of speech. Secondly, levelling up the franchise. I do not think the Minister properly addressed this point in her response to previous new clauses; maybe she can attempt to do so in her response to this new clause. Why are the Government content with, and why do they welcome, the diverging franchise? More people than ever before are able to vote in elections to the Scottish Parliament, and indeed to the Senedd Cymru, whereas the overall effect of the Bill, as we said right back on Second Reading, will be fewer people having the opportunity to vote, because the Government are going out of their way to make it more difficult. Why do they see that diverging franchise as a good thing or something that they do not need to take an opinion on? I look forward to the Minister explaining why the Government want to continue the hostile environment for refugees in regard to their right to vote and responding to those other points on the divergence of the franchise.
The Chair
Apart from the exception that we agreed this morning, if hon. Members want to speak, they should rise a little bit out of their chairs.
Kemi Badenoch
The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next UK Government is rightly restricted to British citizens and those with the closest historical links to our country. European citizens, for example, have never been entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. This new clause would extend the parliamentary franchise to all foreign nationals resident in the UK. The Government have no plans to extend the parliamentary franchise and cannot support the new clause.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Brendan O’Hara
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North, who laid out a compelling and detailed case as to why extending the voting right to foreign nationals and widening the franchise is so important. What we have seen is a widening of the franchise in Scotland at exactly the same time as this place seeks to narrow the franchise.
In February 2020, the Scottish Parliament passed legislation extending the vote beyond EU nationals and Commonwealth citizens to include foreign nationals with leave to remain and refugees, adding 55,000 people to the register altogether. That is in stark contrast to what is taking place down here at Westminster. The Scottish Parliament did so because Scotland wants to be that open, welcoming country and that place that is home to anyone who wants to call it home, and it wants to recognise the enormous contribution that EU nationals have made to our country, our society and our general wellbeing. We want to welcome those EU nationals who want to be part of Scotland and we want to give them a stake in, and a responsibility for, the future of the country. The Scottish Parliament has made the decision that anyone who is legally resident in Scotland will have a say in our future, and that is only right.
However, while the Scottish Parliament and Scotland in general seek to reassure EU nationals that they are valued and welcome and we view them as an integral part of our future, the UK Government, at best, use them as a bargaining chip and, at worst, see them as an inconvenience. They may be allowed to pick fruit, or to drive lorries in an emergency, but they most certainly will not be treated as equal or valued citizens. We have got used to having a wide, diverse and growing franchise in Scotland, because that is good for our country and for our democracy. I strongly advise the UK Government to look to Scotland for a lead and to make the status of EU nationals equal across the various Administrations of these islands, because that is ultimately the right thing to do and it is only fair that they do it.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
We have been talking so far about making the Bill less confusing and more streamlined to enable more people to vote—that being the aim—as well as about ensuring that voting has integrity. It will be very confusing to be on the doorstep telling people to vote, depending on whichever agreement we have at the time with different former colleagues in the EU. It would really simplify voting if the new clause were agreed or could at least be considered as the Bill goes forward. It will be very difficult for people to work out whether they possess these voting rights at the time each election happens. To ensure that more people vote and that it is as easy as possible to do so, voting should be as simple as possible, and allowing all EU nationals to vote is the simplest way.
Kemi Badenoch
Our position has always been that after our exit from the EU existing voting and candidacy rights should be maintained where possible. The new clause would extend the parliamentary franchise to EU citizens where no such rights previously existed, as I said during our debate on the previous amendments. Those who are nationals of a member state have never been able to vote in UK parliamentary elections by virtue of their EU citizenship. If an EU citizen becomes a British citizen, they will be eligible for the parliamentary franchise from that point. The right to vote in parliamentary elections and choose the next UK Government is rightly restricted to British citizens and those with the closest historical links to our country.
Brendan O'Hara
I thank the Minister for that pre-prepared paragraph. We will push this new clause to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Cat Smith
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause would increase the accessibility of postal voting. As we have seen, the Government have reduced voters’ flexibility to use postal votes through the earlier clauses of the Bill. Their changes will make the process of voting more complex and bureaucratic and, I fear, turn voters off bothering to vote at all. Ministers should be directing their energy towards changes that will make voting easier, not putting up more barriers. Since we are considering all things elections, I also wonder why on earth postal voters need to print off and submit a form via the post when it is possible to register to vote online. That an additional administrative burden could be quickly removed through online postal vote applications. The Opposition are trying to make postal voting more accessible, and that requirement is an additional administrative burden that could be removed by allowing online applications.
There is no good reason why the policy intention of this new clause should be voted down by the Government. I would be interested to know whether, if the Minister is not happy with the wording of our new clause, she would be interested in taking it away and exploring ways in which we can embrace digital technology to make our democracy more accessible. She is certainly not afraid of technology: I admire the fact that she is one of the few Ministers who is often at the Dispatch Box with an iPad, rather than a sheet of paper. Given her enthusiasm for all things digital, I wonder whether there is scope for the Government and Opposition to work together and come forward with a solution to digitalise this process, making processes quicker and more accessible for electoral administrators and delivering more of what voters now expect when engaging with any aspect of applying to do things through the state.
Finally, given that COP26 is about to start, moving to online applications would of course reduce the use of paper and would therefore be a greener policy as well.
Kemi Badenoch
Committee members may want to get out their smelling salts, because the Government agree in principle with the introduction of online absent voting applications. The Government developed the basis for a potential online absent voting application earlier this year, and further work is under way to determine whether it can be rolled out safely. The Government are committed to increasing participation in our democracy and empowering all those eligible to vote to do so in a safe, efficient and effective way.
As the hon. Lady mentioned, an important part of the legislation is to provide electors with a choice on how to cast their vote. Now more than ever, people may wish to make use of absent vote and postal vote methods, which are essential tools in supporting voters to exercise their right to vote. As she said, in a digital world, it is right that we spread the use of technology, when that can be done safely, to further increase accessibility and the efficient running of our elections.
Cat Smith
After five and a half years of campaigning for digital postal vote applications, I am very pleased with the Minister’s response. I have always thought her a reasonable woman, and I look forward to further conversations in which we can find consensus. In that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 10
Emergency appointment of proxy
“(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations enabling voters on a relevant electoral register to apply to appoint a proxy on grounds of a personal emergency.
(2) Such applications shall be granted by the relevant registration officer provided that the officer—
(a) is satisfied that the reason for the application is such that it would be unreasonable for the applicant to vote in person,
(b) has no reasonable grounds to believe that the stated basis for the application is untrue, and
(c) has received the application not later than 5 pm on the day of the poll at that election.
(3) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to registration officers on fulfilling their duties under this section.”—(Fleur Anderson.)
This new clause would allow voters to make applications for proxy votes on grounds of personal emergency up to the day of the poll.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Fleur Anderson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Maybe we are on a roll; this could be great. I have a confession: not a day goes by that I do not think about the next election, but I think I am in the minority. The new clause would extend the deadline for the emergency appointment of proxies to the day of the election, because a lot of people do not think about election day until the day itself. That would maintain a change that was made by the Government during the covid pandemic, when they extended the deadline for proxy voting to the day of the election. What the Government did during covid was a good thing, and we should learn from some of the changes we had to make under dreadful circumstances by incorporating those changes into our best practice for future elections. The explanatory notes state:
“This Bill makes new provision for and amends existing electoral law to ensure that UK elections remain secure, fair, modern, inclusive and transparent.”
On-the-day proxy voting would do just that.
The former Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), wrote to the Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), back in February. She said:
“An emergency proxy vote is available in certain…circumstances (such as illness)”
close to polling day. She continued:
“The government is amending secondary legislation to further support proxy voting for people affected by coronavirus close to the polls. In particular, these changes will allow those self-isolating as a result of coronavirus exposure, testing or symptoms to apply for a proxy vote in the days leading up to polling day and until 5pm on the day itself, without having to find someone to attest their application”
or to change who is appointed as proxy if the proxy is affected by coronavirus. She went on:
“This will also be available to those who test positive for the virus, on the same basis.”
We would argue that those conditions will continue, because there are other illnesses and other reasons why people will not know that they need a proxy vote until polling day. My husband had to take an emergency flight to Sudan two days before the referendum, so I had to apply for a proxy vote so that he could vote. He would have felt very hard done by and disappointed had he been unable to vote in that referendum. If he had had to fly the night before the election, he would have needed to get the proxy vote on the day itself. Taking the ability to vote away from him and so many others who, owing to illness or other reasons, do not know that they are unable to vote until election day will reduce and suppress voting.
Cat Smith
This strikes me as a timely point in proceedings to remind the Committee that we all get ill occasionally. Indeed, a member of the Committee is not here because he has coronavirus. As it happens, Committee members can pair so that the outcome of a vote is not affected by absence, but in a general election there is no opportunity for a voter to pair with a voter for another party and to agree not to turn up at the polls because one of them has coronavirus. Perhaps the lesson from this Committee is that we are all susceptible to illnesses, and therefore this is a reasonable new clause.
Fleur Anderson
Absolutely. We just do not know what will happen on the day. We do not want people to lose out on a vote just because emergencies happen. To extend proxy voting will not cost any more. It will not undermine any of the previous clauses; it does not change the fact that voting will be secure—the same security will be there. It all stays the same, but extends it until 5 o’clock on election day, which seems a fair thing to do, and I urge everyone to support the new clause.
Kemi Badenoch
The Government cannot support the new clause as we believe that in order to maintain the integrity of the electoral process, the emergency proxy provision cannot be drawn too widely. We discussed that in passing when considering other clauses. The arguments for emergency proxies still stand. There is already provision for electors to be able to apply for an emergency proxy, as the hon. Member for Putney said, in the event of illness or recent disability or for reasons of occupation, service or employment. These are important provisions that facilitate participation in the electoral process.
In his review into electoral fraud, Lord Pickles considered emergency proxy voting and found that there was concern among electoral administrators that widening the right to an emergency proxy would increase the risk of fraud. We therefore have no plans to increase the availability of emergency proxy voting.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Fleur Anderson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is in a similar vein to the previous new clause. It would require officers to make provision for voter registration up to and including polling day.
Yesterday, the ultra low emission zone was extended—bear with, because this is relevant. Plans for the ULEZ started in 2014; it was announced in 2017, there were lots of consultations across London, and it was introduced in 2019. There were further consultations on extending it, as has happened. More consultations and measures were put in place. It was very controversial. Signs have been going up on our streets since May. Yet still, yesterday, it was a surprise to some people. A lot of constituents got in contact with me, saying, “What is this ULEZ? Why don’t I have a say on what’s happening?”
As we all know, we might flag something, advertise it as much as we like, but some people will be surprised to find that it is election day. They will be surprised to find out that they have to use their ID to vote. They will be surprised to find out that the deadline to get a postal vote or voter ID has passed. These changes will be a surprise to many. There are 9 million people of voting age not on the register. The moves in the Bill to increase the frequency of registering for a postal vote and to change to the voter ID system will not be known about by many people until election day.
As I have said, every single vote counts. I am sure we all agree. However, in every single pilot for this Bill, people were turned away from polling stations and then did not return because they did not know about the different provisions being made. Some elections are won or lost by a single vote, or a handful of votes.
This, therefore, is a high-risk strategy; if same-day voter registration is not allowed, the Bill will stop people from voting. It is an unproven system—there were not many pilot schemes—and at the cost of £120 million, we must get it right. We should be increasing voting, not decreasing it, and having same-day registration will increase voting. The new clause will enable everyone who wants to vote to vote. Not allowing same-day registration will prevent that.
I am sure the Minister will not accept the new clause, despite the earlier signs of change. However, I challenge her to return to amend the Bill, if this is not accepted, with the provisions that she would deem necessary to enable same-day registration, and to match the ID that would be deemed to be strong enough, safe enough and secure enough to maintain the integrity of the Bill, in the Government’s view, but also allow same-day voting.
Kemi Badenoch
We cannot agree to the new clause, as it would have a significant logistical impact on the conduct of elections. Allowing registrations on polling day itself would raise issues about how the eligibility of applicants can be verified, and uncertainties as to the register to be used for the election, undermining confidence in the process.
All applications should be subject to the same level of scrutiny and checks; if we allow applications to be made on the day, that would leave electoral registration officers having to confirm a person’s eligibility after the close of poll. As there is a legal requirement that returning officers start the count within four hours of the close of poll, that would have a significant impact on the timing of the declaration of the results for polls. The declaration would need to be delayed, pending confirmation that those voters who registered on polling day were indeed entitled to vote at the poll.
Any same-day registrations would need to be verified by EROs, which could take some days to do. That would no doubt present some issues to the longstanding tradition of counting and declaring election results as soon as possible, which has had benefits for establishing certainty and for having a Government in place as soon as possible. I therefore urge the hon. Lady to withdraw the motion.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Fleur Anderson
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 14 cuts the connection between the ability of overseas voters to vote and to donate. I have high hopes that it will be accepted. I have that hope because when debating amendment 79, which is related to new clause 14, the Minister said that she was interested in talking further about the issue. This could be the one!
Cat Smith
I wonder whether my hon. Friend would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the findings in the Russia report, which I feel have not been discussed enough in the House. I am very proud of our British democracy, and I hope that Government Members are too. The report highlights the very real risks that British politics would be left to the influence of foreign money. I hope new clause 14 will go some way to protecting the democracy we hold so highly in this country, protecting it against foreign interference.
Fleur Anderson
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the awareness of the report to the Committee and directing us toward the potential risks when it comes to overseas permitted donors. Those open the door to a lot of concern, which we have seen in the past and has been reported on in past elections.
What better way is there to have influence than with a UK residency? Someone could be living here as a student, qualify as a resident, then return to their country and many years later be able to register as an overseas voter, thus being able to bankroll and influence our parties. It is unfair and wrong that there is a loophole. People who do not live in the UK and pay tax and are not affected by the rules and decisions of elected politicians can take such a full and active role in financing our political system, giving them more of a say—because of their wealth—than many working people living here all their life, who are very affected by the decisions made.
Many feel that Tory donors, for example, already have more of a say than working people in this country, and the Bill will only continue that fear. As the shadow Minister said previously in Committee,
“My biggest concern about the overseas electors section of this Bill is the fact that it could undermine the integrity of our electoral process.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 21 October 2021; c. 245.]
Let us be clear: the true motivation behind these changes to overseas voting is to create a loophole in donation law that would allow donors unlimited access to our democracy, allowing them to bankroll Tory campaigns, for example, from their offshore tax havens. If that is the case, then vote against the amendment, cut the link between overseas voters and permitted donors, and only allow overseas voters to vote. It is as simple as that. If that is not the true motivation, let us close the loophole and cut the link by voting for new clause 14.
Kemi Badenoch
As the hon. Member mentioned, we discussed this issue when considering clauses on overseas electors. I did agree with Opposition Members that we should look at ways to ensure that we do not inadvertently create new loopholes while trying to secure the voting system or inadvertently extend the franchise beyond the Bill’s intention.
Having said that, what the hon. Lady refers to as a loophole is not. It is a long-standing principle—one originally recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1998—that permissible donors are those on the UK electoral register. If someone can vote for a party, they should be able to donate to it.
UK electoral law already sets out a stringent regime of spending and donation controls, to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest in UK election can donate or campaign. That includes British citizens who are registered as overseas electors. I have explained that I am very open to discussing what we can do to secure the system but, for the reasons I have outlined, the Government do not support the new clause. I hope the hon. Member for Putney understands that and will withdraw the new clause.
Cat Smith
I wonder whether I might trouble the Minister. Will she commit to a meeting to discuss the specific issues that the new clause raises, looking particularly at the Russia report and whether we could find cross-party agreement on ensuring that our elections and democracy are safe and secure?
Kemi Badenoch
I am very happy to have a meeting, and I think we should look at the whole section on overseas electors. I have not read the Russia report, so I am keen to get a briefing on it from the hon. Lady. I am sure that officials will also prepare a briefing so that I can fully understand. Given that, I hope the Opposition will withdraw the new clause.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Patrick Grady
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am not sure how Sir Edward Leigh, one of the other Chairs of the Committee, will feel about this, because I know that he was looking forward to chairing the final session next Wednesday. I will just have to keep this going until the rise of the House, and then for both sessions on Thursday, so that he has the opportunity to hear the Committee conclude its considerations. Otherwise, we will just have to get on with it as quickly as we can—I think we all need a break.
This is a relatively straightforward new clause, and I look forward to hearing the Government’s response to its principles, because it reflects the concerns that were expressed earlier when we considered part 3 and the powers of the Electoral Commission. The Government had real concerns that it was not an effective regulator—that it lacked teeth and was somehow not capable of exercising either the deterrent or the punishment when electoral offences took place. The new clause is a way of giving the commission the powers for which it asked, and to change the relatively arbitrary upper threshold of £20,000 that it can levy as a fine for certain offences to a much more proportionate response, either as a proportion of the total spend of the organisation or individual being penalised, or to a maximum of £500,000, whichever is greater.
Brendan O'Hara
Has my hon. Friend, like me, barely slept at night since hearing the tales of widespread personation, voter fraud, intimidation and postal vote harvesting—all manner of fraud, theft and deception—that came from Government Members in the first two or three days, when they used to participate in the Committee? Does he share my confidence that they will look at what is contained in the new clause and support it in order to give the Electoral Commission the full force of the law, and so that the guilty will not go unpunished, as they have insisted throughout, and a £500,000 penalty is just the thing to do it?
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and the point about proportionality is very important. We have heard about the rampant corruption in the UK electoral system and the complete inadequacy of the police, the Electoral Commission, local election returning officers and so on. A picture has been painted throughout the passage of the Bill. Why would the Government be content to keep the maximum level of fine at £20,000, when the Electoral Commission says it is really not adequate to provide either a deterrent or a punishment?
One example on which everyone in this room will find a point of consensus was when the Liberal Democrats were fined £20,000. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] They are not here to defend themselves—it is a wee shame. In all seriousness, the investigation that year found that 307 payments totalling £184,676 were missing from the Liberal Democrats’ spending return without a reasonable excuse. In return, they were fined £20,000, which was the maximum that the Electoral Commission could levy.
I would not suggest that is the mindset of the Liberal Democrats, but less scrupulous participants in our electoral process might think that £20,000 was a price worth paying for not reporting figures that were nearly 10 times that amount. To be clear, I am not saying that was the case with the Liberal Democrats, but perhaps other, less scrupulous participants might adopt that attitude.
We should adopt a more proportionate system by simply raising the maximum threshold. We are all familiar with the scene in “Austin Powers” where Dr Evil demands a ransom of $1 million as part of his nefarious plan to take over the Earth, and everybody laughs because it is not a huge amount of money in the modern world that he has woken up in. Similarly, a fine of £20,000 does not adjust for the rate of inflation and cost of inflation—not least the increases that we are experiencing as a result of the Tories’ disastrous Brexit policies.
A fine of £20,000 is not as high as it could be, so a maximum of £500,000 is slightly more realistic in the modern world, and then the proportionality of the 5% gives the Electoral Commission that extra flexibility and additional teeth that it might need to serve as a deterrent or to take action in the event of a breach. I have no doubt that the Minister will have lots of creative reasons for rejecting the new clause, and I look forward to hearing what they are.
Kemi Badenoch
The Government do not support the new clause for several reasons. I am aware that the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended in its “Regulating Election Finance” report that the Electoral Commission’s fining powers should be increased to 4% of a campaign’s total spend, or £500,000—whichever is higher. The new clause closely mirrors that proposal.
The Government’s view is that the commission already has adequate powers to impose civil sanctions on political parties and non-party campaigners of up to £20,000 per offence. The new clause would increase that to £500,000 per offence. We should remember that criminal matters can be and are referred to the police, and in certain cases are taken to criminal prosecution. The courts have the power to levy unlimited fines for some offences and custodial sentences.
As set out in the Government’s response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report, any extension of the commission’s fining powers would need to be considered carefully to assess their necessity and proportionality, because it is vital that they are an effective deterrent but do not cause a chilling effect on electoral participation and campaigning. Any direct comparisons with fines that can be issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office should note the clear difference between the two regulators and the types of entities that they regulate.
I sympathise with the example that the hon. Member for Glasgow North gave about the Liberal Democrats, but the truth is that political parties are not global corporations. There are over 350 currently registered with the Electoral Commission, many of which are predominantly made up of volunteers. As part of the further work of looking at the regulatory framework for elections beyond this Bill, the Government intend to look at all the recommendations in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, alongside similar ones, including the forthcoming report on the commission from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. For these reasons, I urge the hon. Member to withdraw the new clause; or the Committee to oppose it.
Patrick Grady
Perhaps if the Minister had been willing to give a little ground, we would be willing to withdraw the new clause. However, we will test the will of the Committee by pressing it to a vote.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
Before we finish, I would like to thank the Clerks, who looked after us so well, the Doorkeepers, Hansard, the broadcast team, all of you for attending, and my other Chairs. I am glad that we have got through it today. I am sure that all hon. Members would like to pass on their best wishes to our right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell, who is unwell at the moment. Congratulations to the hon. Member for Peterborough on his recent marriage. I am going to include my own little congratulations to the hon. Member for Glasgow North, because in the 10 years that I have been on the Panel of Chairs, I have never before heard Austin Powers mentioned in debate. As a great fan of Austin Powers, I was thrilled and delighted.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Transport Funding: Wales and HS2
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered transport funding for Wales and HS2.
Bore da. Good morning. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Edward. I am here to talk about HS2 and particularly funding for the railways in Wales. We are all aware that tomorrow the Chancellor has his Budget, that next week is COP26 and that the Government have been talking about connecting the Union, levelling up and net zero. When we think about all those together, there is a compelling case that the Chancellor should look to give Wales our fair Barnett consequential, akin to the Scottish one, so that we can tool up, gear up, connect up and help move the UK towards net zero with more rail investment.
The Welsh Affairs Committee, on which some of us here serve, recently recommended that Wales should receive the same Barnett consequential share as Scotland. Simply put, Scotland gets 91.7%, as a proportion of population, of its share of the total costs of HS2. If Wales got 91.7% of our 5% share of HS2, and if for argument’s sake HS2 cost £100 billion, Wales would get something in the region of £4.6 billion. If HS2 ended up costing twice that, we would get something in the region of £9.2 billion. I am sure that we will hear about this from the Minister soon, but we have heard that the projected costs have moved from £38 billion to £100 billion, and now there is talk of costs of £160 billion to £200 billion.
HS2 is obviously a UK scheme. However, it is a north-south spinal scheme, so it will clearly benefit Scotland more than Wales. One could argue that Wales should receive a higher proportionate share than Scotland, but that is not what I am arguing; I am simply arguing that we get our fair share.
I know that the Minister is a great expert in HS2. Phase 1 was originally due to be completed in 2027. That has been kicked forward to 2033, and the latest news from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) is that we are looking at something like 2041. Given the timescale for action that is projected by COP26, we really must get a move on. There is a very strong case that Wales should have its share of the money to get on with shovel-ready schemes in both north and south Wales, to help build productivity and connectivity, to help with levelling up and to help deliver net zero.
We know that the Leeds section of HS2 has been cancelled. We also know that, because of the amount of concrete that will be used, HS2 will take 100 years to become carbon neutral, and that two thirds of the woodlands cut down will be burned by Drax power station, which will affect carbon emissions and air quality.
However, let us assume that HS2 is going ahead full throttle—namely that phase 1 might be over by 2041. We in Wales then have a case to get moving now and to get schemes delivered on the ground. I should disclose that, as people may know, a long time ago I was the leader of Croydon Council. I delivered the Croydon Tramlink scheme, a light rail electrified orbital tram system, which is 26 km long and connects Beckenham, Croydon and Wimbledon. That cost £200 million gross, but £100 million net, because it was a public-private partnership. That scheme, which connected three constituencies, cost the Exchequer only £100 million. With HS2, we are talking about £100 billion—a thousand times that scheme. My point is that there is a lot to be said for small, cluster-based schemes around the country, particularly on an east-west basis. I am talking about the northern powerhouse as well as connectivity to Wales and, very importantly, within Wales.
The situation in terms of relative competitiveness is that I can go from London to Manchester in two hours and 10 minutes, and from London to Swansea in about three hours. With HS2—if it does happen—we will be able to get to Manchester in one hour, so we have to ask what investors are going to do. We have already seen Virgin pull out of Swansea and go to Manchester because of this, and KPMG did a study some years ago showing that we will lose tens of thousands of jobs from south Wales unless we get some investment of our own to connect up, in particular, the clusters of Swansea and westwards with Cardiff and Bristol, to make that engine turn faster.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
To return to the point the hon. Gentleman made about speeds and time, what is the rationale for the Severn tunnel being the dividing line? To the east of the Severn tunnel, a person can travel at 125 miles an hour, but we are supposed to accept that, for some reason, to the west of the Severn tunnel, the speed is 100 miles an hour at best. Why should we accept that as a rationale, when other times for travelling are being so spectacularly improved?
Geraint Davies
I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. Obviously, there are engineering and geographic issues here: Brunel originally had a straight line going through to Swansea, which would have taken half an hour—clearly, it used to loop around to pick up coal and that sort of thing. But one of the things about time, of course, is that if you increase frequency, you reduce average time. I appreciate that the Minister may have a different view on HS2, but I think there is too much focus on gaining a few extra minutes when what we really need from HS2 is greater capacity: bigger trains and thicker tracks, or whatever, not necessarily going faster. If I can go to Edinburgh in three hours, which is the same time it takes me to get to Swansea, do I really want to spend £100 billion or £200 billion to gain that extra bit of time?
In the meantime, although I know Members will talk about the benefits for Wales, it is sad that the current plan does not contain the direct link between Crewe and Manchester that would help Wales. As we know from our own line, after we zoom through to Bristol and then to Cardiff, there are a number of smaller stations, and the train has to stop and start and that sort of thing. If HS2 had lots and lots of different stations, it would have to stop all the time, so that has been ruled out, but that means that people have to travel a long way to get to HS2 and connect with it. If we do not have this Crewe connection—which we will not—the benefits for Wales will be very small, much less than for Scotland. My minimum ask is that we agree the Welsh Affairs Committee’s joint party report that said we should get the same share as Scotland, as opposed to more, because Scotland will benefit and we will lose out.
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I am sure it was an omission by my hon. Friend—I call him that because he is Welsh—that he did not mention the Cambrian line, which goes through the heart of mid-Wales to Birmingham. Will he reflect on the hub of Birmingham, and how that impacts on Wales and HS2? He has talked about Crewe, Manchester and Bristol, but mid-Wales looks east to west, and that Birmingham exchange is incredibly important to my constituents.
Geraint Davies
The hon. Member makes an important point. Overall, having a fast north-to-south link along the spine of the United Kingdom is good for the UK, and obviously the connections with Birmingham are important as well. My central point is that we are going to spend all this money, but Scotland will benefit much more than Wales: at minimum, we should get our fair share. My secondary point is that a lot of shovel-ready schemes are available, many of which have been devised by the Welsh Government and are ready to roll. If we are serious about being a Union, connecting the Union and building productivity, we should do just that.
The productivity situation, of course, is that unfortunately the gross value added in Wales is something like 70%.In other words, the average wage is about 70% of the UK average. Of course, productivity is generated by skills, technology, access to markets and investment, and the productivity of the actual line is low. Traditionally, the Department for Transport’s formula for investing money, in terms of its cost-benefit analysis, rewards previous investment. In the south-east of England people have expensive houses, and the train network is basically made to spoke into London more and more so that people can work in London and live further and further away, with HS2 and other connectivity. What happens, obviously, is that house prices are bid up, so no one can afford to live in London. People spend half their time going back and forth on a train, using a lot of carbon, and even if the line is electrified the electricity must be provided somehow or other, and the energy of the world is being consumed.
We should look at a more regional basis—a cluster basis—that took advantage of what we all know now about Zoom technology to allow people to work from home, and that sort of thing. Post-pandemic and post-Zoom technology, in our new environment, we should look at how best we can spend money on building localised economies more quickly, rather than having much more grandiose schemes for the long term. I am not speaking against those things as such, but it seems to me that we need to bring forward these other projects.
On net zero, the Minister will know that in Paris we tried to deliver a maximum 1.5° C increase, but the latest projections are that we are already at 1.2° C and that by 2025 we will be at 1.5° C. In fact, over Europe it is already 2° C and over the Arctic it is already 3° C, because there is more heat over land than over sea, which is why 8,500 tonnes of ice are melting every second that we speak today. So we are running out of time. I am not pretending that our schemes in Wales can save the world, but we all need to think about how to do what we can as soon as we can.
On the investment we have had in Wales, the Minister will know that, in terms of rail enhancements over the last couple of decades, we have had only about 1.5% of the UK’s share for 5% of the population and something like 11% of the rail track. In recent times, I ran a big campaign, as the MP for Swansea West since 2010, to get rail electrification to Swansea. David Cameron said he would deliver it, but then something happened to him and we didn’t get it. It was then argued, “Oh, well, there won’t be a very big increase in line speed,” but what we need of course is frequency and electrification so that we get a better service and a greener future. That is something we need to come back to.
We have left the EU, but 60% of exports from Wales are to the EU, so we need support. In terms of economic clusters, the Swansea, Cardiff and Bristol city regions combined have 3 million people. Similarly, Leeds and Manchester have 3 million people. However, Leeds and Manchester get something like eight services an hour, whereas we get about one. So the issue, which comes out of the Hendy review and other things, is that we should be connecting up—this is not being nationalist in any sense—with Bristol and the south-west to create economic prosperity for south Wales and the south-west. We need that investment in railways now.
I know that Lee Waters, the Transport Minister, and Judy James in the Welsh Assembly have come forward with detailed schemes about how to provide a south Wales metro in the south-east and central areas, and moving west. In essence, we are talking about an integrated transport system that would connect up light rail with electric buses, electrified trains and even hydrogen-powered trains in a way that means people can easily get on to public transport and are not kept waiting for hours because the service is unreliable and infrequent, so that they will then switch from car usage.
I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. It is all very well saying that people must go on public transport but if we are serious about net zero public transport needs to be close to home, frequent, affordable and comfortable. People will make that shift if the fiscal strategy is there. I urge the Minister to urge the Chancellor to address that issue, and I am happy to work with them on that with colleagues.
I know that other Members want to speak, so I will shortly wind up—I am sure you will be thankful to hear that, Sir Edward. However, the Minister may or may not be aware of the Blue Eden project coming out of Swansea. That innovative project combines tidal energy with floating eco-houses—believe it or not—solar energy and capturing batteries’ energy. My point is that there is a great appetite for creative innovation to deliver net zero in Swansea, Wales and beyond. Part of that must be the investment in rail infrastructure and public transport that are environmentally friendly, people friendly and affordable and in building productivity to help Britain to deliver net zero, higher productivity and better prosperity for all.
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I want to make a couple of political points and to reflect on what my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) said—I will continue using “Friends”, as we are mostly Welsh in the Chamber.
This debate starts from the premise that HS2 is not good for Wales and I completely dispute that. On the political map of Wales, above the Brecon Beacons, we find one Labour MP. I think that is a reflection of the political circumstances of Wales. To put in a nutshell what is being alleged today, the political reality of the Labour party in Wales is that it is in south Wales, and only south Wales, so anything that matters to any one above the Brecon Beacons is not Welsh and not helpful for Wales.
In my intervention, I alluded to the Cambrian line. The Montgomeryshire economy looks east and west. It looks to Birmingham. Our railway line goes straight into Birmingham. Our international airport for mid-Wales is Birmingham International airport. In terms of a political ideological point about the Welsh nation, I get why people go on about north-south links, but the reality of our economy and transport is that we look to Birmingham. That is just a day-to-day part of life.
Liz Saville Roberts
I am sure the hon. Gentleman shares with me the concerns that historically there were north-south links. There is a deep irony that anyone who wants to use a train for a north-south link now, even in my constituency, has to use a steam train, which is very effective, but not indicative of a country in the 21st century or of our needs. We need these links in Wales, to build the nation of Wales, alongside all the talk of building the Union.
Craig Williams
I agree to a point, but it is ironic that since the creation of devolution we have seen the public transport network in Wales deteriorate. I speak as somebody who served as a director of a bus company. The funding to our bus companies in Wales and to a lot of things in devolved areas has completely wiped away capacity in the nation of Wales. I would reflect on what our Welsh Parliament has done to those north-south connections.
I occasionally commute to my constituency office by steam train—the right hon. Lady has been on the line from Llanfair Caereinion to Welshpool—and it does not reflect the modern, dynamic Wales we want, but the heritage railways are incredibly important.
Craig Williams
I want to come back to my main point before the hon. Member intervenes. I will, of course, give way; he was very kind. The premise of this debate does not reflect mid Wales. It does not reflect north Wales, our priorities and the fact that we fall back on the spine of the UK railway network. I put it to Members that HS2 is as much about capacity as it is speed. In Montgomeryshire we look to London as much as we look to Cardiff, and anyone in my constituency who uses the UK network could see that it had huge capacity problems, pre covid. In Montgomeryshire, we can see the need to invest in that spine. We can see as businesses and constituents that we need additional capacity.
The hon. Member for Swansea West mentioned COP26 and the modal shift; if we are going to have those kind of shifts to public transport, we need the capacity. If we are going to have the capacity for mid-Wales, and the UK, we need new lines. I will give way if the hon. Member for Swansea West wants to intervene, and then the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd—why not two at once?
Geraint Davies
Because it is impermissible.
I have been arguing that we need more connectivity within Wales—in south Wales and north Wales—but also between south Wales and the south-west, between north Wales and Liverpool and Manchester, and mid-Wales and Birmingham. We need connectivity to connect the Union, but to do that we need our fair share of investment. That is my simple point; I am not trying to cut off Wales, and I am certainly not saying that south Wales is the be all and end all. However, it is the case, as my father found when he was in charge of economic development in the Welsh Office, that the connectivity between south Wales and the south-west and between north Wales and the north-west is greater than between north and south Wales.
Craig Williams
Before I give way to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, I will reflect on the fact that this debate is very premature. The Union connectivity review is yet to come out, and those are the exact issues that Peter Hendy has been looking at. The review is the vehicle for delivering this. There is a pressure, at times, that unless we give money to the Welsh Government we are not giving money to Wales—that is not true at all. The UK Government invest in Wales as well as the Welsh Government. We have two Governments that look after Wales; the UK Government, in terms of strategic assets such as transport links, and the Welsh Government in terms of devolved responsibilities. I was in Machynlleth, at the black bridge, with Peter Hendy some months ago; as the hon. Gentleman and I have neighbouring constituencies, we know that that was a multi-million pound investment to sort out the Cambrian line by Network Rail and the UK Government. That should be the UK Government’s role, and I expect that after the publication of the Union connectivity review there will be a significant investment into Wales.
Liz Saville Roberts
Of course, we do share the Cambrian coast line that runs through Montgomeryshire; it serves Ceredigion and Gwynedd as well. One of the issues that has arisen from HS2 is the way that it distracts from other possible places of investment. I would argue that for many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, as with mine, that improvements at Shrewsbury would make a far greater difference to connectivity in the immediate term than improvements to Birmingham.
Craig Williams
I agree on that point. That is under the franchise of Transport for Wales; although it is an English station it comes under the Welsh franchise and they operate it. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and I are campaigning, along with other Shropshire MPs, to get direct services from Shrewsbury to London, and improve the connectivity across the UK in terms of the Cambrian line. I will give way once more, and then I will make some other cheap political points before I shut up.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
This is very much a debate about Wales, transport and HS2, but the hon. Gentleman has referred to Union connectivity. I would ask if it is possible to consider us in Northern Ireland, who travel from Belfast to Liverpool to Wales, or go down south to come across on the ferry to Holyhead. When it comes to connectivity, we must improve everything within Wales, but we must do that for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—including for us in Northern Ireland who wish to travel to Wales.
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
Order. As a general rule, if you want to make an intervention, you should be here at the start of the debate.
Craig Williams
I will remember that for the future, Sir Edward. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) makes an incredibly important point, and it is one that I hope the Union connectivity review does look into. While I am not suggesting a bridge or a tunnel from Holyhead over to Northern Ireland or the Republic, I am suggesting that we need to look at the importance of Holyhead as a UK strategic port, and some better way of connecting into the UK rail network. That is exactly where I want to see the investment from the UK Government going—into our Welsh railway network. The north Wales coast line is an incredibly important strategic railway for the whole of the United Kingdom, not just Wales. I am delighted that that remains—and long may it—the competence of the UK Government, because that is the only way we will see real investment.
I return to the opening speech by the hon. Member for Swansea West and the south Wales orientation of Welsh Labour, be it at parliamentary level or at that of the Welsh Government. On behalf of my constituents, I feel that especially with the Cambrian line. I know from north Wales Members that there is a strong feeling in communities of neglect by the Welsh Government and a complete orientation to Cardiff and south Wales.
Craig Williams
I said I would not give way anymore. I am sure the hon. Gentleman can use his closing remarks to come back on me. Before I sit down, I would reflect again on the importance of looking east to west in terms of connectivity, and the importance of building additional capacity into our UK network. On behalf of my constituents, I welcome the Birmingham hub. I know that, for north Wales Members, the Crewe interchange, and how it builds into the north Wales coastline, will be incredibly important.
Although I recognise the passion and the sometimes cheeky ask for additional money, I expect that mid-Wales will require additional investment in its railway network from the UK Government, through the Union Connectivity Review. I hope that there is no push by anybody suggesting that the easiest way to solve any problem in Wales is to give more money, either through Barnett or directly to the Welsh Government. If we are going to level up and make a huge investment in our network in Wales, that has to come from the UK Government. Otherwise, as I alluded to, I fear it will be a complete south Wales monopoly on developments.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn , Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing the debate. It is delightful to follow the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams).
HS2 is a symbol of many things, but for many people it is the example of a monumental Government white elephant. Justified on the basis of shaky calculations, which are almost 10 years old now, supported for the sake of political face-saving, and adjusted for political purposes rather than transport need, it has become for many people a political and economic catastrophe. It is certainly a highly political matter, of which the Conservative party will be aware, given recent by-elections.
That we press on with a project, originally costed at £32.2 billion in 2012 but now, scarcely nine years later, nearing £108 billion, is a testament to the failure of this Government to deliver. It is an example of the Westminster Government having their English cake and eating it, while telling the other nations to stump up for the ingredients. For Wales, it leaves an especially bitter taste.
HS2 has become a catchphrase for constitutional injustice, the high-handed mistreatment of Wales by Westminster, and the lack of fair play, let alone a level playing field. It reveals the reality of this Union of inequality. The consequences of HS2 for Wales are best seen when viewed, as two Members have already said, through the lens of the levelling-up agenda.
The Government have made much of their proposals for infrastructure investment, as part of the long overdue levelling-up agenda. Yet in the previous spending review, the Chancellor pummelled down rather than levelled up, by reducing the amount Wales will receive, when compared to UK Government transport investment in England. Wales was reduced from 80.9% in 2015 to just 36.6% in 2020. There is not much levelling up by the look of it. That represents a collapse of 44.3 percentage points, nearly half of what the Welsh Government will receive from every pound of UK taxpayers’ money, as spent by the English Department for Transport in England.
Why is that? Since 2015, Plaid Cymru has been arguing that Wales, like Scotland, should receive a full Barnett consequential from HS2 on the basis that it is a railway solely for England. Not an inch of its track will be laid in Wales. With the project currently expected to cost approximately £108 billion, Wales would receive roughly £5 billion based on our population share, if only we could apply the same formula with which all other England-only expenditure is treated. These are significant amounts of money, are they not?
That injustice was made worse by the Government’s project calculating that HS2 would cast a blight on the south Wales corridor. This region, of course, includes many of Wales’s valleys communities that are most desperately underinvested, and I am sure that it also includes the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis). The south Wales region is set to lose out to the tune of approximately £100 million a year because of the economic blight that HS2 will impose on the south Wales region.
This is where the situation becomes incomprehensible. Labour voted, against Plaid Cymru’s efforts, for Westminster to classify HS2 as an England and Wales project, arguing that both will benefit. That needs to be on the record. Even yesterday, the shadow Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), said that Labour is fully “committed” to the delivery of HS2 and described changes to the proposed route as a “betrayal”. I beg to differ. The significant betrayal is Westminster’s treatment of Wales and it is frankly incomprehensible to witness Labour’s collusion in that.
Tomorrow, the Chancellor must make good his mistake, and he has an opportunity to do that. We have heard an awful lot about levelling up. This is an opportunity to give Wales, like Scotland, what would surely seem obvious to any reasonable person outside this place—a full Barnett consequential from HS2, as Scotland has. This is a glaring injustice, made worse by the fact that despite having 11% of the UK’s rail track, Wales has received only 1.5% of the money that UK Ministers spent on rail improvements. Yes, there is spend on maintenance, but when it comes to improvements in the 21st century for a public rail transport system that we desperately need, that money is not being spent in any measure of equivalence in Wales. Correcting the Treasury’s treatment of HS2 and its Barnett consequential for Wales is the right thing to do, and that would fast-track our benefit from levelling up. That is, of course, if levelling up is ever to be anything more than a catchphrase for Wales.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing this debate. He and I serve on the Welsh Affairs Committee and he alluded to its recent report on rail investment in Wales, which had a section on HS2. He will remember, from the fierce debates that we had during those private meetings, that he and I disagree very much on the essence of HS2 and its benefits to the people and the economy of Wales, but I admire his passion and I believe that we as Welsh MPs should fight for as much money for Wales as possible. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I firmly believe that HS2 presents an opportunity for us to build back better not just for England, but for the United Kingdom as a whole. I welcome the hon. Member’s comments that investment in the main spine down the United Kingdom benefits the whole United Kingdom. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) highlighted how his constituents and those in north Wales will benefit with respect to the east-west nature of their day-to-day travel, with journey times to London from Birmingham, their closest main hub, being significantly reduced. This investment will therefore benefit them.
To turn to areas such as my Bridgend constituency, in the past 20-odd months of being an MP, I have seen a huge number of small and medium-sized enterprises that are heavily involved in Government infrastructure projects, whether that is Hinkley Point C or HS2. I actually surveyed all of the businesses on one of our industrial estates. There were only a few dozen and not all of them replied, but over half of them were currently either servicing or considering tendering for a UK Government infrastructure project, most notably Hinkley Point C and HS2. There are currently 2,000 businesses involved in the development of HS2, with 9,000 people working on the line, and many of those businesses are based in south Wales. The whole of the United Kingdom gets to bid and tender for this work. That money and investment provides job security and opportunities for people across the whole of the UK.
The Select Committee report was slightly unfair and contains some inaccuracies. It suggested that the Welsh Government had not received a single penny from the Department for Transport spending on HS2. I would like to highlight that between 2015 and 2019 the Welsh Government received about £755 million in Barnett consequentials. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Swansea West is referring to future Barnett consequentials, but it is not the case that the Welsh Government have received nothing. They have received Barnett consequentials to date.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I do not think anybody is discounting the fact that increasing Department for Transport expenditure leads to overall consequentials for Wales. The question is on the impact of the HS2 element. Having mentioned the £755 million for Wales, what are the figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland, considering that they get 100% Barnett consequentials? That is the issue at hand.
Dr Wallis
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I represent a constituency in south Wales. Much has been made of the benefit to mid and north Wales, and I am trying to highlight some of the benefits to south Wales. If there is a benefit to people and businesses in Wales, with investment in infrastructure in the United Kingdom benefiting the UK and Welsh economy, surely we have to accept that to ask for 100% Barnett consequentials on the project is simply not right. We have to accept that Wales will get a benefit, so asking for a 100% comparison is simply not right.
Many of my constituents are very concerned about environmental factors, and achieving net zero is important.
Geraint Davies
I am listening carefully to the hon. Member’s comments, and I respect the fact that we have genuine differences. Will he accept that, if Scotland gets 91.7% of Barnett consequentials from HS2 and Wales gets zero, even if there are some benefits to Wales from HS2, it could be argued that we should get something in the middle? I know the benefits of people going from Wales to build HS2 and coming home to Wales, as he is mentioning, but should we not get a share at least? We need more money in Wales.
Dr Wallis
We have had this debate a lot. There have already been Barnett consequentials given directly to the Welsh Government. I think I have already addressed that point.
Coming back to net zero, we should be trying to drive up rail uptake, and I am very pleased with that. I want to talk about what the Welsh Government are doing with roads. We are talking about achieving net zero and the role of rail in that. We cannot expect net zero to mean zero cars. Passenger cars will be moving to electric technologies and potentially hydrogen technologies, and the state of roads is continually a cause of frustration for my constituents. I picked up three additional cases at my surgery on Saturday of residents on a street in Porthcawl who are frustrated and at the point of exasperation because they cannot get investment in the roads there, and they cannot get what they need. The Welsh Government’s decision to simply abandon any new investment in roads and to completely walk away from building the M4 relief road has done far more to frustrate my constituents than anything going on with HS2, frankly.
I will finish by saying that the bounce-back impact of HS2 in Wales cannot be underestimated, not only from additional funding but by improving transport links from mid and north Wales and increasing opportunities for all Welsh businesses, including those in my constituency. HS2 is a British project that seeks to level up the whole United Kingdom, and I believe it does just that.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Diolch. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing this timely debate on the eve of the Budget and the comprehensive spending review.
How Wales has been treated in relation to HS2 is a scandal of epic proportions, and it highlights why the British state does not, and never will, work for Wales. HS2 has been funded purely and totally by public investment, which means that Welsh taxes that have been paid into the general Treasury pot are being utilised. That is different from HS1, which was financed completely via private means. If anyone thinks that I am arguing against public investment in rail, that is not the case. I am arguing that if public investment is used to fund a major rail infrastructure project, the allocation of public funds becomes an important political topic.
Despite the confusion about future phases of HS2, with news reports this weekend indicating that future phases might run on existing routes north of Birmingham, the reality is that the HS2 project dominates UK rail infrastructure spending and will do so for many years. It is likely that the whole project will not be completed until the middle of the next decade.
When the last Labour Government promoted HS2, the projected costs were nearly £40 billion. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, the costs are now estimated at well over £100 billion by the independent Oakervee review, despite the Treasury’s desperate attempts to cut costs. Lord Berkeley, the review’s deputy chair, put the costs at more than £170 billion. Regardless of HS2’s finished costs, the key question for the debate and for Welsh transport is its impact on Welsh funding.
Rail infrastructure is not devolved in Wales as it is in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The cross-party Silk commission, set up by the Cameron Government in 2010 to look into the constitutional settlement, advocated equalising railway powers in the Welsh settlement with those of the other constituent parts of the UK. Even before HS2 came online, the commission understood full well the financial implications for Wales of those powers being retained in Westminster.
Liz Saville Roberts
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. There has been one significant material change since the original costing for HS2, in that since last year, Transport for Wales—Wales’ transport network—has been in public ownership under the operator of last resort. Given that the train system is in public ownership, surely Network Rail should also be devolved to align public spending most effectively in Wales, along with the proper funding. There is a staggeringly obvious discrepancy and inconsistency between those two things.
Jonathan Edwards
As always, my right hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. It does not make any sense that the responsibility for operating the railways in Wales is devolved to the Welsh Government but the responsibility for the infrastructure remains in the hands of another Government.
To return to my point, the Silk commission recognised that the devolution of those powers and the equalisation of powers for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, was right not only for operational reasons, but because of the financial implications and the historical underfunding of the Welsh railways that resulted from the powers being retained in Westminster.
Geraint Davies
The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Does he agree that one has to differentiate, as I do not think the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) did, between the amount of money we get for Wales and who spends it? There was a lot of talk about UK money—“The Government spends this. Don’t give the money to the Welsh Government.”—but the basic point is that we should get our fair share. Of the £48 billion that Network Rail spends, about £1 billion is spent in Wales, which certainly is not the 5% that we deserve.
Jonathan Edwards
Absolutely; that is the financial reality. We do not even get a population share, which would be 5% of rail investment. People might argue that 11% of the rail network is in Wales, so we should be getting more than our population share. Historical underfunding is a huge problem for us in Wales in terms of developing our economy and moving our country forward. I will return to some of those themes later.
Craig Williams
The hon. Gentleman is indeed being very generous. Will he reflect on the fact that a good chunk of the Welsh railway network is in England? We have already alluded to the fact that Shrewsbury station, which I can assure the Chamber is in England, is an important Welsh station. Going from north to south Wales, a large chunk of that trunk railway is in England.
Jonathan Edwards
I listened to the hon. Gentleman’s speech advocating the benefits of HS2 with great interest, but he needs to reflect on the full business case for HS2 produced by HS2 Ltd in 2020. According to Professor Mark Barry’s submission to the Welsh Affairs Committee, there is no passenger benefit to Wales at all from HS2.
Returning to my point, the political process in Westminster following the Silk commission was a hatchet job of the worst kind, in which representatives of the two main Unionist parties drew red lines through the commission’s recommendations. Regrettably, the report was torpedoed below the water line. One recommendation taken out of the report was the devolution of rail powers, which meant that the Wales Act 2014, which followed that process, retained the status quo on that vital issue. The financial implications of that decision are sobering in the context of a domineering project like HS2, due to its impact on Welsh Barnett allocations. It has been catastrophic for Welsh funding.
While Scotland and Northern Ireland get a 100% allocation from HS2, Wales gets a 0% rating because the British Government deemed it an England and Wales project. However, the last time I looked at a map—I made this point in a question to the Prime Minister some time ago—all the HS2 destinations are in England. It says everything about how the British state works that a decision of this nature, with such far-reaching consequences, can be made without challenge. In this post-Brexit world, due to the inequity of the financial settlements across the UK, I have advocated the creation of a body apart from the Treasury to allow the various Governments of the UK to challenge financial decisions. At the moment, Westminster is judge and jury; in this case, that is very much to the loss of Wales. As a result, I have voted against HS2 at every opportunity.
The reality is that as spending on HS2 increases, Welsh Barnett allocations plummet. Now that construction has begun on phase 1, the financial impact has become clear. According to the Wales Governance Centre’s analysis, the statement of funding policy accompanying the last comprehensive spending review indicated that Wales would receive 36.6% of its population share of transport funding, while Scotland and Northern Ireland’s shares remain above 90% due to their full entitlements from HS2, compounding the historical underfunding of the Welsh railways. In 2013, the British Government’s own analysis indicated that HS2 would injure the south Wales economy by more than £200 million per annum; given that that analysis was done eight or nine years ago, I suspect the injury to the Welsh economy will be far more severe than what was revealed at the time.
Underfunding has always been a major issue for Wales. In the way the Department for Transport allocates funding, as our railways become less efficient the case for investment is undermined; meanwhile, investment is ploughed into London and the south-east, leading to a conveyor belt of investment which makes the case for further investment. Indeed, when the Prime Minister was Mayor of London, he argued in the Evening Standard that transport spending in London would need to increase by £1 trillion—if I remember correctly—once HS2 was completed, due to the extra passengers arriving from the north of England. Put simply, the current system does not work for Wales, and we need urgent and rapid change.
The hon. Member for Swansea West made an important point about productivity. Even from the Treasury’s perspective, one of the major issues within the British state is the geographical imbalance in productivity. Transport infrastructure investment is a key economic driver, so if all investment is utilised in and allocated to the most high-performing areas, productivity gaps are worsened. The simplest way to address productivity gaps is to invest in the poorer performing parts of the state, as the German Government realised following reunification—and there was a wall between East and West Germany for half a century. Alas, in the UK, all the money is spent in one small corner. Pre-Budget soundings suggest that an extra £7 billion or so will be allocated for expenditure outside London and the south-east, but the key question is how much of that is new money. It may be less than £2 billion. We wait to hear what the Chancellor has to say tomorrow.
To emphasise the point I made to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), in a submission to the Welsh Affairs Committee’s recent inquiry into this issue, transport expert Professor Mark Barry stated that the full business case for HS2 produced in 2020 proved that HS2 had no transport user benefit for Wales. How the British Government can maintain that this is an England and Wales project is beyond rational understanding, so fairness is at the heart of this debate. Welsh taxes are being used to fund an England-only project that will also have a negative impact on our economy, with no recompense via the Barnett formula. Some might say it was ever thus, but to use the phrase of the moment, this is not levelling up; this is levelling down.
If Wales received fairness in real investment, we could be looking at exciting projects such as a comprehensive metro system for the west based on the one in Swansea—a project that I very much support—a north-south line along the western seaboard, opening up the western half of our economy for further economic development; enhancements across the north Wales and Heart of Wales lines; and electrification of the main line to Swansea.
Jonathan Edwards
That is a very interesting intervention. I am not defending the Welsh Government’s policy in its totality, but they want to move away from road and towards public transport. If we will not be using road, we have to invest in rail. This is the fundamental question facing us as Welsh representatives: given that the UK Government have shown clearly that they have no intention of investing in Welsh rail transport infrastructure, what are we going to do about it? The only way to address that is to take responsibility for ourselves.
Geraint Davies
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Welsh Government are not abandoning all investment in roads? They are doing a roads review, looking at how they can balance transport between road, rail and active transport in a sustainable way, which will inevitably—hopefully—lead to a bit more public transport and rail, including electrified buses and public transport on roads. We will have more roads, but we will not necessarily need the M4 relief road if on one in five days people are on a Zoom call instead of sitting in their car.
Jonathan Edwards
My understanding of the Welsh Government’s policy is no new extra roads. That does not mean that there will not be investment in road maintenance. However, the reality is that, if we are going down that road, there has to be investment in alternative modes of transport, which again furthers the case for us in Wales to receive the powers, so that we can get investment and make the decisions ourselves. That is fundamentally at the heart of this debate.
On one side of the argument are those of us who argue that Westminster will never invest in Wales, so we need rail powers in Wales that will bring the investment and allow the Welsh Government to make decisions on investing in our own country. On the other side are those arguing that the UK Government will eventually come good and start investing in Wales. That will not happen, so the only solution is for rail powers to be devolved to Wales and for the Barnett consequentials to flow to Wales from England-only projects, as happens in Scotland and Northern Ireland, which will enable Welsh Government Ministers to pursue the transport priorities of our own country.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing the debate. He is more often in the Chair than addressing it, so it is great to see him in his place. He made a compelling case for a redesignation of the funding formula so that HS2 is considered England-only. As right hon. and hon. Members have heard, that would mean that under the Barnett formula, up to £5 billion more could flow into Wales’s rail infrastructure and put Wales on the same basis as Scotland and Northern Ireland when it comes to the formula’s consequentials.
My hon. Friend makes that argument not only because he is a doughty and dogged champion for the people of Swansea, and indeed, the whole of south Wales, but because he rightly identifies that rail infrastructure in Wales is in pressing need of investment and modernisation. The redesignation of HS2 as England-only is a sensible and practical way to release funds to upgrade the railway in Wales. It was, after all, one of the recommendations of the cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee. In its report on 6 July, the Committee concluded:
“There is a strong environmental and economic case for substantially enhancing the rail infrastructure that serves Wales, and the passenger experience of slow services and inadequate stations only underlines the need for an upgraded network.”
In its conclusions, the Committee reported that:
“Wales will not benefit in the same way as Scotland and Northern Ireland from Barnett consequentials arising from the HS2 project. This is despite the fact that UK Government’s own analysis has concluded that HS2 will produce an economic disbenefit for Wales. We recommend that HS2 should be reclassified as an England only project. Using the Barnett formula, Wales’ funding settlement should be recalculated to apply an additional allocation based on the funding for HS2 in England. This would help to ensure that Welsh rail passengers receive the same advantage from investment in HS2 as those in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”
The case is clear in the Committee’s findings, and it is indeed compelling. When the Minister responds, I hope he will not merely dismiss it out of hand, but instead consider carefully the many expert opinions in favour of such a move, including the Committee’s recommendations and the thought-provoking speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and the invaluable contribution from the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards).
The Opposition remain 100% committed to HS2. A Labour Government would listen carefully to local concerns and place environmental factors at the heart of the project, but we would get on with the job at hand. We see new high-speed rail as part of a much larger modernisation of our railways. We would invest in new lines and stations and open up all parts of the UK, and therefore the economy, with affordable, efficient railway services—services that are accessible to all, including young people, people with disabilities and people on low incomes; services that are safe and clean, and services that are integrated across the transport system of walking, cycling, buses, ferries, light railways, trams and road systems. A great example would be the electrified metro for the Swansea Bay city region, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West so ably championed and which I thoroughly support.
We want significantly more freight off lorries, off our roads and on to the railway, and we would accelerate the electrification of the railway with a rolling programme of upgrades. The Conservative Government’s decision to cancel the electrification of the Great Western main line from Cardiff to Swansea was short-sighted and bad for the environment, and it should now be reversed. It is absurd that the Great Western Railway’s Hitachi bi-mode trains run on diesel mode between Cardiff and Swansea and switch to the less polluting and more efficient electric mode on the rest of the route in England, including as it goes through the wonderful town of Slough.
As the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd rightly noted, in England trains can reach the magic inter-city speed of 125 mph, but once on the Welsh side of the Severn tunnel, they slow to average speeds well below 100 mph—not so much levelling up as slowing down. Will the Minister update us on the Department for Transport’s stalled plans for the electrification of the railway in Wales? The last Labour Government rightly prioritised and invested billions of pounds in modernising our old, inefficient rolling stock. Having achieved that, the priority of the last decade should have been the electrification of our rail lines.
Liz Saville Roberts
We heard from the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) about the significance of the line from Holyhead into England. There has been no mention in the slightest of that being electrified. Those lines have some of the most polluting rolling stock, and we have no alternative in many cases but to use it. That is not the transport infrastructure of the 21st century, which, just days before COP26, is what we should be discussing.
Mr Dhesi
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. I recently visited my family and saw the wonders of north Wales, and, although it was lovely to see the scenic countryside on steam railways and the like, what was sorely missing was an electrified rail network. That would greatly benefit the good people of Wales, and that is why there needs to be greater investment in Wales, and in particular in electrification.
Dr Wallis
The hon. Gentleman said that electrification would benefit the people of Wales. My constituents already benefit from the electrification of the line to Cardiff. I have regularly travelled into London, both before and after I was elected as a Member of this House. The train journey times into Paddington from the main station in my constituency are already about 18 minutes shorter. The decision that electrification would not go as far as Swansea, although disappointing, did allow for immediate investment in new, more comfortable and more environmentally friendly trains. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that people in my constituency in south Wales do currently benefit from electrification?
Mr Dhesi
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. However, although his constituents in Bridgend, in south-east Wales, may benefit from the electrified railways towards Bridgend and Cardiff, it is absolutely absurd that people in south-west Wales and beyond are missing out.
It is also absurd that the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), who is no longer in his place, and the hon. Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) are arguing against more money for Wales. If people in Slough felt that they were missing out on resources and funding, they would be up in arms. The hon. Member can bet his bottom dollar that, if the route through the wonderful town of Slough was not electrified, the likes of me would be constantly arguing that we needed more investment in Slough and more electrification of our rail lines. That is the way we are going to tackle the climate crisis.
Dr Wallis
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. As the Member of Parliament for Bridgend, I am certainly not arguing for less money for Wales, and, were my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) still here, he would be able, as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, to tell the hon. Gentleman just how many bids had gone in and just how much money we wanted. It is not fair to say that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire, who is no longer here to defend himself, are arguing for less money for our constituents. Our point is that HS2 does benefit the people of Wales, particularly those in mid and north Wales. It benefits the entire economy of the United Kingdom. It is a British project, and therefore the assumption that it should be fully Barnettised is simply not right.
Mr Dhesi
I thank the hon. Gentleman, but Wales is missing out. Some £5 billion of Barnett consequentials is not an insignificant sum. As I have pointed out before, the good people of Scotland and Northern Ireland benefit from Barnett consequentials, and none of the track actually goes through Wales. As has been argued, there is a need to increase the links between mid or north Wales and Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, but as has been pointed out, north to south there is still reliance on steam trains. If that were the situation in Slough, rest assured we would not settle for that. We would ask for more money and our share of resources.
The people of Wales are missing out. That is why the Labour party supports the proposal. It is clear that railway must drive the green revolution, just as it once powered the industrial revolution. Electrification is key. The old fragmented franchise model is dead. The modern railway is still waiting to emerge. Properly funded, publicly owned and strategically led, the railway can become the clean, green, affordable and efficient pride of Great Britain. It can boost our economic recovery after covid-19. It can transport us into the low-carbon and post-carbon economy and it can be a vital part of economic and social renaissance in Wales, but not without the investment we know is needed.
Geraint Davies
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He may already know that between Cardiff and Swansea, where the electrification stops, the air quality deteriorates because of the diesel fumes. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution, and I have measured it—it is up to 5 micrograms per cubic metre in the carriage. People are being exposed to pollution unnecessarily. He will also be aware that Transport for Wales now has the skills infrastructure to deliver on the ground speedily while the Department for Transport has multiple priorities and is focused on HS2. We have the skills, but we need the money. Let us get the job done.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. He has contributed a great deal to the debate on pollution as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution, of which I am a member. I am fully aware of the impact on communities of not having electrified rail infrastructure. I am also aware of the review that the Welsh Government is undertaking on investment in rail across south Wales and beyond, so my hon. Friend makes some apt points.
It is surely wrong that HS2 will reduce the London to Manchester journey time to one hour and 10 minutes but London to Swansea will still take three hours. We must invest in and upgrade the Ebbw valley, the Maesteg lines, the Welsh Marshes line, Cardiff Crossrail and more. Levelling up must be for every part of our United Kingdom: not just Manchester but Milford Haven and Merthyr Tydfil; not just Leeds but Llanelli and Llandudno; not just Birmingham but Bangor and Bridgend. The £5 billion from Barnett consequentials would be a good start. I hope the Minister will give us good news.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. We all understand the great importance of transport and levelling up the United Kingdom. All the Members spoke eloquently about the need for more transport investment in Wales, an issue that the Welsh Affairs Committee looked at recently.
Let me assure Members that a key focus of the Government is to ensure we have a transport network that is not only fit for purpose but, above all, able to deliver a better and more prosperous future for all those we represent. HS2 is one of the many schemes that the Department for Transport is pursuing. It will free up capacity on the conventional rail network and support a shift of passengers and freight from road to rail. I stand here as the HS2 Minister, convinced that HS2 will play a vital role in levelling up all parts of the United Kingdom. However, as we have heard, HS2 is not the only matter at hand, so I will first focus on rail funding more generally in Wales and other points raised, before turning the HS2.
Let me be clear: we are investing in Wales. The current control period has seen a record £2 billion revenue settlement for Network Rail in Wales. Of that settlement, almost £1 billion will be spent on renewing and upgrading infrastructure to meet the current and future needs of all passengers, such as the complete restoration of the iconic Barmouth viaduct in Gwynedd. Investments in new stations are being made apace, such as at Bow Street in Ceredigion; line enhancements are being made in north, south and mid-Wales; major upgrades are being made to Cardiff Central station; and level crossing upgrades are being made to the Wrexham-Bidston line. That work is happening now, but a lot more is coming down the pipeline, including the opening-up of opportunities for work, travel and leisure for Wales and across the UK.
Members will of course be aware that the interim report of Sir Peter Hendy’s Union connectivity review was published earlier this year. It identified that rail capacity and connectivity issues need to be addressed in north and south Wales. In response, the Prime Minister made £20 million available to assess options on the road and rail schemes, which the review has identified as crucial for cross-border connectivity. I am glad to say that my officials are working closely and collaboratively with the Welsh Government and delivery bodies to identify potential projects to be supported, in line with our continued support for the Welsh Government in their ambition to have greater control over Welsh rail infrastructure. That is evident in our collaborative approach to working with our partners to divest the core valley lines to the Welsh Government. We expect the final Union connectivity review report to be published in the autumn, when the Government will consider Sir Peter’s recommendations to improve connectivity across the UK.
I will touch on a few of the investments that are currently under way. As we speak, important work is going on to transform Cardiff Central station. The rail network enhancements pipeline has allocated funding of £5.8 million to Transport for Wales for that work, supported by funding of £4 million from the Cardiff city deal. The design and business case work is expected to be completed next year, and it is an example of the strong collaboration in place between the UK and Welsh Governments.
The Cambrian line upgrade will bring the line’s digital signalling up to date. That much-needed upgrade will in turn enable the introduction of new trains and allow the system to work seamlessly with other digital signalling schemes. Further funding for that upgrade has been allocated to deliver the work by May 2022. A third example of a recent project is the Conwy valley line, which includes the longest single-track railway tunnel in the UK. Some £17 million was spent to repair and restore it, making it fit for passengers again after multiple floods in the past five years.
Such projects have an enormous effect on communities, and I know that there will be many more enhancements in the years to come. The north Wales metro strategy board has been established by Transport for Wales to integrate the proposals for transport improvements in the region, building on the exciting opportunities highlighted by those at Growth Track 360, for example, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and I met last year, to transform north Wales and deliver 70,000 new jobs over the next 20 years.
The Department for Transport and Network rail are supporting the work of the board in providing advice on progression of the programme. There are plans to reduce journey times on the north Wales coastline between Crewe and Holyhead. The outline business case proposes an increase in line speeds, with the goal of improving journey times between north Wales, the north-west of England and other major UK centres.
Transport for Wales has recently commissioned a further strategic study into timetable optimisation and connectivity into northern powerhouse rail and HS2. It will also consider the case for further infrastructure enhancements including decarbonisation options for the line. Finally, in March, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed funding of £30 million for the establishment of a global centre for rail excellence in Wales.
Jonathan Edwards
All the schemes that the Minister has mentioned are extremely noble, but what is the total percentage allocated to Wales in the control period? Is the reality not that, compared with investments across the rest of the UK, especially in HS2, Wales is being offered crumbs under the table?
Andrew Stephenson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing me to that point. [Interruption.] I have a nosebleed; I will try to power through, but I apologise for any sniffing, Sir Edward.
Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)
If you wish to sit down and speak, you may.
Andrew Stephenson
It is fine. The Network Rail regulatory financial statements and expenditure breakdowns show that Wales received around 4% of all Network Rail spending in 2011-12 to 2015-16, and 6% in 2016-17 to 2018-19. In 2018-19, the spend on Wales was 6.1% of the England and Wales figure, or 5.4% of the England, Wales and Scotland figure. The figures include Network Rail’s spending on operations, maintenance, renewals and enhancements. Does that clarify the hon. Gentleman’s point?
Liz Saville Roberts
We understand that to be the total spend, but we also understand that the spend on investments, development and improvements is where the spend in Wales is so much spectacularly lower than we would expect, in terms of the 11% of the rail infrastructure that we have and in comparison with the conventional Barnett formula of per head of population.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank the right hon. Lady for her point. The UK Government work collaboratively with the Welsh Government on putting forward business cases. As she will be aware, we do not allocate set proportions by region across the United Kingdom; we work on where the enhancements deliver the best possible value. We have worked collaboratively with the Welsh Government to bring forward a number of business cases for further investments. We hope to continue to do so. The figures I have just outlined show that an increasing proportion of the Network Rail budget is spent in Wales—something I am sure the right hon. Lady would welcome.
Liz Saville Roberts
I want to be clear on this, because that, of course, includes Barmouth Bridge in my constituency, which is more than 150 years old. We will have to do work on it, if it is to be maintained as a line. I take issue with the Minister on levelling up. I rarely find myself trying to argue the Union point, as I do here, but if we are talking about levelling up, those areas of the United Kingdom that most need infrastructure will not receive it unless it is given by central Government. Wales is a classic example of this, yet we see that infrastructure investment in railway, the electricity grid and all the infrastructure needs we will have in the future to change to net zero—those are the areas where Wales is lacking. I would welcome the Minister showing us his future intentions on these arguments.
Andrew Stephenson
On this point we are going to have to agree to some extent to disagree. Through the Union connectivity review, the Government are demonstrating their real desire to invest more. We are investing record sums in rail across the whole United Kingdom. The £4.8 billion levelling up fund, of which at least £800 million will be allocated to projects in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland underlines the Government’s commitment. Changes to the Green Book will directly help projects in Wales in the way that I hope they will help projects in the north of England, where my constituency of Pendle is located.
I think we all share a desire for projects to be moved forward at pace. As a Rail Minister, I will not argue against even more investment in rail, but the statistics I have put on record today show that we are working collaboratively with the Welsh Government in order to deliver significant projects that the right hon. Lady’s constituents and other constituents want to see across Wales.
Geraint Davies
The Minister will know that, having left the European Union, Wales will no longer benefit from convergence funding of the order of billions of pounds and that the UK shared prosperity fund has not kicked in to do anything about that. He will also know that convergence funding is focused on alleviating poverty through building skills and productivity and employment opportunities. He has also mentioned that the Department for Transport reaches its criteria on the basis of best value, as opposed to the criteria for convergence funding. Therefore, will he look again at those criteria, given that we are losing convergence funding based on poverty and building productivity, as opposed to best value, which just rewards existing productivity? In particular, given that his list of projects seems to end at Cardiff and, of course, west of Cardiff, there is a lot of Wales with a lot of needs. As has been pointed out, if we had had our fair share of HS2, we would have had another £5 billion, which is a lot more than the totality of what he is talking about.
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to go on to matters that may be covered in the spending review or the Budget on convergence funding and other issues. I do not wish to tempt fate by speculating about what may be announced later this week.
I will just return to the points that were made by several Members in relation to the Welsh Affairs Committee’s report on rail infrastructure in Wales. The report emphasised that it is clear that a joined-up approach to Welsh infrastructure needs is required in order to unlock investment. Therefore, we have responded positively to the Committee’s recommendation for a Wales rail board and are currently working with the Welsh Government to establish that. The board will build on the excellent collaborative arrangements in place between the two Governments to address the effects of the pandemic on transport in Wales and across the border.
I have tried to cover in detail some of the rail projects and proposals that are in the pipeline; there are many more that I could mention. I wanted to do that to give right hon. and hon. Members a sense of the momentum that is building behind this work. We all want the same thing: for Wales to benefit from improved transport infrastructure that will increase productivity and give people a greener way to travel, leading in many cases to a better quality of life.
My Department has also been working closely with the Welsh Government on identifying road investment priorities along the border between Wales and England. This work has secured joint funding from both Administrations for National Highways to develop the long-mooted A483 Pant-Llanymynech bypass. We hope that further joint funding will be made available for its construction and to examine the options for other priority cross-border links. Also, the UK-wide levelling-up fund, which I mentioned before, will invest £4.8 billion in local infrastructure, including local transport, regeneration and culture, over the four years between 2021 and 2025, and at least £800 million of that will go to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Finally, I turn to HS2. HS2 is a low-carbon transport system for the future. It will take lorries off the road, benefiting the whole of the UK in the future and playing a role in achieving our transition to a carbon net zero future by 2050. HS2 will also contribute to sustainable growth in towns, cities and regions across the country, spreading prosperity and opportunity more evenly.
Let me start by saying something about the costs of HS2, because they were mentioned by the hon. Member for Swansea West and other Members. The phase 1 full business case, published in April 2020, set out the full cost of the HS2 network at £98 billion—a figure that is, of course, subject to decisions that will be made shortly in the integrated rail plan. Phase 1 has a target cost of £40.3 billion, and my parliamentary report last week showed that, despite covid, delivery remains on track and within budget. The project also retains cross-party support from the three main UK political parties.
I recognise that there is some concern, which we have heard again in this debate from several hon. Members, that Wales may not benefit from HS2, with the recent Welsh Affairs Committee report recommending that HS2 be reclassified as an England-only project. However, the regenerative effects of HS2 will be felt across the whole of the UK and not just along the line of route. As the Welsh Affairs Committee report acknowledged, the project has several thousand jobs as part of its supply chain that span the UK, including Wales. More than 20 businesses in numerous Welsh constituencies have already won work for HS2, including businesses in Bridgend, Montgomeryshire and Swansea West. For example, I understand that Wernick Buildings, a business based in Port Talbot, has already worked on HS2. Hon. Members can review the HS2 supply chain map to see the geographical spread of the businesses that have delivered work on HS2, including in their own constituencies.
On the services side, HS2 will enable quicker and more train services to north Wales. The HS2 route to Crewe, for which the west midlands-Crewe section gained Royal Assent in February, will provide shorter journey times for passengers, benefiting those who are interchanging at Crewe. Such shorter journey times are currently possible on the west coast main line to Holyhead. HS2 will also free up capacity on the existing west coast main line, which could of course be used for additional services, including for rail freight, which will remove lorries from the UK road network.
Also, as has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), HS2 will dramatically increase capacity for Birmingham, which of course will free up capacity on the existing lines. That will benefit my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Turning to the Barnett point made by several right hon. and hon. Members, the fundamental difference with Scotland is that the Department for Transport has responsibility for heavy rail infrastructure policy across England and Wales and therefore spends money on heavy rail infrastructure in Wales, rather than providing Barnett-based funding to the Welsh Government in relation to heavy rail spending in England. That is consistent with the funding arrangements for all of the reserved UK Government responsibilities and within the statement of funding policy.
However, due to the use of departmental comparability factors in the Barnett formula spending reviews, the Welsh Government have actually received a significant uplift in their Barnett-based funding due to the UK Government spending on HS2. I hope that reassures Members as to why there is a difference. I have set out how we are expanding the amount of network rail funding that is going into Wales. On top of that, there have been significant Barnett consequentials provided to the Welsh Government.
To conclude and to reiterate, investing in Welsh transport infrastructure is an investment in future generations. Ensuring that our transport capability matches our great ambitions for our constituents’ prosperity and wellbeing is a priority for the Government, and one that I know all Members across the House share. We owe it to our hard-working constituents to invest in the most sustainable forms of transport for the future, delivering both on the green industrial revolution and on our pledge to build back better from the events of the past two years.
Geraint Davies
This has been a very good debate. The Minister hit the nail on the head when he spoke of the structural difference in responsibility between Scotland and Wales. The Scottish Government have got responsibility for heavy investment. If we had that in the Welsh Government, we would have our £5 billion. It is still technically possible that if the comparability factors were changed in the formula to be an England-only project, which it could be, we would also have the £5 billion there. Nobody is saying that we are getting no investment in Wales, but we are trying to head towards net zero, deliver higher productivity and level up. I ask the Minister and his Department to think again, to lobby the Chancellor to change the formula and to give Wales the tools to do the job, getting us on the rails to a higher, more prosperous future. I thank all Members and you, Sir Edward, for chairing the debate. It will continue, because we are simply not getting our fair share, and we need it in order to succeed.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered transport funding for Wales and HS2.
Public Health Funding: Bexley
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered public health funding in Bexley.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward—I have a long-standing friend in the Chair, which is always good news. I am grateful of the opportunity to raise public health issues, which are of great concern and importance to my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford, as well as to the residents of Bexley borough in general. I am delighted to see my neighbour and friend the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) in her place today.
In my opinion, Bexley is by far the best place in London to live, work or visit. We have great local amenities, considerable green open spaces, over 100 parks, and a variety of places to visit: Danson Park, Hall Place and Gardens, and the Red House, to name just a few. It is a well-run, Conservative-led borough, and I am pleased to live in Barnehurst myself, in the constituency.
Today I want to focus on the public health situation in Bexley and highlight a number of concerns about funding. This is a matter that I have raised before and held meetings with Ministers about, but regrettably it has not yet been satisfactorily addressed. There are areas of public health in which Bexley does better than elsewhere in England, but also a number in which we are lagging behind.
I commend the work done locally, particularly by Bexley Council and Bexley clinical commissioning group, which have done some fantastic work over the years on so many issues, particularly against smoking. The Bexley stop smoking services help thousands of people to stop smoking, which is saving lives and improving our community’s overall quality of life. The service has won a number of awards and was recognised by Public Health England for reducing smoking rates and introducing highly effective tobacco control initiatives. During the covid-19 pandemic, the team continued to provide specialist weekly support on the phone, and over the last year they have helped some 534 people to quit smoking.
That is a real achievement, yet in other areas we are not so fortunate. In Bexley we have problems such as obesity. Action is needed to improve the situation. For Bexley residents, obesity poses a significant challenge, as we have among the highest rates of obesity anywhere in London, with 23.4% of children classed as overweight or obese when they start primary school. This is a really concerning figure, which continues to rise as they get older, with 36.6% of children aged 10 to 11 leaving primary school with excess weight.
It is widely recognised by experts that once weight is gained, it is difficult to lose. The Government have called childhood obesity one of the top public health challenges for this generation. This is most certainly the case for the residents of Bexley. Children who are obese are five times more likely to be obese as adults. This can put them at increased risk of long-term health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and musculoskeletal conditions, and can negatively impact on mental health, which is a real problem. In Bexley, 64.6% of adults aged 18 or over have excess weight, which is higher than in the rest of England and London in particular.
The Government are well aware of the problems associated with obesity nationally and are being proactive to address the concerns. Some of the welcome measures include the soft drinks industry levy, support for the Healthy Start voucher scheme to enable low-income families to buy fruit and vegetables, and action to increase physical activity in schools, but we also need a localised approach. It is in all our interests to live in a healthier borough, and in Bexley the local authority is always looking at innovative ways to help us live better and longer.
The Bexley obesity strategy does just that. Between 2020 and 2025, the strategy aims to reduce the rate of excess weight in children and adults by a minimum of 2%, with a stretch target of 5%, and to create healthy environments at school, in workplaces and throughout the borough. Just a few of the plans to achieve that include increasing the number of food businesses achieving the healthier catering commitment accreditation, developing a sustainable model for community cooking classes, reviewing compliance with school food standards across the borough, and installing public water fountains in town centres. While that will require hard work and dedication, it will also, as the Minister will be aware, require additional funding.
Aside from the work on stopping smoking and action to reduce childhood and adult obesity, Bexley of course has many other clear public health priorities, including diabetes, dementia, addiction and substance misuse, including alcohol. Mental health and children and young people’s emotional wellbeing are key public health challenges, on top of the additional challenges that the covid-19 pandemic continues to pose. However, good health also underpins a healthy economy. Bexley Council has a significant role to play in helping all Bexley residents to start well, live well and age well. That is why Bexley so desperately needs the unfairness in the public health funding formula to be looked at and addressed.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for bringing forward the debate, which is very much needed in Bexley. As he has highlighted, Bexley’s public health grant is considerably lower per head than that of other London boroughs. My constituency includes part of Greenwich and Bexley. Does he agree that the Government should ensure that the public health allocation formula is updated, to guarantee that all his and my constituents have access to the high-quality public health services that they need?
Sir David Evennett
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, my constituency neighbour, for raising that point. I totally agree, which is why we have the debate today. I am pleased she is here to reinforce the point for Bexley, and I am sure the Minister will be listening.
I have been provided with figures by Bexley Council to highlight inequalities in the public health grant received. The public health grant allocation for Bexley in 2021-22 is just under £10 million. That equates to a per head allocation of £39.84, giving Bexley the lowest funding across London. The average funding per head in London is £74.87. Therefore, Bexley’s mere £39.84 is just 53.2% of the London average, and a staggering £35 less per head.
To put that in perspective, if Bexley were to receive the same allocation as the London average, it would mean an additional £8.8 million for Bexley. That situation cannot be fair and puts our area at a significant disadvantage. Even if Bexley were funded at the same level as the second lowest London borough—Havering, across the Thames, and a very similar borough—an extra £750,000 would be added to Bexley’s allocation.
If we compare Bexley with other south-east London boroughs, the situation does not look good. If Bexley were funded at the average of all six south-east London boroughs—Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lewisham, Southwark and Lambeth—it would result in an extra £8.25 million for Bexley. If Bexley were not included in the south-east London average and funded at that rate, it would mean an extra £9.9 million for our borough. If Bexley were funded in line with our neighbouring borough of Bromley, which receives £45.13 per head, it would see an additional £1.3 million for Bexley’s total allocation.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead, our other neighbouring borough, Greenwich, has a grant allocation of £81.14 per head, which is more than double Bexley’s allocation. If Bexley were funded at Greenwich’s level, it would mean an additional £10.3 million for Bexley. I would point out, as the hon. Lady said, that Bexley and Greenwich share the town of Thamesmead, an area I represented in Parliament up until 1997. That is a community with some of our most complex and entrenched inequalities. Extra funding for Bexley would help to deal with those on the Bexley side of the Thamesmead divide.
Of the 151 local authorities in England, there are only 20 other local authorities with a lower per head grant allocation than Bexley. The main hindrance to Bexley is that the allocations granted remain largely dependent on historical patterns of spend before local authorities took over responsibility for public health. Although there have been years when the grant has increased, for which we are grateful, and other years when the grant has not increased or has been reduced, which we are not so happy with, no progress has been made towards tackling the issue of a fair and rational allocation for Bexley.
The result is that Bexley’s public health funding does not reflect its current population, public health needs or its ambitions to reduce health inequality. That has to be addressed by the Government. The covid-19 pandemic has worsened our position and exacerbated the conditions of poor health in Bexley, especially in the north of our borough, where there are the greatest levels of pre-existing, underlying health inequalities. Covid-19 has also disproportionately impacted and exacerbated the health inequalities of our growing black, Asian and minority ethnic population, and our over-75 population, which is higher than the London average.
Bexley has also seen some of the highest covid-19 case rates in London, which reflects the underlying issues caused by the lower public health grant and therefore lower investment in public health measures to counteract the effects of disproportionality and inequality. Even the pandemic response in Bexley, which covers outbreak management, surveillance, monitoring, communications and engagement, community testing and contact tracing, would not have been possible without the additional grants made available by the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Other local authorities have more in-built capacity and workforce resilience, which allows them to divert resources to address a future health protection challenge, such as a major epidemic, or the pandemic that we are currently experiencing. Bexley does not have the flexibility in the core public health capacity.
We are also currently seeing the development of the NHS South East London integrated care system. The ICS has set out its key priorities to be tackling health inequalities, prevention, and improving the health and wellbeing of residents. Each place-based system will play a significant role in delivering those priorities. With Bexley having such a low base for the public health grant, it will be extremely difficult to achieve parity with what the other south-east London boroughs can offer their residents due to significantly higher budgets. That alone will create further inequalities and highlights the importance of levelling-up grant allocation.
Bexley experiences the same public health challenges as other London boroughs and has an ambitious prevention strategy. Bexley’s prevention strategy is a whole-system, five-year plan to prevent illness and poor health and social care outcomes, as well as to actively promote a positive state of health and wellbeing for our residents. However, its funding allocation does not allow us the same opportunities to make positive changes to residents’ lives.
Bexley is a diverse, quickly changing and growing borough. It is a collection of communities working together and it is a great place. We anticipate a 7.6% population increase by 2030 and a 7.2% increase in the number of children living in Bexley. Some 30% of Bexley’s residents are young people under the age of 25, and Bexley has the fourth highest rate of people aged 65 and over in London, at 16.5%. That will increase to 21.8% by 2050. Our infant mortality rate is also 3.7 per 1,000 population and our neonatal maternity rate is 2.75 per 100,000, both of which are higher than the London average.
Hospital admissions for young people due to substance misuse are higher than the London average and our vaccination rates for childhood illnesses and for adult vaccinations, such as flu, are nationally lower. We have done a great job during the covid situation and our health service, our council and the doctors and pharmacists have done a fantastic job on vaccinations.
Abena Oppong-Asare
Will the right hon. Member take this opportunity to encourage constituents in Bexley to take up the covid booster jab and the vaccine when they are called to do so?
Sir David Evennett
Indeed I will. I had my booster two weeks ago. I think it is very, very important that people should get the vaccine, whether it is the first or second jab or the booster. That is the only way we are going to defeat this terrible disease and pandemic, and I totally endorse what the hon. Lady said.
Bexley is very fortunate to have excellent leadership on Bexley Council, both from officials and the political leadership under Councillor Teresa O’Neill OBE. I have worked with Councillor O’Neill over many years on many different campaigns, including to highlight public health issues and quality of life. We have met Ministers and been involved in debates here before, but this time we really need some action. Teresa and I are working very hard to persuade the Government that they need to look at the formula for public health funding for outer London boroughs such as Bexley.
Bexley desperately needs our grant to be urgently reviewed and redressed to reflect our needs and to support our constituents. I know that Bexley Council is appreciative of the national real-terms increase in public health grant allocations for 2020 to 2022. However, this historic funding issue needs to be addressed so that we can be a lead on the challenges we have today, and those we face ahead. Bexley Council is innovative, takes the initiative and leads in many fields. We want to do it here too, but without additional funding we cannot. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take these representations on board and to take action to ensure that my borough of Bexley gets a fair deal in public health funding for the future.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) for raising the important issue of public health. I was delighted to hear of the many measures his local council is already taking on this issue.
This debate has provided an opportunity to clarify an often misunderstood position about how funding for public health is distributed. The Government fully appreciate and share the commitment to prevention and improving the health of the population highlighted today. Improvements in life expectancy appear to have stalled and, on average, 20% of our lives are spent in poor health, with people in the most deprived communities at far higher risk of poor health. The gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of England is around 19 years for both sexes. Helping people to stay well, in work and in their own homes for longer is vital.
Ill health is not randomly distributed, nor is it inevitable. Our ability to avoid, manage and survive disease is influenced by the choices we make, the job we do, the air we breathe and the neighbourhood in which we live. Service funding is only one of the levers available to us to support better health. For example, our obesity strategy works alongside local public health efforts in reducing childhood obesity. Our overarching goal is to create a healthier environment, helping to improve people’s diets and to make the healthier choice the easier choice. The actions that the Government have taken on this can be seen in people’s daily lives.
For example, since the soft drinks industry levy came into effect, the average sugar content of drinks has decreased by 43.7%. We have also legislated to introduce out-of-home calorie labelling in April 2022, to help people be more informed about the food that they are eating. Moreover, we have put in place regulations to restrict the promotion by volume and location of products high in fat, salt and sugar in supermarkets, which will come into force in October 2022. In June 2021, we confirmed that at the end of 2022 we will introduce both a 9 pm watershed for television advertisements of HFSS products and a restriction of paid-for advertising of HFSS products online. All of these national measures will have a local impact and will undoubtedly help those living in Bexley.
We recognise that the funding position for local authorities is challenging and we understand the huge efforts that local government has made to focus on securing the best value for every pound it spends. Today’s debate has highlighted an important issue about the distribution of funding for local authority public health functions. Prior to 2013, funding for individual local health services, including public health, was determined by NHS primary care trusts. As for all local authorities, Bexley London Borough Council’s allocation is heavily based on historical NHS spend prior to 2013.
However, the introduction of the public health grant to local authorities in 2013 has meant that spending on this set of services is now much more transparent. Before these functions were transferred to local government, we asked the independent Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation to develop a needs-based formula for distribution of the public health grant. The introduction of this formula meant that some local authorities received more than their target allocation, and others received funding under target. In 2013-14 and 2014-15, when the overall grant was subject growth, local authorities’ funding was iterated closer to their target through a mechanism called “pace of change”. Bexley Council benefited from this policy and received the maximum amount of funding growth, which I am sure my right hon. Friend appreciated.
The Government decided in 2015 that the fairest way to make subsequent changes to public health grant allocations was via flat percentage adjustments. Since 2019-20, adjustments have been made to the grant to take account of additional cost pressures such as the 2018 NHS “Agenda for Change” pay deal and the launch of routine pre-exposure prophylaxis—PrEP—commissioning, with all local authorities receiving a cash increase last year and this year to the public health grant, so that they can continue to invest in prevention and essential health services. For this financial year, Bexley Council received more than £9 million for the grant. We also allocated additional funding of £358,000 to Bexley this year to tackle obesity and drug addiction.
Nationally, the Government have made more than £12 billion available to local councils since the start of the pandemic to address the costs and impacts of covid-19, with £6 billion non-ringfenced in recognition of local authorities being best placed to decide how to manage the major covid-19 pressures in their local areas. I thank the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) for mentioning the covid booster vaccine and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford for having it, which is probably the most important thing that people can do to continue to build our wall of defence, protect lives and reduce hospitalisations from the pandemic. While Bexley’s per capita funding is different from other London boroughs, a per capita basis is not a meaningful way to compare or determine allocations, as it takes no account of different levels of need. We will consider the allocation of public health grant funding for future years following the outcome of the spending review; we do not have long to wait.
I commend all local authorities on their efforts to improve population health. Local authorities are ideally placed to make decisions about the services that best meet the needs of their populations. Across England, local authorities are commissioning more effectively and innovatively and delivering improved value, but we need to acknowledge that improving public health is about far more than only the grant. We know that spending more money does not necessarily improve outcomes. However, what we spend it on really matters. The whole range of local government activity, including transport, planning and housing, all contribute to population health and wellbeing. The place-based work led by local authorities makes joining up these different factors much easier, and the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities supports all areas of the country to drive improvements in health.
Sir David Evennett
We are listening with great interest and are very grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. However, I urge her to look seriously at the funding for boroughs that have a change in demography, because Bexley is a different place from what it was in 2013. We are well led and innovative, so value for money is a top priority for the council.
Maggie Throup
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Obviously, nothing is ever static. We can look forward to having those discussions after the spending review.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has a particular focus on those places and communities where ill health is most prevalent. I thank everybody in Bexley for their dedication to improving the health of people in their area. I am committed to working closely with colleagues in national Government and local government and with partners to ensure that the public health needs of the present and future are met. This has been an extremely important debate. I am delighted that Bexley Council is taking forward so many measures to improve the health of its population.
Question put and agreed to.
GP Appointment Availability
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered GP appointment availability.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Robertson. The chances of misdiagnosis can increase dramatically if GPs rely on emails or telephone calls exclusively. I speak from experience: for days, my mother-in-law was misdiagnosed as having a urinary tract infection, when she had actually suffered a severe stroke. Precious time was lost, and terrible damage done, because she was not seen by a GP. For every 100 ailments that can be diagnosed safely without seeing a GP, there will be one that cannot—one that could prove to be fatal, which is not a price worth paying.
I thank NHS workers and GPs for working tirelessly throughout the pandemic. I was encouraged to apply for this debate by my constituents, who came to see me again and again about this issue. I wanted to make sure that their voice was heard. I will read out some of their actual cases, because it is important to hear from them about what they have been experiencing. I would say that they are divided into two categories. The first is those who are disabled and perhaps suffer from dementia or other cognitive impairments, who find talking on the phone very difficult, and who really need to see a GP in person. The second is those who are happy to speak over the phone when they need a GP appointment, but find that the IT systems in place in certain GP surgeries cause issues with access to GPs.
The first example is from Marlow. A lady wrote to me and asked for an appointment to see me. She said:
“When I got through to the surgery, we were told that we should have a telephone appointment first. The GPs have my daughter’s number, as she cares for her grandmother. I explained that we do not live with her and cannot sit at her house and wait for a call. Also, there was a phone for her to sit around all day, and no one answers. She isn’t good with IT and has trouble explaining and expressing herself and telling someone what is wrong over the phone. I understand we are in extremely unusual circumstances, but there has to be exceptions, and there must be a way for elderly, and in some cases disabled, people to be able to get an appointment. Many do not have the capability to use the internet, and even phones in some cases.”
That was particularly true in the case of my mother-in-law, who had had a stroke. Luckily, we had power of attorney, but many people do not. I appreciate that the Government have made great strides in this regard, but we need to look at how we can protect those who are disabled, who perhaps have cognitive impairments and who need to have a carer come with them to a GP surgery in order to express what is wrong and explain what condition they have. Greater attention should be paid to this in the future.
We also have the issue of general IT and phone challenges. A resident in Farnham Common wrote to me and said:
“We have difficulty making the initial contact with GP surgeries. Most GPs operate a system which requires the patient to telephone when the surgery opens at 7 am to seek a consultation for that day. In our collective experience, it is often extremely difficult to get through. It takes a very long period of repeated calling. One friend recorded 140 unsuccessful attempts to reach the GP surgery.”
Some of the GP surgeries in my constituency are excellent. They were excellent during the vaccine roll-out and through covid, but we have certain GP surgeries that have had challenges meeting residents, challenges with the vaccine roll-out, and challenges in general throughout the covid period. Quite a number of residents have written to me and spoken to me about Burnham Health Centre, so I want to share specifically the IT challenges that it seems to face consistently.
One resident, Colin, said that if you are lucky enough to be 29th in the queue that morning at 7 am, you may get a message that says no appointments are left for the day. You can hang on in silence, or you may get to speak to a person—you may get through to a human being. You are told that there are no appointments and that you need to use Patient Access. When you try to book an appointment via Patient Access, it gives you possible ways to book, but only for things like contraceptive appointments, and nothing else. When Colin tried to access Patient Access, he was given an electronic form which he completed several times. It kept coming back saying that it could not be processed. He tried dozens of times and finally gave up and decided that Patient Access was not working.
He was not the only resident in Burnham who complained about Burnham Health Centre and Patient Access; several more wrote to me about the same issue. One said:
“I do think it’s ridiculous that you cannot get an appointment when you call, I am happy to wait a day or two, if it is urgent, there is always 111. The practice of releasing a limited amount of appointments at a certain time is not fair and just causes a bun fight. I do think the staff would benefit from customer service training”—
for everyone’s benefit.
A set amount of appointments are on a first-come, first-served basis. This seems to be unique to this GP surgery, but it has become a very agitating issue for people in the area who already suffer from some health inequality. They perhaps do not have the financial ability to go privately. Many are older and vulnerable, and it is demoralising that they often cannot get hold of a GP for even a phone call and consultation. Just getting a phone call would be a positive step in certain cases in my patch.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is making really good points on this massively important issue. She just remarked that it was unique to where she is. Not at all; I have similar issues and I am sure other Members will talk about their issues. It is so important. Does she agree that the difficulty people have in accessing GPs has a knock-on effect on the National Health Service in other areas? We see people going to A&E out of frustration, because they cannot see their GP. This is really a problem that needs to be tackled head on. I congratulate the hon. Lady on introducing the debate to put pressure on exactly that.
Joy Morrissey
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. I agree that the problem has a trickle-down effect throughout the NHS. We will see more people presenting at A&E and perhaps with more advanced stages of disease, because they have not been seen in person. Encouraging GPs or creating a covid incentive programme for them to see people in person will decrease the amount of hospital admissions and lead to earlier diagnosis for cancer and heart disease. These things can really only be done in person. If someone is healthy and just needs a phone appointment, that is fine, but certain things cannot be seen unless a person’s vitals—their heart pressure—can be physically checked. Only a GP can do that and really only in person. If we want to reduce the overall burden on the NHS this winter, finding a safe and secure way for more residents to see their GP will reduce the overall pressure long term on the NHS. I know we have an aging population, and that GPs are under huge amounts of pressure and strain, but I believe there is a way we can work together to find a solution.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady said that only a GP can check someone’s blood pressure. We know that many people can undertake many of the different clinical functions that a GP is asked to undertake. Is it not right, therefore, to look at a multidisciplinary clinical team and how to deploy it better, rather than just to focus on the GP?
Joy Morrissey
The hon. Lady is stealing my thunder, but I agree with that comment. With the multi-disciplinary approach, even nurse practitioners and others could be recruited into a GP surgery structure, to help with many of the ailments that people are presenting at A&E with or asking for an appointment about. There is a wide range of healthcare professionals who could help and support GPs, and I think this is an important issue that needs to be further discussed and debated.
When this matter came before the House in July, several relevant questions were raised. One of them was about NHS England and NHS Improvement, or NHSEI, which leads the programme of work support practices, using digital and online tools to widen access. I would just love to hear what progress has been made since this topic was debated in July. Also, what is the progress of NHSEI’s independent evaluation of GP appointments? Again, I would like to see whether we have had any progress on that independent evaluation. Finally, what is being done by the NHSEI access improvement programme to support practices where patients are experiencing the greatest access challenges, such as drops in appointment provision, long waiting times, poor patient experiences or difficulties in embedding new ways of working related to covid-19, such as remote consultations as part of triage? I would really welcome any updates on those questions.
We could perhaps discuss today how we can provide GPs and their surgeries with some kind of in-person patient incentive during covid. Perhaps that could come from existing regional funding streams. Perhaps each time a GP sees a patient in person, they could receive an extra payment, or they could receive an additional payment for visiting someone in their home. That would mitigate the additional cost of PPE and also the additional risk posed to the GP themselves by having to see people in person during covid or high levels of winter flu.
Some GP surgeries are already receiving additional funding for cervical cancer and diabetes screening, and we have seen uptake increased in those areas very successfully, so this type of programme has been modelled in the past. It would help to mitigate the risk and burden for GPs, while still getting as many of our constituents as possible into in-person appointments if they need them.
The NHS claims that it would like more patients treated at home rather than having to stay in hospital for extended periods of time. This model could be enhanced if GPs were given the financial incentive to carry out in-home treatments for patients who traditionally would have remained in hospital. Obviously, this allocation would have to be set by the integrated care system in each region and it would be decided on within regional NHS structures, but it is worth considering.
In my own personal experience with my mother-in-law, she has been at home all the time 24/7. She is now completely disabled and needs 24-hour care, but the most difficult challenge was the out-of-hospital care provision—getting the GP, the hospital and the council to co-ordinate the care effectively. It is a full-time job for someone to co-ordinate that care. If we can make those pathways of care and co-ordination easier for everyone, then, as was said earlier in the debate, it would reduce the overall pressure on the NHS.
Margaret Greenwood
Does the hon. Lady share my concerns about the provision in the Health and Care Bill for the assessment of patients to take place after they have been discharged from hospital instead of before, as happens at the moment? I have very serious concerns about that issue. I tabled a couple of parliamentary questions, which were answered by a different Minister to the one who is here in Westminster Hall today. One question was about the fact that this discharge-to-assess approach has been going on under the Coronavirus Act; I asked how many patients had been discharged that way. The reply came back that 4 million patients had been discharged from hospital without having their assessment. I asked how many of those had been readmitted within 30 days; the Minister replied that the Government did not know because the information was not held nationally.
This is a very serious concern, because we are talking about vulnerable people. I know the hon. Member for Beaconsfield is talking about a particular relative. The idea that somebody with dementia, or early-stage dementia that has not been fully diagnosed yet, should be discharged before their needs are fully understood is very alarming. An independent review of this is going on at the moment, and I would be grateful if the Minister could give us an idea when that is going to be published. It is meant to be this autumn. I would like to raise this with the Minister as a very serious issue and wondered if she would like to comment on it.
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions need to be brief.
Joy Morrissey
I recall the Member speaking on this topic previously. I commented only because of my personal experience. The change is well intended, and I understand where it is coming from, but for a disabled person, and for someone who cannot advocate for their own care needs, having a care plan in place before leaving hospital helps with accountability and the structure of the care. From my own personal experience, as someone who has taken care of a very disabled relative who cannot advocate for herself, I can only say that having this agreed before she came out of hospital made it easier for our family to co-ordinate the care. It is difficult to know which funding pathway is linked to what care once someone leaves hospital; there is a statutory responsibility, but then there is the question of who picks up the care once that period out of hospital has finished. For someone who is disabled, has had a stroke or requires long-term rehabilitation, that is a very sticky issue because whichever organisation within the health structure picks up the statutory duty picks up a huge cost. I think it is a very nuanced issue and we need another debate on it to flesh out all the different challenges. However, I take on board the comments made by the hon. Member for Wirral West and recall supporting what she said when she spoke several months ago.
I understand that these are unprecedented times, and there are great challenges for everyone across the health sector. This is not to criticise anyone; it is just about how we can positively move forward into the new covid era in which we find ourselves, and into the winter months when there are more challenges. It is about how we can work together to find solutions, particularly for the vulnerable, the disabled and those who cannot advocate for their own care needs. I am very grateful that we have been given time to debate this topic.
Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate today. Like her, I have had communication from a number of constituents who are concerned about the lack of face-to-face appointments. It definitely is an issue. We have to be careful that we do not have a knee-jerk reaction. I also think there are benefits to a hybrid approach; I have a chronic health condition, but I would actually rather have a telephone conversation. The other important point is that a survey by the British Medical Association in August found that half of GPs had faced verbal abuse in the previous month alone, and most GPs had witnessed abuse directed at, in particular, reception staff. This is certainly borne out by the conversations I have had at surgeries in my constituency in Batley and Birkenshaw. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is extremely concerning and totally unacceptable, and that we must call out abuse directed at those in public service?
Joy Morrissey
I thank the hon. Lady for her comment. In my constituency we have GPs who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic and have done so much to roll out the vaccine—I commend them for everything they have done in such an incredible way. This is not to disparage the wonderful work of the majority of GPs and GP’s surgeries. I am looking for the correct terminology. There are certain GP’s surgeries that have struggled to even respond to constituents with phone calls. Many would be satisfied with just a phone call, but they cannot even reach their GP to schedule a phone call appointment.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend share the concern of many of my constituents that there is to some degree a postcode lottery in the national health service and the GP service? Different GP surgeries and different areas provide very different levels of service, whether that is face-to-face or there is a lack of that.
Joy Morrissey
I would agree with that. Some GP surgeries, in certain parts of my constituency, are excellent—they were excellent with the vaccine roll-out; they are excellent now; they have done everything in their power to see as many constituents as possible—and then there are certain others, in the Iver and Burnham areas, where we continually have complaints, where constituents come to me in desperation because they have nowhere else to go.
We need to find a way of giving health access to everyone in a fair and reasonable way. I promised my constituents that I would raise their concerns at the highest level, and I have done that today, both in Westminster Hall and with the Minister directly. I thank Members for their time today, and I hope that this issue will continue to be considered and debated within Parliament and by the Minister.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
I ask hon. Members to now limit their speeches to six minutes, so that we can get everyone in.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for calling today’s important debate. Let me set out the challenge, and how Government can make a difference.
York Medical Group has 44,000 patients on its books. In a single calendar month, it received 41,000 calls from people who needed to see a clinician—unprecedented demand, with higher acuity, co-morbidity and complex needs. When patients get through to the call-handling system, they are triaged and, when urgent attention is needed, that is followed up by a clinical conversation. Appointments are allocated, tests are ordered, referrals are made, and prescriptions are issued.
Of course, people are also applying to see a practitioner through the internet or are turning up at the surgery. That is managed by exceptional staff, who are really pulling out all the stops to support their local community. However, this logistical agility to meet the serious demand is outstripped by the pressures placed on it. When spending time embedded in the system—as I did, spending time with call handlers and with GPs—I saw how relentless they were in trying to meet that demand, but that demand is continuing to put pressure on them.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituency is only 25 miles from my hon. Friend’s. A constituent came to see me last week; they could not get an appointment with their GP, but were told to go to the accident and emergency department in Leeds. It took two hours at the A&E to be triaged, and they were then told it would be a further six to seven hours to see a doctor. They ended up going home because it was too cold at the hospital to wait. Does this issue not impose pressure right across our health system, to the point that it is near collapse? Winter has not even properly started yet.
Rachael Maskell
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. We cannot look at part of the health service without looking at the entire health service, and the pressures that are brought to bear. As we have heard, many people do go to their A&E or urgent care centre, because that is the only way that they know they can confidently access the service, which puts more pressure on those parts of the service. We must look at the whole.
However, when it comes to trying to engage with our community practitioners—that is what primary care is all about: people who would traditionally have known the patient and the family—medicine has changed so much, yet we have not caught up with where it is. I saw both the call handlers and the GPs facing burnout. They are reducing the number of sessions that they are working because, we must remember, a session then extends right through into the night, as they are catching up with paperwork, ordering tests and following things through. Individuals are just saying “If I don’t step back, it will have a serious impact on my own wellbeing.” We have got to protect the wellbeing of GPs. They are a precious resource in delivering our healthcare services.
Margaret Greenwood
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she share my concern about the shortage of GPs? The Government have committed to having an extra 6,000 GPs by 2024 or 2025, I think. The pressures GPs are under is a direct consequence of the failure to address the issue.
Rachael Maskell
My hon. Friend raises the next point in my speech. We are in this mess because for over a decade we have had failed workforce planning across the system. We have seen that most acutely in primary care. The pandemic continues to be mismanaged, which I want to stress. The Government may be looking at the numbers when it comes to intensive care and hospital admissions, but as people are less sick they instead go to see their primary care physician. That puts more pressure on them. We need to see more measurements and data on the pressure that has been put on primary care during the pandemic. In addition, we have long covid as well. In York there are around 3,000 cases. It is not coded, so can the Minister get that sorted urgently? We need to look at the support that people with long covid require.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
In the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes clinical commissioning group area, there is only one GP for every 2,500 people, making it one of the worst hit by GP shortages in the country. The number of GPs employed in the area also has fallen by 12% to 390. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need an urgent independent review of access to general practice, not a “name and shame” league table that will only drive more overwhelmed GPs away from their profession?
Rachael Maskell
Absolutely. My hon. Friend speaks for himself. We need a shift from a sickness service to a health service. The Government scrapped the health checks that were vital in picking up ill health. We need to see prevention at the front of the queue, and we need to see investment in public health, which is currently being cut by local authorities. We need to make sure proper preventive measures are put in place.
The fact that the Government are not moving to plan B right now shows that they are escalating the challenges on general practice rather than diminishing them. They are putting the vaccine responsibility on GPs when it can be done elsewhere in the service, as it was by Nimbuscare. We need to look at how not only health professionals but volunteers and the Army, even, are working together to deliver healthcare. We need to think about the broadest team available. Pharmacy also plays a crucial role in making sure that we are protecting the health service.
Looking at prevention, we do not necessarily need to move towards an individual, one-on-one health system for everybody. We can socialise and communitise health, so that people can get health support in active communities. Peer support is vital in managing disease and ensuring that people can support one another through ill health. Occupational health services can make those early interventions in workforces, often where mental health problems show up when there is stress in the workplace. There are real opportunities to expand those services and look at deploying early intervention and education to turn around this system. It will only happen if proper investment is made and proper workforce planning is put in place. The Government have got to get to grips with the figures on staffing and ensure that investment is in place.
Staff are exhausted, tired and downtrodden. The trauma of covid is hitting right now. We need to ensure that staff are properly rewarded through their pension scheme and with a decent pay rise. Get it sorted.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who makes important points in her speech. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) on securing the debate and making many compelling arguments. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on taking her position on the Front Bench. She is one of a small number of individuals in Parliament who has recent frontline experience and I am sure she will bring that to bear in her role.
GP appointments are an important issue about which there have been concerns for many years. The principal concern at the moment relates to coronavirus and the lockdown. We cannot avoid that or simply touch on the subject, then concentrate on a wealth of other concerns. We have to focus on that issue as the prime driver of the current problems in the sector.
The Chancellor has put forward substantial resources, but more are always needed to make sure that resources are available for the national health service and for general practitioners. More needs to be done, and I am sure that, in the coming months and year or so, more resources will come forward.
I am here to raise the concerns of my constituents who are increasingly worried. At the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, many people chose not to take up available GP or hospital appointments, but many of those conditions that have not been investigated or checked in the last 19 months are now far worse. The pressure and demand on hospitals and GPs are more severe. People are increasingly less frightened of coronavirus but more frightened about when they will get to see their family doctor, who is now difficult to see.
People are told by their GP receptionist to call at 8 o’clock, or earlier in some areas, but they have to make call after call after call for half an hour or 45 minutes. They cannot get through until it is too late and they are told to do the same tomorrow. That is happening day in, day out. Many people are now going to accident and emergency. For a long period at the beginning of the pandemic, A&Es were quiet because people were worried about going and getting coronavirus, but the situation has changed radically. People cannot access their GP surgeries and they are going to A&E, but it is far more difficult to get the service there too.
The system is coming under significant and increasing pressure, which is piling up as we head into winter. It is not just coronavirus. There is an expectation that the pressure from other respiratory viruses will mount up along with, as I mentioned, conditions that have not been checked or investigated for all those months such as cancer and other life-threatening conditions.
We have heard about elective care for issues such as cataracts and hip replacements. In the scheme of things, when we are thinking about life and death, they may seem relatively minor but they have a dramatic impact on people’s standard of living. The situation has negatively affected all those discretionary care items, but they have to be addressed too.
Margaret Greenwood
The hon. Gentleman is talking about rationing and what is happening in the wider system. With the Health and Care Bill, we are moving away from a national health service to 42 integrated care systems that will all have to balance their books every year under tight financial controls and will all have different strategies. Does he share my concern that that will embed the postcode lottery and increase the rationing of care? Have his constituents commented on that and do they share those concerns?
Chris Green
The hon. Lady makes some important points about the Bill, but the postcode lottery is already there. Most people view the national health service as a one-size-fits-all service that provides the same service wherever they are in the land, but that is not true and perhaps never has been. Access to medicines is very variable and IVF is a good example of something for which different areas have different agendas, policies and accessibilities. We all know that there is already a postcode lottery.
I do think that NHS England is too large an organisation. I was not intending to talk about this, but I was hopeful about health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester. The Mayor could have taken that up and championed it, but he has not made a single speech on the subject—he has not touched it. Having seen the failure of that devolution, the Government are now looking at other mechanisms to champion the cause of better accountability—
Chris Green
I am sorry, I have very little time—where local leaders may be able to champion the cause of better delivery, with organisations in a sufficiently large area in which they can make a difference, but which are close enough to people that local needs can be respected and identified. Different areas are often so very different.
About 5.5 million people are on hospital waiting lists. That is an extraordinary figure. However, there have been about 7 million fewer GP to hospital referrals during the pandemic. If we extrapolate from those figures, we have roughly 13 million people on the hospital waiting list. We need to get the GP service sorted out as soon as possible. It is appalling. I am disappointed in the British Medical Association for threatening strikes. The health system, the unions and the Government need to get together and deal with those problems as soon as possible.
I was concerned about the renewal of the Coronavirus Act 2020 because I know what that will symbolise to the civil service, the health system, the education system and wider society: that we have not and should not yet return to normal. As long as the Coronavirus Act is in place, I can see that the wider system of state, including GPs’ surgeries, will not return to normal. That has to be changed and normal service must resume as soon as possible.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Robertson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for securing the debate; if ever there was a timely debate, this is it. It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), who often speaks sense. [Laughter.] And did so today, I should say! That was not a back-handed compliment.
About a month ago, I got an email from one of my constituents who is a nurse working in general practice. She was very angry and frustrated with what she sees day to day, dealing with the general public and some of the challenges there. One line from that email really stuck with me:
“We used to clap for our carers, but now it feels like we get a slap for our carers.”
That really illustrates some of the challenges that those working on the frontlines in primary care are facing. It is a very difficult environment, and no one working in public service should have to be in that sort of environment day in, day out.
Many hon. Members have talked about the frustrations faced by constituents trying to access services; my constituents are in exactly the same boat. My inbox is not exactly quiet on that issue. I have experienced it personally, too: calling the surgery at 8 o’clock in the morning and not getting an appointment; being told through various messaging campaigns to send photos in and get diagnoses that way, but with no clear route of access for how to do that. That drives frustration. People are being told that they can go to the pharmacy and, for what it is worth, I think that is an excellent thing to be doing. We should be triaging people. However, we need better communication about why people should be going to the pharmacy, what symptoms they should be displaying and what questions they should have to go there instead of calling 111 or going to their GP.
The work that GPs and those in general practice are doing is just phenomenal. We should not forget that they are delivering not only a programme to work through a backlog of people trying to access services, but the vaccination programme. In my constituency in Barrow and Furness, they are doing a phenomenal job. Their day job is packed and stressful; delivering the vaccination programme before or after hours to get through those essential numbers as well is really difficult.
I held a roundtable with some GPs with my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). I met four GPs from my constituency there, and spoke to another two beforehand. They all talked about having the same issues. After the meeting, one of my GPs sent me an email, and I want to put on record a quote about some of the challenges they are facing:
“During the pandemic we continued to provide face to face appointments despite any personal risk or even PPE in the early days...I have a memory of wearing a bin bag and a visor from B&Q for an early visit! We triaged all contacts as advised…we saw patients in a portacabin in the car park to protect staff… We are aware that not enough patients are being examined, and although we still do phone appointments first, my conversion rate to a face to face…within few days is about 40%...Our workload has increased by about 30% in the last few months. All the patients that ‘stayed at home to protect the NHS’ are now out in force and demanding to be seen, and some are really quite unwell, having suffered from self-imposed medical neglect for many months. Mental health crises dominate every day. Cancers and heart disease are presenting late. And there is a huge bottle neck in the system, as we cannot get anyone seen in secondary care as the waiting lists are so huge…This is a perfect storm”.
Another GP got in touch with me. He is now edging towards retirement. He is contracted to work three days a week, so he is only paid for three days, but he is turning up for six while also delivering the vaccine programme. His concern is not just getting through the waiting list but also the challenge of finding new GPs to backfill afterwards. If we do not get a grip of this crisis, that will be the next problem that we face.
The GP who wrote to me continued:
“If face to face is mandatory, there will be a four to five week wait for an appointment. Is that really the policy outcome anyone wants?”
Those are the challenges that we must lean into, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister what the Government plan to do about them. I know that they have announced money for general practice and the NHS, but we cannot magic up people and resources.
To my mind, we must look at improving access through technology, looking at challenges around phone calls and patient access systems, and easing information flows between GP practices and secondary care. Yesterday in the Chamber, my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) said that 10% of GP time is spent chasing up appointments and medical records. We should be able to use technology to get that out of the way.
However, the crucial point is about communications and signposting. Pharmacies and 111 are fantastic resources, but we must make it clear to people why, under what circumstances and how they need to use those routes. We are not there yet. That responsibility falls on both Government and general practice. Something in the comms space is really important.
If we do not tackle this now, I fear that we are building up a problem for the future and that the recruitment issue is going to come back and bite us. I am interested in the Minister’s views on how we tackle that perfect storm. What we need now is a considered and coherent route out of it; otherwise, we will face a similar debate in six or 12 months’ time.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) on securing this debate and on her graphic and very personal assessment of the current position.
Over the past two to three months, I have received a great deal of correspondence on this issue, with constituents very upset that they have not been able to secure face-to-face appointments with their GPs. Late last month, I had a virtual meeting with GPs practising across the Waveney area, who themselves are very upset at the abuse that they have been receiving—something that they and their staff should not have to put up with.
There is clearly a major problem, and, at a time when the pressures on the NHS are growing at an exponential rate, there is a need to work together to find a solution. In the Norfolk and Waveney clinical commissioning group area, notwithstanding the enormous demand for GP services, the position with regard to appointments is positive, although it is recognised that more needs to be done. In August 2019, there were 478,160 GP appointments, and this August that figure increased to 482,993. The proportion of patients being seen face to face is increasing. This August it was 69%, compared to 67% in July and 66% in June. More patients are being seen face to face in Norfolk and Waveney than in other parts of the country: the August figure of 69% compares with a national average of 58%.
That said, it is recognised that a lot of people are very distressed, and in many cases very worried, that they have not been able to see their GP. The pandemic has meant that there is now an enormous increase in demand for GP services, with people on growing waiting lists needing support, and with those who were unable to see their GP during the pandemic wanting an appointment in order to highlight something that is causing them a lot of worry and distress.
The increase in demand for GP services has been happening for some time, but there are severe capacity constraints on the number of patients who can be seen face to face. The current infection, prevention and control measures that are needed to keep patients and staff safe mean that in-person appointments take much longer. Social distancing means that, at practices with smaller waiting rooms, people have to wait in their cars and staff have to go and get them when it is time for their appointment. Additional cleaning arrangements are also required between patients. There is a need to improve and standardise the way that remote appointments are operated and to adopt a whole-team approach, as there are many cases where a patient does not always need to see their GP and can often be cared for better by a physio or pharmacist.
Margaret Greenwood
The hon. Member is making some very interesting points. Does he agree that it is important that the Government review the outcomes of patients who have been consulted remotely? I have heard harrowing stories from my constituents. One woman thought she had a very minor ailment—she did not get seen by a GP, and she ended up with life-changing surgery. She will never be the same again. It is important that there is a national review of what has happened to such patients, rather than assuming that everything is all right because a patient does not come back.
Peter Aldous
I am most grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention, and I agree wholeheartedly with her. The more evidence we have, the more we can get remote forms of working to operate much better.
I previously mentioned the abuse that GPs and their staff receive. I should emphasise that it comes from only a small number of patients, but it is nevertheless making general practice a less attractive, and often quite unpleasant, place to work. That risks making GPs and practice staff harder to recruit and causing existing staff to retire early, to choose to work elsewhere in the NHS or even to leave the health service altogether.
The Government’s plan for improving access for patients and supporting general practice is largely to be welcomed, but there needs to be an emphasis on collaboration and working right across the NHS, which is something that the integrated care systems will hopefully achieve. It is also vital for the Government to see through our manifesto pledge to increase the number of GPs and other primary care professionals. There will be an increased emphasis on information technology, and the necessary investment in that infrastructure must take place right across the country in a way that is easy to operate and, most importantly, straightforward for all patients to access.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) on securing the debate. I listened to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous)—I am sure he was looking over my shoulder when I wrote mine, because some of the themes are quite similar.
I find myself in the curious situation of raising the issue of NHS services in east Berkshire. Why is that curious? Because we are pretty well served, actually. The NHS is pretty good locally. We have three fantastic hospitals on the doorstep. The Frimley ICS is one of the best-performing care systems in the country and recently had a reprieve from the new Health Secretary, who had looked at breaking it up. We are in a pretty good place, and I do not tend to get letters from constituents about the healthcare that they receive, which is very good. In this case, however, I have been receiving letters, and I am quite concerned about it.
What is the perception, and what are people saying to me? Under the current policy, GP practices must now ensure that they offer face-to-face appointments. Only 57% of appointments across the UK are currently face to face, versus 79% before the pandemic, so there is an issue. There is also a perception that it is difficult to get through to practices on the phone, and that there is low availability of appointments and a lack of face-to-face care. Constituents are never wrong, my constituents are not wrong, and if they are writing to me repeatedly about these issues, clearly it is incumbent upon me as their MP to raise them.
What is the good news? Nationally, the narrative is actually very positive. If we look at the current statistics from the Care Quality Commission, the scores on GP access are the highest they have ever been, with a 67% satisfaction rate now, compared with 63% last year. Same-day appointments have gone up. People are satisfied with what they are getting from their GP, with an 88.7% satisfaction rating of “good” or “very good”. As of August 2021, 23.9 million GP appointments were offered and recorded, compared with 23.4 million two years ago, so things are getting better. Things are going up. That is in addition to the 1.5 million covid-19 vaccination appointments delivered in August 2021 by GP surgeries. The service, statistically, is improving. It is good news.
However, the data appears to contrast with what I am hearing locally. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) said earlier about how there could be a postcode lottery, or it could be related to the service provider at individual constituency surgeries. Demand is clearly outstripping supply, so Houston, we’ve got a problem.
As an example, one constituent spent 45 minutes on the phone to a particular surgery, tried 159 times to get through and was then offered a telephone consultation for a lump on her neck, which is not great. Constituents have dialled 111 and been advised to contact their GP, then after being unable to get through, they phone 111. We have had multiple complaints from certain constituents in a certain part of my constituency—it would not be fair for me to say where—informing me that the practice has 20,000 patients and only two doctors. The figures do not work. Telephone triage is being used instead of an immediate face-to-face. For flu vaccinations, one particular group practice is advising constituents to travel to the central hub in Bracknell, which causes issues for those less able to get there. We have a capacity problem.
However, it is unacceptable that staff are working under challenging circumstances and facing levels of abuse not previously seen. GPs and staff are working harder than ever before. Retention and staff satisfaction are an issue. Therefore, MPs like me must do more to help to redress that balance, and to balance the narrative. By the same token, GP surgeries also need to take the inquiries that we raise with them more seriously. The GP is not the enemy, and nor is the MP.
My general advice to GP surgeries is this: I think that there are things we can do. We need more staff. Let us do more to recruit staff, particularly receptionist and telephone staff. We need to reassure patients a bit more; they want some TLC after the pandemic, and it is right that they get it. We need to sort out the phone lines. We need to improve electronic referral systems. In Bracknell, we have the new primary care network phone system, whereby calls that cannot be answered by a particular surgery will be rerouted to another, which is quite exciting. We also need communication between surgeries and their patients: tell the constituents what is going on and explain to them why their calls are going unanswered. MPs need to visit surgeries, as I am next week. Basically, let us improve customer service.
I have three points to conclude with. First, care providers in East Berkshire and across the country are working miracles, but are accountable to their customers. I would urge GP surgeries to think about what their customers are saying to them, and to do what they can to reassure them. My second point is addressed to the Minister. The new IPC guidance is forthcoming. When will it be published, and when will GP surgeries get more guidance on what it means? Lastly, I urge everyone listening to this to watch the language being used. We are all in the same space and working hard; doctors and staff are working really hard. Let us please tone it down. All of us are part of the problem, but we are also all part of the solution.
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
We now come to Front-Bench speeches. I would like to leave a couple of minutes at the end for the mover of the motion to wind up.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for securing this debate. She gave a good summary of the issue and I am grateful for her personal testimony. I think all our communities have experienced different levels of satisfaction or otherwise with GP services.
Let me start by paying tribute to the work done by GPs and primary care staff, who, along with their colleagues throughout the NHS, have performed admirably and heroically throughout the pandemic. It would be completely wrong for anyone to claim otherwise. Incidents of harassment of GPs and medical staff—such as the Watford incident, where staff were locked into a consulting room until they agreed to carry out a face-to-face consultation, and an attack in Manchester that left a GP with a fractured skull and other staff with deep lacerations—are unacceptable and should be condemned. I trust that the Minister and every MP will join me in that condemnation.
I cannot help but fear, however, that the UK Government’s harmful rhetoric, including their threat to shame GPs for not returning to face-to-face appointments, may have played a part in such shameful behaviour. The Government must support GPs and not threaten and shame them. While the pandemic remains, it is safer for medical staff and patients to continue hybrid screening and appointments—I stress hybrid. Forcing face-to-face appointments too soon is unsafe and may harm patient care.
For many patients, the choice of using e-health and telehealth solutions to contact their GPs initially has been convenient, but clearly it is not appropriate for all. Some individuals and certain conditions would benefit from a face-to-face appointment and it is important that we get that balance right. However, forcing an immediate return to face-to-face appointments will not necessarily benefit the patients and it may harm efficiency of care.
GPs in England have overwhelmingly rejected the DHSC England plan for forced face-to-face appointments, with more than 90% saying they would increase workload and therefore decrease the amount of time caring for patients. The Royal College of GPs in Scotland said last month:
“We believe that there is a key role in modern general practice for remote consultations and would oppose any moves to deny patients this option of accessing care by reinstating pre-pandemic ways of working”.
It went on to say:
“Instead of arbitrary targets which we feel would not benefit either patients or the wider health service, we need to see concerted and urgent action in a range of areas that would improve general practice and ultimately the standards of care that patients that receive … Key to this is the need for credible workforce planning to ensure that we have an appropriately staffed service”.
That is an absolutely fundamental point. It may be worth mentioning that GP training recruitment in Scotland this year has been the most successful year of any of the last five, with 99% of GP training posts filled so far and with one recruitment round remaining. Already Scotland has a record number of GPs, with more per 100,000 of the population than the rest of the UK. We are on track to increase that number by a further 800 posts by the end of 2027. For comparative purposes, that is currently 94 for every 100,000 people, compared with 76 in England, 75 in Wales and 72 in Northern Ireland.
The BMA said on 15 September:
“Any arbitrary timetables or targets for face-to-face patient consultations would be both unrealistic, demoralising and potentially counterproductive, leaving those desperately in need of appointments waiting even longer”.
I am pleased that the Scottish Government will not be pressuring GPs into unsafe early reopening, just because some politicians and some sections of the press want to insist on it.
In conclusion, the UK Government should match the Scottish Government’s stance and insist on a safety and efficiency-first position, not bow to demands of the right-wing press, which will sacrifice patient and staff safety without providing any benefits to our patients. The key to this issue is getting the balance right in terms of the hybrid approach, which of course requires adequate recruitment levels, which are absolutely fundamental.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon and the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for securing this debate on an extremely important issue as we recover from the pandemic. This issue is close to all our hearts and to the hearts of the people whom we service.
GPs play an essential role in our communities. They are often the first port of call for people accessing a wide variety of health services, and their hard work and dedication to serving their communities ensure that we can always obtain advice, medicine and referral to other services.
When we discuss GPs, it is important to remember that they are more than just nameless public servants doing a job. They do not just serve communities; they are an integral part of them. I myself have had the same GP for my whole life, if people can believe that. I am slightly giving my age away to say that she has been my GP for over 40 years.
GPs are the foundations of our national health service, and without access to them our whole health system would collapse. Chronic illnesses would not be caught in time, mental illnesses would go unchecked and life-saving medication would simply not be prescribed. From our birth to our death, a GP is there for us all, and everyone in this country should have access to their GP.
However, like much of the NHS, GPs are overstretched and under-resourced. Even prior to the pandemic, GP surgeries had to contend with a double hit of fewer doctors in the workforce and a rising ageing population. Demand simply outweighs supply. We need more GPs, pharmacists, physiotherapists and community health workers. But instead of supporting GPs during this challenging time, the Government prefer to blame them, making their jobs even more difficult at the time of greatest pressure for our NHS.
We have looked for virtual solutions so often during this pandemic, and for the most part their effectiveness cannot be disputed. They have allowed our economy to keep going and our public services to continue functioning, and also allowed a small degree of normality in what has been an extremely challenging and turbulent 20 months. I know from my own experience on the A&E frontline, especially early on in the pandemic, that infection protocols and social distancing made many elements of delivering compassionate care very challenging.
Digital solutions have worked well, but we know that they are not appropriate in every setting and they do not work for everyone; we have heard ample example of that today in this debate. However, we need to be careful not to conflate two separate issues. Digital solutions in practices were not just necessary for infection control. The sheer demand for appointments is through the roof. GPs have been offering telephone consultations and online appointments for some time now, even prior to covid. There were 2.2 million more appointments in August this year compared with August 2019. The percentage of appointments being delivered face to face is also rising. That shows that GPs are striving to see as many patients as they can, but to increase that number even further they need more support from the Government.
The Conservatives have promised more GPs in every one of their manifestos since 2015. However, we have approximately 2,000 fewer GPs now than we had in 2015. It seems like a simple fix for Government—deliver on manifesto commitments and expand the GP workforce. That will allow for even more appointments and it will help to reduce the burden on existing staff, leading to less burnout and less fatigue.
The British Medical Association conducted a survey of GPs in July. Half the respondents said that they are currently suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, burnout, emotional distress or other mental health conditions. I repeat—half the respondents said that. That is a huge percentage. Around the same proportion of respondents said they now plan to work fewer hours after the pandemic. When a workforce are supported, their absence rates come down and their productivity goes up; it is pretty basic. Ensuring that staff are supported not only benefits the workforce but the patients, through more effective and timely care. It is a virtuous cycle, which surely even the cynics would support, as it ultimately leads to more patients being seen and better care being provided.
We have heard about the trickle-down effect of not being able to see GPs and the knock-on impact that has on the rest of the NHS. Yet instead of delivering on their manifesto pledges, this Government would rather stoke the flames of division, by attempting to shift the blame to GPs and encouraging local residents to vent their frustrations at them rather than at the Government. The Health and Social Care Secretary has resorted to attempts to name and shame GP practices that were unable to guarantee face-to-face appointments. The Government will then deny additional essential funding to the practices they deem to be performing poorly. That provocation does nothing to improve patient care; it serves only to deflect anger away from the Government and towards the health service. I know from colleagues in GP surgeries across England that it has already resulted in abuse both online and in person. That leaves so many practitioners considering their career choices, and will lead only to further shortages in future.
Fundamentally, the Government need to make good on their manifesto pledge of an additional 6,000 GPs. Without that, there will be a detrimental impact on the workforce and, crucially, on patient care. That has a knock-on impact on how much time GPs are able to spend with patients. Patients are understandably frustrated, as the backlog of care due to covid continues to pile up, with a knock-on impact on waiting times throughout the NHS. At a time when case numbers are soaring again and the booster programme is faltering due to Government inaction, people are anxious about their health and the health of their local community.
Dr Allin-Khan
No; I want to make some progress. The imminent arrival of winter is also a great cause for concern. Winter is always an extremely challenging time for the health service. GPs will be the first point of contact for the majority suffering from winter respiratory illnesses. However, GP surgeries cannot be blamed for being unable to fill vacancies as a result of wider workforce and funding issues. It is simply not acceptable. The Government are purposefully turning communities against one another, risking the health and wellbeing of patients and staff simply because they are unwilling to put forward a sustainable plan to support GPs to manage their workloads. GPs’ needs and patients’ needs are one and the same. It is a failure of Government that has led us here.
Chris Green
The Labour party voted against compulsory vaccination in the care setting, presumably because they sensed that it would have an impact on carers and their ability to carry on in the sector. Does the hon. Lady think that it would also have an impact on the NHS, with perhaps up to 100,000 people leaving, and GP surgeries?
Dr Allin-Khan
That is beyond the scope of this debate, but I am very happy to have a discussion with the hon. Gentleman afterwards. I do not believe it is appropriate to mandate vaccinations for NHS staff, forcing them to leave their jobs if they do not accept vaccination, as I put forward in the Labour party’s position on the care sector.
Let us be clear: GPs are being scapegoated for a failure of this Government to act and put people’s health first. The war against GPs that is being propagated by the Government does nothing to serve patient needs or to serve GPs, who are exhausted and unable to fulfil the commitments that they trained hard to carry out, because of a failure of this Government. I see that the hon. Gentleman feels rather pleased with himself for his intervention on me. Forcing people to have vaccinations in the communities that have been hardest hit, for whom trust has been completed eroded by this Government, does nothing to serve our collective aim, which is to ensure that the communities that we all serve have the treatment that they need and timely and respectful surgeries and appointments. That is the very thing that will keep our communities alive and well this winter.
Will the Minister, whom I welcome to her place, please outline what steps the Government will take to tackle the workforce shortages in GP surgeries? Will she outline what resources will be provided to ease the intense workload that GPs are already contending with? Will she outline why additional funding is all directed to secondary care, while our primary services are left to crumble?
I thank all the GPs out there serving our communities. I hope that the Government have listened to our points on the support that GPs, patients and communities need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for bringing forward the debate. As we have heard from MPs from across the political parties, their postbags show that this is a big issue from the perspective both of constituents, who are trying to access appointments, and of GPs, who are reaching out to their local MPs to highlight the pressures and difficulties that they have faced recently.
I want to start off by thanking general practice teams and GPs in particular. It is disappointing to hear what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), had to say. There is no war on GPs. We are all in this together, including GPs, reception staff and nurses. On 14 October the Secretary of State announced a GP support package precisely to support GPs in supporting their patients. We have been listening long and hard to the difficulties faced in primary care. The range of measures I will talk about are there to help GPs as much as patients. If we do not support GPs, the patients will struggle.
I wish to put on the record my thanks to all in general practice during the pandemic. They have gone above and beyond—and often under the radar—by continuing to see patients during the crisis. They have also helped support and in many cases run vaccination programmes in their local areas, and have been a key factor in supporting community teams to help patients be discharged from hospital more quickly and to prevent readmission. That was key during the crisis. Without their hard work and dedication, much of that would not have happened.
There is, however, an issue. We all know that there are problems with accessing GP appointments, but there is also some good news. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) described the situation perfectly when he called it a perfect storm. So many patients did not come forward during the pandemic, as advised in the main, and many issues, symptoms, conditions and worries are now coming to the fore. The pent-up demand is such that GPs are overwhelmed by the number of people who now need to be seen, often with symptoms and conditions that are far worse than if they had been able to come forward at an earlier stage.
The physical set-up of many GP practices—infection control measures had to be put in place to protect GPs and their staff and patients—means that they have struggled to see patients. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) asked about those measures. They have been relaxed: social distancing has been reduced from 2 metres to 1 metre. Face masks are still required, but it is now safer for GPs to open their doors and get more patients into their waiting and consulting rooms. Some infection control measures have been relaxed and we should see an improvement.
Appointment numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels. In August the average number of general practice appointments per working day was 1.14 million, which represented a 2.2% increase on August 2019. As GPs will tell us, they are seeing more patients. The proportion of face-to-face appointments is also increasing. Since August, nearly 60% of appointments have been face to face. That shows that things are starting to return to pre-pandemic levels, but the sheer scale of people who now need to be seen means that it often does not feel like that for patients.
I will give my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield some specific figures for Buckinghamshire. In August, practices arranged a total of more than 200,000 appointments with patients, which is an increase of more than 3,000 from August 2019. In addition, practices in Buckinghamshire helped deliver more than 786,000 vaccines. I take her point that there are specific issues with certain practices that are struggling. My advice to her—and I am happy to meet her and discuss this more fully—is to try to broker a meeting between the GPs and the clinical commissioning group, because often additional support can be given locally to those practices that are really struggling. Sometimes GPs are so overwhelmed that they do not have the space to ask for help and support, even though that is what they need.
Many colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Chris Green), for Beaconsfield and for Barrow and Furness, have raised the issue of telephone access. Much of the problem that patients face is that they cannot get through in the first place, whether that is to make a face-to-face appointment, have a telephone consultation or make a virtual appointment. That is an issue. GPs have historically devised their own telephone systems. They may have gone in with primary care networks or the CCG, and many have their own set-up. Given the sheer scale of the numbers, there is a real issue in having two or three receptionists tackle 300 or 400 calls on a Monday morning, most of which will be complex calls rather than quick, five-minute calls to book an appointment.
That is why part of the GP support package that the Secretary of State announced on 14 October will provide telephone support through a cloud-based system, which will do a number of things. First, it will increase capacity so that patients can get through much quicker. Secondly, it will provide an automated queuing system. I know from my own constituency that patients can be 29th in the queue and have to wait for a long time, so providing that extra capacity will take the pressure off GPs. It will also provide an insight into how much admin support GPs actually need. That valuable data will allow us to provide them with support for the long term.
There are a number of other measures in the GP support package and we are working hard on this matter. There is a £250 million winter access package, aimed at helping GPs open up their surgeries for more face-to-face appointments because this is not an either/or situation. Many Members, including the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), pointed out that many patients like telephone consultations and the virtual appointments, and we are not going back to pre-pandemic face-to-face-only appointments. We need to embrace the changes that technology has brought. It is far more beneficial for busy people who are working or juggling childcare to be able to speak to a GP rather than have to trundle down to the surgery, but there is a place for face-to-face appointments as well.
The access package of £250 million can be used in a number of ways by GP practices. It can be used to take on locum staff if they are available, to take on other healthcare professionals to see patients, to extend opening times, or even to change the layout of a surgery so that it can accommodate more patients. It is for local commissioners and GPs to decide how they would like to use that fund.
There are also significant moves to reduce bureaucracy for GPs. They are often the only people who can sign fit notes or Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency requests. As has been said, there are other healthcare professionals who are equally qualified to do that. Some of it may need legislative changes, which we are working at pace to introduce, but we want to take that bureaucratic burden off GPs so that they are free to see patients when they need to.
There are also a number of other measures in terms of increasing the general practice workforce. As the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness said, communications is a crucial point because it is not always the GP that patients will see in face-to-face appointments. They might see a nurse, a pharmacist or a physio. We need to get that message out at a general practice level, but also at a national level.
Chris Green
On compulsory vaccinations in the care sector, I have concerns about compulsory vaccination on the NHS sector. Would the Minister do what she can to ensure that there is an impact assessment before this is done on the NHS, if it is done in the future?
Maria Caulfield
My hon. Friend is certainly persistent in his questioning on that issue. It is a decision for the Secretary of State, who is looking at such factors. The vast majority of NHS staff have been vaccinated, for their own protection as much as anything else. I want to highlight that we are increasing the number of primary healthcare professionals across the board, aiming to replicate the model used in hospitals, where a consultant leads a team of multi-disciplinary professionals who will help see a patient and are, sometimes, more expert in dealing with certain clinical situation than GPs themselves.
Margaret Greenwood
I have had GPs talk to me, somewhat frustratedly, about not having sufficient GPs in their surgery and having physician associates who do not have the same level of training. There is a concern that this is a backing-away from the Government’s commitment of 6,000 extra GPs. Could the Minister confirm whether the Government are still committed to 6,000 extra fully qualified, trained GPs?
Maria Caulfield
We are committed to increasing GP numbers, as in our manifesto commitment. However, that does not stop us increasing the numbers of other healthcare professionals. We need to get the message out to patients that seeing a nurse, physio or paramedic at the GP surgery is not second best. These are highly qualified, experienced and educated professionals who often are better placed—though I do not want to upset the shadow Minister—to see a patient than a doctor. They can make a considerable difference, but very often patients feel they are being fobbed off or seeing the second best. We need to do a lot of work to reassure patients on that.
We have already recruited 10,000 of the additional 26,000 staff we stated in our manifesto would be working in general practice by the end of 2023-24. We are strengthening our plans to increase the number of doctors in general practice. To reassure Members, so far we have filled a record number of GP speciality training places this year, with the latest data showing that there are already 1,200 more full-time equivalent doctors in general practice than two years ago. It is a challenge; I am not going to say it is not, but we are making progress.
I feel particularly passionate about the use of community pharmacists. In many other countries, the pharmacist is the first port of call for minor ailments. They are highly qualified professionals with over five years of clinical training who are able to assist patients. Over 800 practices have already signed up to participate in the community pharmacist consultation service, which enables patients to see a pharmacist, on the same day in many cases, to deal with minor conditions. That will not only help patients, but it will free GPs up to see the patients that really need to see them for clinical conditions.
Rachael Maskell
Will the Minister also ensure that the funding goes into community pharmacies in the right way if they are to be utilised? Likewise, with the voluntary sector involved in providing support for people through different forms of wider health support, will she ensure that it too gets proper funding?
Maria Caulfield
I thank the hon. Lady. The spending review tomorrow may have further updates on that, so I will not comment on the funding for now. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have asked the Royal College of General Practitioners to provide GPs with more guidance on how to blend face-to-face with virtual appointments. We do need a mix of both going forward, and the comms, as has been said so much this afternoon, will make a difference, so that patients know where to go, what is available and who they can see for their particular condition.
The issue of abuse has featured heavily this afternoon. The hon. Members for Batley and Spen and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell and for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and others have mentioned the impact of abuse. When patients have been waiting a long time to see a GP, cannot get through on the phone and are feeling unwell in very distressing situations, they often take it out on practice staff. It is unacceptable, and we all have a role in this place to say that we have zero tolerance for that.
We know as MPs what it is like to face a torrent of abuse. If it is not acceptable for us, it is certainly not acceptable for them. My message to general practice staff is that we are four-square behind them on this and will support them. As part of the winter support package, there is £5 million to facilitate extra security, be that CCTV, extra screens or door entry systems—whatever practices feel will make their staff more secure, that funding is available to them. That is not the only solution, and they should not face abuse in the first place, but we are taking it extremely seriously.
In the few minutes that I have left, I want to say that there are two main issues here. There is the short-term covid issue, which has seen a tsunami of patients whom we need to support as we come out of the covid period. There is the £250 million winter package, and there is support around opening up community pharmacies and enabling other healthcare professionals to see patients, which will take some of the bureaucracy away from GPs while we support them to get through the period. However, there are some longer-term solutions as well. General practice and primary care were creaking before covid, and we need to ensure that they are supported in the long term going forward.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield for securing this afternoon’s debate. She has raised some really important points. On Thursday, I am holding a cross-party call for MPs to raise some of their constituency GP issues. I urge them to feed back to me as the Minister where it is working well, because there are some brilliant examples out there. Where it is not working so well, it is not the fault of GPs. There are some fundamental solutions that we can help them with, but it is important that we hear about the problems so that we can support them. If Members have specific issues from their constituencies, they should join the call. We are hoping to hold such calls on a regular basis, if that is needed by colleagues, and I am keen to work with everyone across the House to support general practice, because that is the only way we will support patients in the end.
Joy Morrissey
I thank hon. Members from across the House for their contributions. I thank the Minister for a very nuanced and positive response, and for taking so much time to explain the measures that the Government are taking. I think many of the GPs in my constituency would welcome those things. GPs need additional support and have perhaps not been able to ask for it because they are so overwhelmed with the backlog, so it is a wonderful and really positive step. I look forward to bringing more constituency issues directly to the Minister, and I thank her for opening up that pathway. Many of my constituents have never contacted their Member of Parliament before, and they just felt desperate. I know that many GPs are doing all that they can, but having additional support from the Government is very welcome indeed.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered GP appointment availability.
Investment Industry Exposure to Modern Slavery
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission, and to also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered investment industry exposure to modern slavery.
Modern slavery is one of the most prevalent and egregious violations of human rights in the world today.
It is great to see you in the chair, Mr Robertson, for what is my first ever Westminster Hall debate. Hopefully my performance will not mean that it is my last. I welcome the Minister to her new, important role. I know she will carry out her brief superbly in one of the most important jobs in Government—safeguarding our most vulnerable people.
I think we can all agree that the shameful existence of modern slavery has no place in a civilised world. It is an issue that should concern every person who believes in the integrity of common humanity, and should be a concern for every business, because it distorts markets and undermines ethical business practices. As an international community, we have rightly taken collective responsibility for defending human rights around the world. Organisations, such as the United Nations working group on contemporary slavery, have drawn increased attention to the issue and made significant strides in defining and identifying this covert and highly complex crime.
That being said, there is a great deal more work to do. Human exploitation continues to pervade every major nation on earth. Almost half the countries in the world have yet to criminalise slavery. In the UK alone, it is estimated that 136,000 people are currently victims of this awful crime. However, we are here today to specifically discuss the role that the investment industry can play in tackling modern slavery because, as it currently stands, financial services are not considered part of the solution in public policy. I want to do my little bit to try to change that.
We must first acknowledge the great work that this Government, and previous Conservative Governments, have done in tackling this issue, thanks to the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), together with, of course, our late friend and colleague James Brokenshire, the Security Minister at the time, who passed the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The vision for that legislation was truly world-leading, and the UK became the first country in the world to require businesses to identify and address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains. It is an Act that we, in this country, should be incredibly proud of, for it has highlighted that modern slavery exists in the private economy. It has also paved the way for legislation in other countries—in Australia, France and the Netherlands.
However, while we reflect on what the 2015 Act has achieved, we must also acknowledge the need for evolution. All legislation requires continual review to keep pace with developing risks, and the Government have therefore, rightly, announced that they plan to strengthen the Act in response to consultation in 2019.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this forward. I spoke to him outside, so he knows what my thoughts are. Does he not agree that it is important that for girls in particular, we need to understand that investment portfolios should show mindfulness on human slavery? It is not enough to say that if we do not use modern slavery in our businesses, our hands are clean. Would the hon. Member agree that we must be cognisant of how investment portfolios gain interest? This can only be done, as the hon. Gentleman says, through legislation and legislative change.
Gareth Davies
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which is a great honour. That is another first for me, so I feel like I am really making it now. I completely agree that young girls and young people—all people, actually—who have investments, savings or a retirement pot, need to know and have confidence that those who invest that money on their behalf are doing so prudently and are putting in place the checks to ensure that there is no inadvertent risk of modern slavery. The Government should do everything they can, as I will come on to in a minute.
The Government’s commitment to amend section 54(5) is intended to make it more prescriptive for investment funds. I completely agree with that, but even with those changes, that section would remain entirely focused on internal business structures and supply chains, not where their investments are made. The good news is that an increasing number of responsible companies are holding themselves to a higher standard. Many investors are already assessing modern slavery risks as part of their robust environmental, social and governance strategies or choosing to report their alignment with the United Nations’ guiding principles on business and human rights.
Yesterday, I met a group of investors, and this year alone, I have met 24 separate financial services companies in preparation for today’s debate. I found that they already have robust measures in place to tackle modern slavery. On the whole, however, the sector has not integrated modern slavery risks into investment processes to the same extent that it has adopted environmental risks. Some 795 financial organisations published modern slavery statements under the Act last year, but of 79 asset managers who submitted a statement, only 27% disclosed that they had conducted due diligence on modern slavery risks.
That is clearly a problem, but I believe that there are three solutions. First, the Government could broaden section 54 of the Act and consult on including a requirement that investment portfolios are included, as they are in Australia. Secondly, the Government could issue specific statutory guidance on how investors can assess modern slavery risks—again, as they do in Australia—so they are equipped with knowledge on that assessment. Thirdly, as it is a global problem that needs a global solution, we should work with our global allies to establish a taskforce, modelled on the taskforce on climate-related disclosures. Although the issue is different, the approach can be the same.
As it stands, financial services firms are a £9 trillion lever that we are not yet pulling in our fight against modern slavery. The UK is the largest net exporter of financial services in the world and the law change that I have proposed could make a difference in eradicating that horrendous crime. It would also protect and promote our democratic values at home and abroad. British savers and investors should never be used to support profit from human slavery. It matters for global Britain, as our leadership in this space will create prosperity at home and help to promote our values abroad. The situation that we walk past is the situation that we accept. It is an issue hidden in plain sight. We need to pull every lever we can to end it once and for all.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) on securing the debate. He and I have been discussing the issue for some time and he has led admirably on assessing the requirements that are needed to address it, bringing his background and experience in the private sector to this place. What a speech that was.
I also thank the Human Trafficking Foundation, with which I believe my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) also has a relationship, whose work has been extraordinary in highlighting and identifying the issue around modern slavery and human trafficking. My predecessor Anthony Steen played a large role in that and continues to perform those duties in a meaningful and effective manner.
I am conscious that there is a limited amount of time, and I do not want to interrupt those Members who will follow me or the Minister’s response, but I want to make a few points about what we understand from the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It was a landmark piece of legislation. All too often in this place we say that a Bill is a landmark piece of legislation—this really was. It was unique in the world, and it has been followed by legislation in Australia, France and the Netherlands, as has already been said. In that Act we committed to bring perpetrators to justice, we ensured that businesses were brought in line with transparency reports, we enhanced protections for victims, we ensured that there were supply chain statements and we appointed the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. Those were all integral and important points, but we also have to assess their effectiveness in delivering, and make sure that businesses are following suit and not just going through the rigamarole of ticking boxes to say that they have complied with the requirement to publish statements. The Act has to have teeth. This is where the opportunity comes. The UK shows global leadership and has global power in being able to set up initiatives like this.
I will go briefly off topic and talk about the illegal wildlife trade. In 2013-14 the UK launched a transportation taskforce in which we brought together private, public and charitable organisations to disrupt the illegal wildlife trade network. We then began to bring in financial networks to look at data analysis and see where we could disrupt those chains across the world. This is what we should be doing in this area. There is huge potential for doing it, and there are similar models that we can replicate in this country.
My last point is what was raised in the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s report at the end of this year. It said there were two points we needed to look at. The first one relates to data analysis. It is a huge benefit to be able to bring in financial institutions; to be able to pinpoint and identify beyond the supply chains and businesses’ internal structures; to look at where money is being transferred; to look at where money is being invested and to take account of that; and to make sure that we can be reassured about where our investments are being put. Secondly, slavery is generating somewhere in the region of $150 billion a year. The report goes on to encourage the exploration of opportunities to partner with financial institutions.
We set up the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner to make sure that we listen to these recommendations. These recommendations have come out in the report; we would do very well to listen to them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford has said, it is the situation that one walks past and cannot ignore. We cannot, in this day and age, look at the crisis and the egregious crime that is human trafficking. We cannot accept it in the 21st century. We have the opportunity to bring those financial institutions together—with the City of London and the power we have as the fifth biggest economy in the world—and it is time for us to take the action, take the lead and provide that leadership. I hope the Minister will listen to these words, and the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford, and take the appropriate action.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. If I can refer to my entry in the register of interests, the Human Trafficking Foundation appears as I am a trustee. I welcome the Minister; this is the first time that I have participated in a debate that she is responding to in her new role. I can assure her, as someone who fulfilled that role for over two years, that it is a fantastic place to be; the change you can make to people’s lives as a Minister in the Home Office with responsibility for this area is absolutely breath taking. It is a difficult job, it is a tough job, but it is also one of the most rewarding jobs in Government. I welcome her to the role and know she will do a fantastic job. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) on securing this debate and delivering what I know will not be the last contribution he makes to a Westminster Hall debate. It was an excellent contribution, and it set out so succinctly and well the point that he is campaigning hard on. I am also grateful for his willingness to accept contributions from other Members in this very short, half-hour debate.
My hon. Friend raised, very well, the risks and the opportunities there are for investment businesses in ensuring they are making the ethical investments their customers and consumers want. People want to know that their money is being invested in a way that is not funding crime—be that drug crime, gang-related crime or, in particular, the economic crime against people that is human trafficking and modern slavery. Let us be clear: this is an economic crime. It is so often confused with crimes of immigration, but it is not an immigration crime. It is an economic crime: one human being is prepared to make financial gain from another human being. We must all work to stamp that out.
The numbers are shocking. The latest estimate is that around 40 million people globally are victims of modern slavery, of which 25 million are victims of forced labour and 15 million are involved in forced marriage or other forms of exploitation. Some 25 million people globally are victims of forced labour. We must remember that number and work hard to do what we can.
My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford is right. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made the point as well. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes has big shoes to fill in taking over from the wonderful Anthony Steen, who is an absolute hero; without him, we simply would not be where we are today with the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
When I took the Modern Slavery Bill through Parliament, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was very involved on Report, and tabled amendments constantly, including on supply chains. Section 54 was not in the Bill when we started. The Bill had gone through prelegislative scrutiny by a Committee chaired by Frank Field, now of the other place. I am going to call him by name. I know that we would normally refer to him as the noble Lord Field, but everyone will have seen the news that he made public last week, and our thoughts go to him. He is another of the founding fathers of the Act. Without Frank, and without the noble Baroness Butler-Sloss, Anthony Steen, the noble Lord Randall and many others, we simply would not have achieved it. That prelegislative scrutiny Committee wanted to see transparency measures for supply chains, but Government do not always listen to everything that prelegislative scrutiny Committees or others suggest. A lot of work was needed to persuade Government of what those of us in the Home Office could see was a very good idea, but about which others in Government had not been so convinced.
Section 54 was undoubtedly revolutionary, but that does not mean that it is not evolutionary. It does need to evolve. Now, six years along, there are undoubtedly things that can be improved, and I welcome what the Home Office has said about changes that must be made. It does need to be strengthened. It must be expanded to more businesses. The points that my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford made about what we could do on investments are really interesting, and I urge the Minister to take those points to her colleagues in Government at the earliest opportunity so that they can remove their reasons for opposing them as quickly as possible. This is something that customers want. Consumers want to know that their money is properly invested.
I will make two very quick points before I sit down. The first is that I have tabled a private Member’s Bill that replicates section 54 on climate change. My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford said that this was something that people wanted to see. I would like to see that transparency in supply chains on climate change as well, and I hope that hon. Members will support the Bill. Second, I join my hon. Friend in pleading that we ask the United Nations to make human trafficking and modern slavery a focus of the next General Assembly in September 2022. If we could work together to do that and to get global recognition of this issue, we would go a long way to tackling this heinous crime.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
It is a huge pleasure to be here serving under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I very much thank my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) for securing this vital debate and for bringing with him a wealth of experience from his distinguished career in the investment industry, which informs us all and helps us all to move further.
I also thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). I really do feel that I have very big footsteps to follow in. I thank her for all her work in bringing the world-leading and groundbreaking Modern Slavery Act 2015 on to the statue book. Without her work, I certainly would not be here today talking about this subject, and it is absolutely right that we are. Thanks to her work, and that of others, last week we were able to mark Anti-Slavery Day and reflect on the trauma that victims suffer, the cruelty of those who exploit them and the bravery of survivors attempting to rebuild their lives. That was also a moment to reaffirm our commitment to confronting the evils of modern slavery, wherever and whenever they occur. They are utterly appalling crimes that have no place in our society. I very much welcome the interest shown by my friends today, including the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), so that we can stamp out these crimes.
It is nice to pause and reflect on what we have already done as a Government. We have taken some very important strides forward in recent years, but of course there is more to do. These crimes continue to evolve and we must continue to evolve. As my friends have said, modern slavery is a global problem. We continue to provide global leadership to tackle it. During our G7 presidency, G7 members agreed to joint action on forced labour in global supply chains, and reaffirmed their commitment to upholding human rights and international labour standards. That is why we continue to invest heavily in tackling modern slavery. We have funded a new five-year modern slavery victim care contract to support victims to rebuild their lives. That new contract is worth £379 million over five years and will deliver a much-needed service that is based on need and better aligned to the requirements of individual victims. As we know, victims present with incredibly complex needs, and it is right that we have the support tailored for them.
The Home Office has invested a further £1.4 million this year to support the police’s response to modern slavery, bringing the total investment in policing to £15 million since 2016. That funding in the round has helped us to pursue perpetrators and drive an increase in modern slavery investigations and operations. Following our recognition that the nature of modern slavery has evolved over the years, the Home Secretary announced a review of the 2014 modern slavery strategy, which builds on the considerable progress, by adapting our approach and maintaining our position as an international leader in this area.
We will publish a new strategy next spring, which will set the strategic direction for years to come. Through the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the UK became the first country in the world to require businesses to report on the action they were taking to address modern slavery risk in their operations and supply chains. That legislation acts as a call to action for businesses, investors and the international human rights community—no doubt the businesses that my hon. Friends were involved in before they brought their expertise to this place.
Following the recommendations of the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act and a consultation, the Government committed to introduce an ambitious package of measures to strengthen our world-leading legislation on transparency in supply chains. We will extend the reporting requirements to public bodies, to leverage public procurement and address risks in public supply chains.
We will mandate specific reporting topics that statements must cover, set a single deadline for reporting, require organisations to publish their statements to a new Government registry for modern slavery statements, and introduce financial penalties for organisations that fail to meet their reporting obligations. Those changes require legislation, but I want to reassure colleagues that this Government remain committed to legislating on modern slavery and will implement the measures as soon as parliamentary time allows.
In addition to the changes we have already committed to make, we will consider our future approach to transparency in supply chains, as part of our modern slavery strategy review, including how we can best utilise the unique power—and pockets—of the financial sector, to tackle modern slavery.
Let me now turn to some of the specific points referenced in the debate. Individual organisations must focus on preventing harm in their practices. We do not believe that physical remoteness or being several steps away from the supply chain is an excuse. Investors do need to hold their organisations to account, as my hon. Friends so eloquently set out. People who are saving for their pensions or retirement should not be exposed to criminal activity.
I am grateful for all the work done by my hon. Friends the Member for Grantham and Stamford and for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall). Through their convening power, they have brought together financial institutions and organisations. I am also grateful for the work of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, highlighting the role that the financial services sector has to play. It is clear that there is more to do, but investors can help to drive this change by fully harnessing their leverage. I highlighted that message this week at a meeting jointly hosted by the Home Office and CCLA, a fund manager, to discuss how Government, businesses and investors can work in partnership to tackle modern slavery. There are some really good examples of investor-led initiatives, with investors taking collective action, such as the CCLA-led Find It, Fix It, Prevent It and Rathbone’s Votes Against Slavery project.
However, we know that there is more to do here. While I am encouraged by the positive initiatives already under way, we need to make sure that we continue on the right track and that investors scrutinise their investment portfolios to engage and challenge companies on their response to modern slavery.
As hon. Members have said, when it comes to those environmental, social and governance issues, we know that businesses and investors have responded well to the environmental challenges they face. As we look to accelerate progress on tackling modern slavery, the Home Office is working with investors to understand what more we can do to encourage and incentivise businesses and investors to place the same emphasis on social issues. This issue is now, rightly, rising up the agenda.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for her excellent response. Minister, last week in the press over a hundred MPs had signed a petition and a letter of concern about investment in Chinese companies, some of which are using Uyghur Muslims as slave labour. Is the hon. Lady able to give us any guidance on how we can take that further to try to make that stop?
Rachel Maclean
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. It is an egregious example of abuse of human rights; just because it is happening overseas does not mean that we should turn a blind eye to it. We in the Home Office are looking closely at all of these issues as part of our review of the modern slavery strategy. I would be very happy to continue in discussion with the hon. Gentleman to provide further reassurances on what can be done. However, I want to make very clear from this Dispatch Box that companies have a responsibility to their consumers and shareholders to do the right thing and not enable slavery in the pursuit of profit.
As we look to accelerate progress on tackling modern slavery, it does seem very challenging. However, we do know that the business and investor community has taken huge strides, and it has succeeded in making better, more informed green choices. We should hold and demand those same expectations for modern slavery. We should not walk by. We should not ignore the crimes that are hiding in plain sight.
My hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford called for the legislation to be extended to financial services so that they address modern slavery in their investment portfolios. I have taken close note of that. Legislation is important, but it is not the only factor driving responsible behaviour. Many organisations already report voluntarily under the Modern Slavery Act and publish modern slavery statements. I would strongly encourage any responsible organisation to do the same, and I would encourage shareholders and consumers to ask those questions about where they are putting their money and their investment.
I have noted very carefully the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made. I reassure them that we will consider extending the scope of section 54 as part of our strategy review.
In closing, let me once again express my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford for securing this debate on such an important subject. It is a real tribute to him to have brought forward a debate on a topic that is sometimes hidden, but should not be. I thank him for shining a light on all the work that the Government, many NGOs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands, the Anti-Slavery Commissioner and many others are doing. Modern slavery is utterly abhorrent, and I can assure hon. Members that this Government remain steadfast in our determination to root out such crimes, protect the vulnerable and support victims.
Question put and agreed to.
Motorcycling: Government Support
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for motorcycling.
In the UK, 1.4 million people use motorcycles, scooters and mopeds. Those 1.4 million people travel approximately 4.4 billion miles a year. There has been a 131% increase in the number of motorcyclists registered in the last 20 years, although they still comprise only a small percentage of overall traffic. However, motorcycles clearly play an active part in UK transport and I want to put on record my thanks to Barbara Alam and Craig Carey-Clinch, who support the all-party parliamentary group on motorcycling, and to the National Motorcyclists Council, or NMC, for their support in my initiating the debate. The NMC has representatives drawn from a wide range of stakeholder groups, including the Auto-Cycle Union, the British Motorcyclists Federation, IAM RoadSmart and the Motorcycle Action Group—I am a member of both—the National Motorcycle Dealers Association, and the Trail Riders Fellowship. What an august body it is. I thank all those organisations for their part in helping motorcyclists. They have identified and addressed the many issues and challenges that motorcyclists face in this country, and their work is very much appreciated.
The Department for Transport has estimated that over half of motorcycle use is for commuting, education or other practical purposes. The Government can and should do more to promote this efficient, low-polluting and very practical mode of transport. The DFT’s national travel survey has estimated that from 2002 to 2016 more than half of motorcycle trips were for commuting or business, a significantly higher proportion than the 19% of such trips for other modes combined. Yes, motorcycling is a vulnerable mode of transport, but so is bicycling or using e-scooters, both of which are promoted by the Government as modes of transport. It is vital that safety is improved, but that will not be achieved unless motorcycling is accepted and supported as part of UK transport networks.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Whenever I see motorcycling being debated, I have to be there, because my brother raced motorbikes. Unfortunately, some 19 years ago he had a very severe accident and ended up with brain injuries. The hon. Gentleman has outlined exactly the importance of motorcycling, but does he agree that motorcycle theft is a major issue in the UK? Secure rails to secure motorcycles to are few and far between, but if we can provide them for bicycles we should do so for motorcycles as well, and such locations should be made easier to access. If motorbike thefts are high, the means of securing them must be in place.
Bill Wiggin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. First of all, I am sorry to hear about his brother. Falling off a motorcycle is extremely frightening—I have done that. Unfortunately, I have also had my motorcycle stolen, so I absolutely agree about the need for proper security. Of course, everybody benefits if things are not stolen, because our insurance stays lower. So yes, I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will discuss the casualty element in just a moment.
The Vision Zero approach to safety, namely that road deaths and injuries are unacceptable and preventable, should be applied proportionately to motorcycling, which would bring it alongside walking and cycle safety in transport safety policy matters. It is my hope that the debate will start a conversation about how we can begin to incorporate motorcycling more widely into the UK’s transportation mainstream and promote its uptake as a safe mode of transport.
Sadly, every 22 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads. The number of road deaths in the UK plateaued from 2012 to 2019 at around 1,850 deaths a year—the equivalent of five a day, on average. According to Brake, the road safety charity, motorcyclists accounted for 20% of road deaths in 2019, while cyclists and pedestrians accounted for 10% and 24% respectively. Cycling, which had similar casualty rates to motorcycling, has experienced active public support through policy in recent years, which has led to a reduction in casualties. If the Government supported motorcycling as a recognised form of alternative transport alongside walking and cycling, those death figures would decrease. In 2017, the Government spent £300 million in dedicated funding for cycling and walking. They have announced £2 billion in additional funding for walking and cycling over the next five years. That is a sixfold increase. If even a fraction of that was spent on motorcycling, the benefits would far outweigh any negatives.
Spending on national and local roads has increased year on year since 2013-14. Locally, that funding is largely spent and implemented by local authorities. One of the biggest issues for both motorcycle riders and bicyclists is poor surface quality, with potholes and low-grip manhole covers being the most threatening. Government strategy must ensure that road environment design never compromises motorcyclists’ safety and entitlement to ride. I have experienced that myself, particularly after there has been flooding. If the pebbles are all washed into the middle of the road, it is virtually impossible to ride safely. If I ride on the bit that has been swept, I am too close to the edge; if I ride too far across, I am too close to the oncoming traffic; if I ride in the middle, over the pebbles, it is very frightening and skiddy. We must therefore do all we can to make sure that the road is safe.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that wire barriers in the middle of roads are extremely dangerous for motorcyclists and that, although there is now a policy that no new wire barriers will be put in place, the existing ones need to be replaced?
Bill Wiggin
They garotte the bicyclists. Motorcycling is not particularly dangerous. When a motorcyclist falls off, they bounce along the road—it is what they hit that kills them. That is why the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is the impact against an oncoming vehicle or anything they meet in the roadway that does the damage. A wire is lethal. The new concrete barriers we are seeing on UK motorways are very welcome, and we need to see that across Government as things progress. It is that lack of thought that is the essence of the debate.
Analysis conducted by the Motorcycle Action Group in 2020 concluded that poor road surface was a contributory factor in four motorcyclist fatalities and 70 serious injuries every year. In 2020-21, the Government spent £5.46 billion on local roads and £6.26 billion on national roads, while the Department for Transport allocated more than £1.5 billion for local highway maintenance. Between 2020 and 2022, Herefordshire Council—my local authority—will receive more than £33 million for road maintenance. That is welcome. However, how is it being spent?
In response to a written question I submitted recently about potholes, the Secretary of State for Transport stated that,
“there is no specific requirement for Councils such as Herefordshire to demonstrate how they spend their share of funding, including the Pothole Action Fund.”
I believe that the Government should begin to require that. It would not only demonstrate to taxpayers that their money is being spent wisely, but give the Government a clear indication of where they should request that local authorities target their investment.
In another written question to the Department for Transport, I asked how the pothole action fund was spent. I was told:
“The Department endorses ‘Well-managed highway infrastructure: A Code of Practice’ by the UK Roads Liaison Group.”
In its 256 pages, how many times was motorcycling mentioned? Once. Therein lies the issue. The Government’s guidebook on how to fund road and infrastructure construction and repair ignores motorcycling. I recognise and appreciate the recent announcement for additional funding to tackle the pothole issue. Herefordshire Council has squandered its road funds and our local road network remains woefully inadequate. The Department for Transport must therefore issue guidance to councils on how they prioritise repairs in locations where motorcyclists’ safety is most likely to be compromised. That can happen only when motorcycling is recognised properly as an alternative transport mode.
Another issue with the current model of alternative transport is how rural settings are largely forgotten. It must be remembered that in isolated and rural areas, bus services are infrequent, to put it mildly. Motorcyclists in the most rural areas travel some 5,200 miles a year, on average, compared with 4,000 in other areas. Walking and cycling are most often not an option for people in very rural areas. They are left with little option but to use private powered transport, such as motorcycles or mopeds. This is the case in my constituency, North Herefordshire, one of the most rural in the country.
The future of transport rural strategy will need fully to encompass this mode of transport as part of the aim to secure improvements in rural transport accessibility and resilience. If the local authority is given express instructions to fund motorcycle-specific repairs to roads, overall accidents and death figures can be significantly reduced. In 2018, there were 39,996 road traffic accidents in rural areas across the UK—109 a day. In my county of Herefordshire, 440 road accidents were reported that year. Of those, only 42 included a pedestrian, 41 a pedal cycle and 40 a motorcycle; 302 of the 440 involved a car. Those figures clearly indicate that motorcycling should be treated in a similar way to walking and cycling and that funding should be made available to promote the uptake and safety of motorcyclists on our infrastructure networks. That will be possible only with a clear Government strategy for motorcycling and I hope that the Department will outline that in its response today. Walking, cycling and public transport have key roles to play in transforming travel and transport. However, they fail to offer the flexibility and practically that a notable proportion of vehicle users need and rightly demand from their transport choices.
Motorcycling offers a desirable, low-congesting and low-polluting alternative that is already well developed and regulated, but has never been properly considered as a transport mode in its own right. Now is the time for motorcycling to experience proper policy support. It is a free, exciting and wonderful mode of transport. It has its drawbacks, many thanks to other road users and the road conditions. I believe that should the Government include and promote motorcycle uptake, roads in the UK would become a safer place. That cannot happen until there is a fundamental change of thinking. Motorcycling is here to stay. Instead of motorcycling being cast aside as a fringe element of road use, the Government should do much more to support and promote its uptake.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on putting this important matter on our agenda. I want to speak on three points about motorcycling: sport, support and safety. I also want to add to the hon. Gentleman’s point on strategy, which is very important.
I declare an interest as an office holder of the all-party parliamentary motorcycling group. It is the most collegiate APPG in the House. We never discuss Brexit or remain, Scottish nationalism or Ulster Unionism; we discuss our favourite subject, motorcycling, and what we can do to promote, enhance and encourage it. I encourage any Member who wants to learn about proper collegiate activity in Parliament to join the motorcycling APPG to get a fresh view of people’s attitude to politics. It is very refreshing. I am also a member of MAG, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, and I will comment on it in a moment.
Motorcycle sport contributes very significantly to our culture and identity. Too often, it is ignored when we think of the activities of some of our most spectacular sporting heroes, whether that is Carl Fogarty from GB or Jonathan Rea from Northern Ireland, who has dominated world superbikes more than anyone in the history of that sport. That is incredible and we should take a moment to pay tribute to those people.
My constituency is synonymous with road racing, with the Dunlop brothers and their nephews, William and Michael. They made a considerable contribution to people’s understanding of comradeship, sport, prowess and athleticism right at the pinnacle of motorcycle sport. These people have led and controlled it.
Sammy Wilson
Does my hon. Friend accept that while this country, especially Northern Ireland, has produced some world-renowned motorcyclists, the sport attracts hundreds of thousands of adherents and supporters? It is not only good for local economies but for tourism.
Ian Paisley
My right hon. Friend has obviously been reading my notes, which is very unfair of him––do not read them any more. Sporting tourism is huge in Northern Ireland. He talked about people visiting sporting races. Almost 40,000 people go to an average round of the British superbikes and in some cases more, depending on the size of the track. In the North West 200, just outside my constituency in East Londonderry, over 100,000 spectators will visit in a week in May. It will contribute £12 million to the economy of Northern Ireland. The Ulster grand prix attracts tens of thousands of people and contributes about £7 million to the economy. Those are not insignificant figures for the economy. The hotels and cafes could not do without them. Those events are a significant driver of tourism.
Our sporting heroes need to be properly recognised. It disheartens me year on year when I see the achievements of people like Jonathan Rea not honoured by the BBC in its sporting pinnacle programme about celebrities in sport and its main sporting achievement award. That insults what these gladiators on two wheels achieve, because they put their lives at risk. They do it for our enjoyment because we enjoy the spectacle, but it is an incredibly dangerous sport, though it is obviously very well managed. We must ensure that the sport is supported and that young people are encouraged through motocross into the other, faster rounds of motorcycle sport.
May I turn briefly to support for motorcycling? The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked of the need for a national strategy. I agree but the state of our roads is key in this. Bikers are voters. Those millions of people who take to motorcycling or ride scooters or whatever else are ultimately voters. We should ensure that the roads that they use are safe and properly tarmacked and that the barriers are not lethal but designed to cope not only with motor cars but with motorcyclists. It is essential that we have proper support in place for those riders.
We must also look at the issue of tech and tech support. British motorcycling and motorcycles have had a number of boom years. Consider the Triumph company over the past 20 years. It was started up again after years in the doldrums and is now one of the most successful brands in motorcycling. I am fortunate to own a Triumph motorcycle, as I have for tens of years. It is a fantastic bike. The brand itself is now incredibly desirable. It says Britishness around the world. It is a marketing tool that can be used around the world for superb engineering. The company is now developing electric scooters and cycles. That may not be something we necessarily look forward to––the smell of petrol is in our blood. However, we could be world leaders in the area of new tech and driving electric bikes if we make sure there is proper investment, encouragement and support from the Government. Of course, there are many other brands of British bike that Members can also use.
The third matter that I want to speak about briefly is safety, which has been touched on brilliantly by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire. Motorcyclists, I believe, are much more alert to this issue than car drivers. A young person on a motorcycle who is taught to drive it safely will be a much more alert car driver when they eventually get behind the wheel of one: they are much more alert to the traffic around them, because they are used to constantly looking around them and being aware. They are also alert to the fact that if they come off a motorcycle and hit concrete or tarmac, it hurts. Therefore, they do not want to be in a situation where they either put people into tarmac or concrete, or crash their car.
While we cannot make motorcycling compulsory, we should look at encouraging young people to get on a motorcycle, to understand how it is used and to be much more aware of the openness of being on the road, which will have an impact on their insurance premium and encourage them to be much wiser and skilful car drivers. Motorcycling is a gateway into safer driving generally, and we should work on that and encourage it in some way; I think that should be in the strategy.
Sammy Wilson
Does my hon. Friend also accept that motorcycling is one of the cheaper ways for young people to gain mobility at an early age? For some, it releases them to be able to gain wider employment opportunities. For others, it means more recreational opportunities as well. It is the first and the cheapest way for a young person to gain mobility, and for that reason it should be encouraged. Does my hon. Friend agree it is significant that the delays in the testing regime put people off?
Ian Paisley
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It is absolutely true if people decide to get on to a motorcycle, we should make sure they are encouraged to ride it safely, and if they want to get their test and move up the grades of motorcycle, there should be no impediment placed in their way: they should be encouraged to do so.
My happiest moments as a kid were spent on the back of my brother-in-law’s motorcycle, going to places, enjoying the freedom that that offered and the opportunities that were available to us. Those happy moments are shared across this nation by many people who have got on a motorcycle at a young age and never looked back. I hope that this House can do more to encourage motorcycling—to encourage safety on motorcycles, sporting prowess, and support for biking.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, Mr Robertson, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on having secured it. As I listened to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), I was reminded of a magnificent film called “Why We Ride”, which I am sure people will be able to find on the internet. It is about the joy and fulfilment that comes from riding a motorcycle and riding it well—people want to ride their motorcycles well, because it is a question of risk management and responsibility as well as personal freedom. Of course, there are some people who do not ride their motorcycles well, and I lament that, but overall, we motorcyclists know that we have a responsibility and a duty to ride safely and well. It is a real joy to have listened to the hon. Gentleman speak about his passion for motorcycling.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, I am a member of Motorcycle Action Group. In fact, I have just received their latest excellent edition of The Road magazine, and if it does not contain at least one letter from my father, I will be extremely surprised—it usually does. I am also a member of the British Motorcyclists Federation, but I think I might have let my Trail Riders Fellowship membership lapse since I sold my off-road motorcycle. However, my main bike is downstairs in the car park, and I commute daily, so I am a very keen motorcyclist, as generously highlighted by The Times today. I was shocked to discover that I am now so old that I have been riding for 34 years; it is very hard to credit. I love my bike. Scarcely anything is more important—perhaps family, friends, and so on, although I admit that only reluctantly. Bikes really matter to those of us who ride. I want to frame my remarks around three themes—the three themes of road safety—engineering, enforcement and education.
On engineering, I particularly welcomed the article The Road magazine about saying goodbye to wires, on the beginning of the end for wire rope barriers in Northern Ireland, and the hope that this would be extended to the whole of the UK. I implore the Minister to look at getting rid of wire rope barriers. As a motorcyclist, when I am out there, perhaps on a windy day, riding through the dales, and there is a wire rope barrier to my side, it is not a happy thought. We do have to accept that accidents happen, sometimes as a consequence of other people’s actions, so it is not a happy thing, as a motorcyclist, to see wire rope barriers. I very much hope that they might be removed.
On bus lanes, I really think that they should be open to motorcyclists everywhere. We do not take up much space and, were a motorcycle to need to stop in a bus lane, it could easily be out of the way of any emergency vehicle anywhere. It really is time to open bus lanes anywhere. I also think we should be realistic about filtering. Clearly, motorcyclists have a responsibility to filter safely and considerately, but there is a case for having sufficient lane width to make it possible for motorcyclists to filter at a sensible speed.
On enforcement, I am afraid that I will say something that I do not think motorcyclists will like very much: we really need to ensure that we enforce the law on noisy exhaust pipes, as it stands. I know that many of my fellow motorcyclists like a noisy engine, but it really is not fair on other people, and it does not do any good whatsoever for us motorcyclists when somebody—I will not call them names—goes through with their bike screaming. Barely anything else harms the reputation of motorcycling as much as someone with a noisy exhaust pipe. I would implore motorcyclists to, for goodness’ sake, fit legal pipes.
Sammy Wilson
Will the hon. Member not accept that the growl of a Harley Davidson, especially going through a tunnel, is something to be experienced?
Mr Baker
Of course I will. I will not pretend to the right hon. Member that I have never taken the baffles out of my KTM, with its magnificent V-twin engine, but the point is that I put the baffles back in when I actually went out on the road. I would implore anyone to ensure that they keep the baffles in and keep lawful exhausts on their bikes, however much we might all enjoy that sound.
On that point, I will briefly turn to electric vehicles. On my YouTube channel, there is a test of an Agility Saietta electric motorcycle. It is an amazing bike to ride. In terms of performance and the ability to enjoy motorcycling, we have nothing to fear from electric-powered two wheelers. However, like—I suspect—the right hon. Member for East Antrim, I will really miss, in due course, the sound of petrol being burnt. I must say, that is why I keep an old KTM 950 Supermoto. In the future, when nobody really knows what petrol is, I will certainly seek to ensure that that is the last motorcycle I ever ride, although I do look forward to electric-powered two wheelers.
I also want to pay tribute to the police. Their BikeSafe courses are excellent, and I enjoyed mine enormously. Police officers are extremely pragmatic and sensible in how they train motorcyclists to ride better, and I hope the Minister will feel able to join me in paying tribute to the police, and in encouraging motorcyclists to take part in those courses. It is important, perhaps especially for those riders who do not ride all year round, that they take part in those courses and learn to ride well.
Finally, on education, we need to educate people that motorcycling is a good, responsible, safe, and indeed environmentally friendly way of getting about. Only a small modal shift to motorcycling has been shown to dramatically reduce congestion and therefore air quality, and so on. The more bikes there are on the road, the more that other road users are aware of bikes and adjust their behaviour to ensure that we avoid those SMIDSYs—“Sorry mate, I didn’t see you”.
We can drive up road safety, drive up air quality and drive down congestion through quite small modal shifts to motorcycles. I really implore my hon. Friend the Minister to adopt policies to do just that, because there is joy and fulfilment to be had in motorcycling and, more than that, there is the practice of personal responsibility and risk management—all wonderful, good things that we Conservatives should stand for. Therefore, I commend motorcycling to her.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Can I start with a declaration of sorts? I am a biker. I am proud to ride with YesBikers for Scottish independence and, like almost every other speaker, I am very happy to support many of the campaigns run by the Motorcycle Action Group, which I particularly thank for its help preparing for today.
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on securing this debate, which is important and not just for those who ride bikes. I agree with much that has been said on parking, theft, safety, dedicated spending on motorcycles and the condition of roads. The economic value of racing has also been mentioned—it is important and not spoken about often enough.
I do not want to concentrate too much on safety, but when I bring my motorbike to England and I see the removal of the hard shoulder on motorways in an attempt to create “smart” motorways, I do worry. If a motorcyclist breaks down—these things do happen—they are not given the protection of a car. The removal of the hard shoulder is something that will have to be very carefully monitored over the next few years in relation to injury and death when motorcyclists break down.
We are in the middle of a climate emergency. The stated policy of many Governments to move to net zero and cap the increase in the temperature of the planet is the right, indeed only, thing to do. Part of the solution will be to reduce carbon emissions from transport, which will include motorcycles. The determination to remove the need for new petrol and diesel vehicles from the 2030s onwards is the right course of action. Motorcycles already contribute significantly to reduced carbon emissions and improved air quality. Their contribution to tackling these issues will increase if innovation and engineering are supported to progress. A few electric motorbikes are available right now, but they are limited in number and actual range and are disproportionately expensive, and there is little or no second-hand market that would make them affordable for most people.
Given that motorcycles already contribute significantly to reduced carbon emissions, surely the Government should be supporting a modal shift from cars to motorcycles. The Leuven report alluded to by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) suggested that a 10% modal shift from cars to motorcycles reduces congestion for all road users by 40%, resulting in a 7.5% reduction in CO2, a 5.5% reduction in nitrogen oxide, a reduction in exhaust particulate matter and a 16% reduction in non-exhaust particulate matter—mainly brakes and tires.
The recent Oxford Economics report commissioned by ACEM said that
“the average emission factor for a European motorcycle (up to 250cc) is 64g/km of CO2 emissions”.
That is equivalent to around one third the emissions of a car. Given that smaller motorcycles, including mopeds, account for 62% of the 22 million two-wheel vehicles on the whole of Europe’s roads, one can see the potential of even a modest modal shift from cars to motorcycles. Even larger bikes have a weighted CO2 emission that is markedly lower than both petrol and diesel cars. As part of our carbon reduction strategy, even before the widespread introduction of electric bikes, the UK Government should be encouraging a move from cars to bikes. I ask the Minister, what precisely is being done to support that?
Turning to the support the Government should provide for safety, the Minister will know there is a great deal of commercial research into automated vehicles. It is shocking that it has taken five years to ensure that Euro NCAP testing of those systems will even test the ability to detect and react to motorcycles. More worryingly, one of the problems is that car sensors can fail to detect a motorcycle if it is barely a metre or so off-centre from the sensing vehicle. For the safety of bikers, and for road safety generally, I ask the Government never to introduce autonomous vehicles to roads here until we are certain that motorcycles can and will be detected.
On safety, pedal cyclists are rightly provided with segregated lanes and, as has been said, they are routinely allowed to use bus lanes. Yet there is no routine access for motorbikes to many bus lanes, which has always struck me as illogical. I ask the Government: what possible logic is there in not supporting bikers by allowing them access to bus lanes, particularly when pedal cyclists can routinely use them? If I can go further than what has been said, if we accept, as I believe we and the Government do, that a critical mass of pedal cyclists makes it safer for them because other road users, mainly car drivers, are used to seeing them and adjust their driving accordingly, surely to goodness the same applies for motorcyclists.
Sammy Wilson
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it also causes confusion when people move from one area where they can drive in bus lanes to another where they cannot? That confusion is unfair on motorcyclists.
Stewart Hosie
I agree that is unfair. If there was a presumption that one could use a bus lane, except on the odd occasion where one could not, that would be a far more logical approach.
Finally, I turn to the Department for Transport consultation on vehicle regulation, which includes anti-tampering laws. It says:
“Specifically, we would look to create”—
among other things—
“a specific offence for removing, reducing the effectiveness of, or rendering inoperative a system, part or component for a vehicle…and advertising such services”.
Many people modify their bike for aesthetic or performance reasons. I can think of at least one common modification that would breach that new offence. Were one to change the petcock and carburettors on an old motorbike to replace a vacuum system with a gravity-feed system, one would be required to cap off the vacuum system—self-evidently. That would, at a stroke,
“bypass, defeat, reduce the effectiveness of or render inoperative a system, part or component”,
which is one of the proposed new offences. I gently ask the Minister what kind of madness is it that would see changing the carburettor on a motorbike become a criminal offence. That needs an awful lot of rethinking. In short, the Government should support the rights of bikers to work on their own machines, and not turn that perfectly normal activity into a crime.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on securing the debate. We have heard a lot of enthusiasm from the bikers in this room; it is clearly something that they feel strongly about. I confess that I have never had the opportunity to ride a motorbike.
Kerry McCarthy
I have been invited to Motorcycle Live in December in Birmingham to have the opportunity to ride some of the new electric bikes, so I may decide to do that. Former Member Hazel Blears, who I think is 4 feet 10 inches—I am not tall, but she is considerably shorter than me—was a keen biker, which shows that it can be done. Perhaps I should take up the challenge.
I will flag up a number of issues. The hon. Member for North Herefordshire talked about road repairs and presented a rather rosy picture of the amount of funding. It is important for motorcyclists that we keep roads in a good condition, but the money has been cut. The Government promised £1.5 billion to repair damage on roads across the country in the financial year 2020-21, but that was cut to £1.125 billion in the following financial year. Pothole funding was due to be cut by an average 23%, and overall total spending on roads maintenance would drop by an average 22%.
We can compare that with the massive Government road-building programme. It is important that we should not just be looking at building new roads, but at making sure the roads we have are kept in good condition. The insurance industry has raised that point with me. The vast majority of the claims it pays out are caused not by driver error but by the condition of the roads.
As it stands, it will take 11 years and £11 billion to clear the backlog of potholes. On National Pothole Day in January this year, the Chancellor tweeted,
“enjoy #NationalPotholeDay before they’re all gone...”
He was boasting about how much money is going into addressing the problem, but we could be marking National Pothole Day for quite some time to come at the current rate. Perhaps we will get some good news about road repair funding tomorrow.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Herefordshire that safety is incredibly important. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) spoke about electric motorbikes, which I will come to a bit later. He also spoke about the smell of petrol and his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), mentioned the noise. Those things are part of the thrill, as motorcycle organisations have said to me. I totally get that, but when a cyclist is in that little space in front of the cars at the traffic lights, sometimes people on motorbikes do not act as responsibly as they could and are not aware that bike users are more vulnerable than them. For the cyclist, they have a bigger vehicle pushing in front of them, and the smell is not great. The sooner we can move to cleaner vehicles the better.
Ian Paisley
The hon. Member makes an important point. Once electric bikes become the fastest bikes, whether that is for motocross or as a track bike, that will become the pinnacle of the sport and that is where people will ultimately move. Encouraging tech design will create safety and environmental change.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.
On the points made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), there is a really interesting discussion to be had. The modal shift is important. Why have we not moved to moped use in the way that, say, France or Italy has? It is not as commonplace in this country—perhaps it is the weather. There is an interesting debate about road space and how we use it. We are starting to see e-scooters on our roads, there are more people cycling and a lot of town planning wants priority bus lanes. All of that raises questions about who gets to use priority lanes, whether we have segregation, who is entitled to use the segregated lanes and what that means for cars—what road space is left for cars? I think we will be addressing those points more and more in the years to come.
Finally, I want to talk about the need to decarbonise—an issue that the industry has contacted me about. Support for the industry so far, in terms of decarbonisation, has been pretty limited. The plug-in motorcycle grant, which helps support the sale of low-emission bikes, is £1,500 at the moment—less than for cars. The funding is guaranteed only up to March 2023. I was going to ask the Minister whether the Government plan to keep the grant beyond that date or, as is the case with the car plug-in grant, to reduce it year on year, but as we have the Budget tomorrow, I suspect I know what her answer would be. Could she answer this question instead? In the transport decarbonisation plan, the Government promised an action plan for zero-emission light-powered vehicles by the end of the year. We have not seen any sign of that yet. Will it be published before the end of the year?
The 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles was announced back in November 2020. We are still waiting for the publication of the promised consultation on a 2035 ban on petrol motorbikes. There are also currently no Government targets for regulating the CO2 produced by motorbikes, unlike for cars and vans. That raises a few questions. Why are the Government allowing polluting petrol motorbikes to be sold until 2035, when there is a 2030 date for petrol cars? Will the Minister give an update on when those consultations and so on will be published?
It is really important that the transition to zero-emission vehicles is smooth. I welcome the Government’s recent announcement that they will introduce a zero-emissions vehicle mandate, but there was no mention of motorcycle manufacturers in the summary, despite the 2035 commitment to banning new petrol motorbikes and the suggestion that plug-in grant support may end sooner than that, in 2023. Will the Minister explain whether the Government want to offer the same support to motorcycle manufacturers as they are to EV car manufacturers, through the electric car mandate, which will encourage them to make the shift to producing cleaner vehicles sooner? If not, why are motorcycle manufacturers being left out?
I will conclude on that point because I am keen to hear from the Minister. It has been good to hear people’s enthusiasm today. We certainly want motorcycles to continue on our roads, but they do need to move with the times. I hope the Minister will tell us more about how they can do that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It is also a real pleasure to speak on this subject.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) on securing the debate. It has taken me back to when I was 16. Dad took me to the garage and unveiled my first motorbike, as I thought, though it was probably a moped—a 50 cc bright blue Honda Camino. I have since had many enjoyable days out riding pillion on bikes from a Honda 900 CBR Fireblade, through to my dad’s last bike, which was a Yamaha FZR1000. There were many conversations around the kitchen table about Royal Enfields, BSAs, Triumphs, Nortons and many great British bikes.
It is wonderful to hear of the enthusiasm for motorbikes. While being proud of the past, we are energised for the future and looking ahead to the decarbonisation of bikes and the continuance of sport, recreation and commuting. I have listened carefully to the valuable and thorough contributions to today’s debate, and it is a pleasure to be closing it.
One of the first things my hon. Friend asked for was confidence that motorbikes are appreciated. They certainly will be by me. We have not had long this afternoon, but I have heard a lot. I agree with Members about the importance of road safety for motorcycle users, and the key role that motorcycling can play in meeting our current mobility needs. There was a request for an acceptance of motorbikes. I assure my hon. Friends and other Members that they have my personal advocacy.
Before I go into detail on plans, I want to acknowledge some important challenges faced by motorcyclists. As has been pointed out, motorcycles make up an important and sizeable vehicle population on UK roads, with 1.4 million licensed in 2020. I am aware of the greater level of risk that motorcyclists face on our roads, compared with other road users. Although they make up just 1% of total road traffic, they account for 19% of all road user deaths. I mentioned the Honda 900 CBR Fireblade. It was owned by a good friend, who was sadly killed on his motorbike.
There were many references to the Motorcycle Action Group, which does a great deal of good both in lobbying for policy change and with its charitable work. I have had the pleasure of seeing that for myself in Copeland. That group’s work, along with that of other charitable organisations, is superb. Another example is the Nationwide Association of Blood Bikes, which transports blood, vaccines, plasma, platelets, samples, donor breast milk and other urgently required medical items to hospitals and healthcare sites. That is a life-saving service, which is provided completely free of charge by valiant volunteers, who offer their time for no pay or reward, allowing the NHS to divert funds where they are needed most.
Motorcyclists save our lives every day, and we must ensure the safety of theirs. Reducing the numbers of those needlessly killed and injured on our roads, especially vulnerable road users, is a key priority for the Department. That was evident in our road safety statement published in July 2019, which focused on the Department’s four priority road user groups: young road users, rural road users, motorcyclists and older vulnerable road users.
The statement described many actions that will contribute towards making our roads safer for all. Some of the actions that focused on motorcyclists included the promotion of the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency’s enhanced rider scheme to increase the uptake of post-test motorcycle training. It was interesting to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who I agree with on the good work that the police do in encouraging that advanced test—I was pleased to learn more about that. Other actions included the development of a training framework to encourage riders who complete compulsory basic training—CBT—to take full test training, and working with the motorcycle industry to encourage the use of protective equipment to reduce post-crash collision severity.
The way we move is changing, as is the way we live. The rise of the gig economy, and new apps that mean we can have anything delivered to our door in minutes, has increased the role of powered light vehicles. It is welcome that powered light vehicles, which are often a more affordable option than cars, can help people fill these jobs and satisfy this demand, but they must be able to do so safely. That is why, through the road safety statement, we commissioned research into the use of powered two-wheelers to better understand how we can reduce the safety risks encountered by these drivers and riders.
The Department remains committed to ensuring that motorcyclists are equipped with the specialist skills needed to stay safe on the road. The Department’s THINK! public awareness campaign has a motorcycle strategy that aims to create greater understanding between car drivers and motorcyclists. It also raises awareness about the steps that both parties can take to avoid collisions.
While I hope all of that reassures Members about how important motorcycle safety is to the Department, the work does not stop there—there is much more to do. We will shortly publish a new road safety strategic framework to improve our understanding of the risks and concerns of those who choose to ride. We have set out an ambitious future of transport programme, which aims to deliver significant advances for society, the environment and the economy. For vehicle standards we are conducting a regulatory review, which will help us enforce appropriate safety, security and environmental requirements. It will protect consumers, road users and the environment. There are three key ambitions for the review: first, we want to enable the introduction of safer, cleaner and more technologically advanced vehicles. Secondly, we want to ensure that swift remedial action can be taken if vehicle parts or safety related equipment placed on the UK market are found to be unsafe or non-compliant. Thirdly, we want to better prevent tampering with critical hardware or software where it negatively impacts on safety or the environment. I welcome the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe on that.
I see many opportunities for the role of motorcycles. Road vehicles are responsible for 91% of the UK’s annual domestic gas emissions from the transport sector. L-category vehicles are responsible for just 0.4% of that total. However, that does not mean that they should not be cleaned up, because decarbonising brings many associated benefits, in particular improving air quality and reducing the noise pollution that blights so many. That is why we have committed to delivering an action plan this year, through the Motorcycle Industry Association and Zemo Partnership, to build new UK opportunities for zero-emission light powered vehicles. We look forward to the launch of the action plan at Motorcycle Live in early December—an event I have heard much about in today’s debate and that I very much hope I can attend.
Stewart Hosie
I am glad the Minister has given some attention to the vehicle regulation review. I listened to what she said: it is to avoid tampering with safety equipment. That is perfectly reasonable at face value. If somebody removes the rear seat from a motorcycle, and with it the grab rails that are a safety feature on the rear fender, will they have committed an offence if the wording of the legislation ends up the same as in the consultation?
Trudy Harrison
The hon. Member asks a particularly technical question, the answer to which will be sent to him in writing.
Mr Steve Baker
I think the point is that many motorcycle parts are safety-critical, but we actually want to get on with routine and ordinary maintenance of our motorcycles. I know that the Minister will not want to answer now, but I will just make that point—we want to fix our own bikes.
Trudy Harrison
I hear what Members are saying about proportionality, and I am sure that will be registered and acknowledged in forthcoming strategies.
The action plan will cover the innovation in urban logistics and personal mobility, while setting out the steps needed to build new opportunities for powered light vehicle industries. One such opportunity is reforming last mile deliveries, which has the potential to create healthier and more liveable places by removing toxic fumes from the most congested areas. We are committed to transforming the last mile into an efficient and sustainable delivery system, and we will work with industry, academia and other stakeholders to understand how innovation in the L-category sector can benefit the UK delivery market. That will include publishing a toolkit later this year to support local authorities in reducing carbon emissions from transport, recognising the important role that local areas will play.
I feel that the greatest impact will be achieved by committing to phase-out dates, just as we have done for polluting cars. That is why we have committed to consult this year on a phase-out date of 2035, or earlier if a faster transition appears feasible for the sale of new non-zero-emission-powered two and three-wheelers and other L-category vehicles. I recognise that the L-category sector encompasses a wide range of vehicle types and uses, so we will aim to find the most appropriate regulatory solution for each one—it will not be one size fits all. Any proposed phase-out dates for the sale of new non-zero-emission L-category vehicles will reflect both on what is needed to hit net zero by 2050, and on the technology currently available in the sector, but we will be ambitious.
It is right that Britain shows global leadership when it comes to L-category decarbonisation. By consulting on and deciding phase-out dates as soon as possible, we are clarifying the direction of travel for the L-category industry in the UK, giving vehicle manufacturers and consumers time to adapt.
Trudy Harrison
I am afraid that I will not, simply because of time.
I am particularly proud of this country’s motorcycling heritage, which has been mentioned, and how we have pioneered the way for great motorcycle manufacturing. Our motorcycling legacy lives on and continues to evolve in the 21st century. One example is Project Triumph TE-1, which is leading the way in creating electric motorcycling capability. The project is supported and co-funded by the UK Government, and I am proud of Triumph and other British businesses for driving innovation and enhancing the credibility and profile of great British industry and design.
In conclusion, I am once again very grateful for the opportunity to speak positively about motorbikes, motorcyclists and the history and heritage of the industry. I look forward to the future, including the decarbonisation of that vital transport sector, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire for the opportunity to speak in this debate.
Bill Wiggin
I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate. We have seen enthusiasm from MPs representing wonderful parts of Northern Ireland, including the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) made the most important point of all, which was about safety. Many years ago, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to allow motorcycles into bus lanes. The evidence that followed proved that if we put motorcycles in bus lanes, pedestrians are more careful and the number of people killed and seriously injured drops. It does not seem intuitive, but that is how people behave. It is quite extraordinary, but it really works. If Members take away just one thing from today’s debate, it should be safety, safety, safety. Motorcyclists are environmentally friendly, independent and doing the right things. Their bikes are getting better and they are well behaved, but the one figure that is out of kilter is the number of people killed and seriously injured.
I congratulate the Minister on this outing, which must be one of her earlier ones—there will be many more. Anything that she can do in her new role to keep people safe and alive has to be worth it. To that end, I welcome the intention of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) to take a leap of faith by riding a motorcycle in the coming months. It is the right thing to do. I thank everybody for their contributions, and I thank you, Mr Robertson.
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
Good afternoon, my Lords, and welcome to the Grand Committee. Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others, and to wear a face covering when not speaking. I remind your Lordships that if there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn and resume if required.
Coronavirus Act 2020
(3 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kamall
That the Grand Committee takes note of the temporary provisions of the Coronavirus Act 2020.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, we shall also consider the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2021.
Moving to step 4 of the Government’s road map and easing the vast majority of restrictions in England was a major landmark in our fight against the virus. It is testament to the hard work and sacrifices of many people up and down the country. We are in a better position compared with this time last year and we are all conscious of how hard the pandemic has been for so many people.
On 14 September, we published the COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan, which sets out how we will build on the progress made and prepare the country for future challenges, while ensuring that our system of healthcare does not come under unsustainable pressure. In recent weeks, we have seen an increase in the number of cases, hospitalisations and, very sadly, deaths. The pandemic is far from over. We must continue to stay vigilant and be ready for all eventualities.
The vaccination programme continues to provide a vital line of defence against the virus. We have vaccinated more than 86% of people over 12 years old in the UK with at least one dose. We are carrying out the largest-ever seasonal flu vaccination programme, alongside Covid-19 booster vaccines for priority groups. We have also secured 730,000 patient courses of antivirals for UK patients: 480,000 courses of Molnupiravir from Merck Sharp & Dohme; and 250,000 courses of PF-07321332 from Pfizer. I shall be testing noble Lords on these in future. These antivirals can be taken at home to target early Covid-19 infection. Should these antivirals receive MHRA approval, we will prioritise antivirals to protect the clinically vulnerable most at risk this winter.
As well as the vaccine and the booster programme, we are taking a number of measures to prepare for the months ahead. The NHS will receive an extra £5.4 billion over the next six months to support its response to Covid-19. This includes an extra £1billion to tackle the treatment backlog caused by Covid-19. These are just some of the actions we are taking to protect the public over the coming months, while trying to achieve the appropriate balance for any legislation and restrictions in place.
As part of the autumn and winter plan, the Government reviewed the remaining regulations and decided, subject to agreement from Parliament, to extend the No. 3 regulations and the self-isolation regulations. The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2021 extend these regulations to 24 March 2022. The test, trace and self-isolate system continues to be one of the key ways to control the virus and protect the nation. Under the self-isolation regulations, if you are notified that you have tested positive for Covid-19, or that you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, you must self-isolate unless exempt. Information about the legal requirements is available on GOV.UK.
The recently published Canna model concluded that, between August 2020 and April 2021, we saw a reduction of between 10% and 28% in virus transmission as a result of test, trace and self-isolation, and that, at key periods, self-isolation made a significant contribution to bringing down the reproduction number of the virus, also known as the R number. The Canna model estimates that test, trace and self-isolation has prevented 1.2 million to 2 million secondary coronavirus cases.
The technical amendments to the self-isolation regulations that we are debating today mean that, if you are a close contact of a positive case who has received doses of two different types of vaccine in the UK, you are not required to self-isolate. This ensures that those who have received doses of two different vaccines are treated in the same way as those who have received a full course of a single vaccine. The amendments also clarify that if someone in your household tests positive, you do not need to self-isolate if you received your second dose of the vaccine more than 14 days before the positive case in your household first experienced symptoms or tested positive.
In addition, the amendments clarify the requirements for those taking part in workplace daily contact testing schemes. These schemes offer daily lateral flow testing as an alternative to self-isolation for unvaccinated close contacts. If a person on one of those schemes tests positive with an assisted lateral flow test, but subsequently receives a negative result from a confirmatory PCR test, they must continue with daily testing, or self-isolate for the remainder of their original self-isolation period. These amendments, and extending the self-isolation requirements to March next year, are important to protect the public from this virus.
The No. 3 regulations, which we are also discussing today, are another important tool for managing the virus and protecting the public. The regulations equip local authorities with the powers to respond swiftly to local outbreaks. Local authorities have powers through these regulations to restrict, prohibit and close individual premises and outdoor public spaces and cancel events where there is a serious and imminent threat to public health. The powers have been used 330 times since the regulations came into force in July 2020. Local authorities play a critical role in public health protection, emergency response and infectious disease control. Covid-19 has been no different, with local authorities leading the responses in their communities. Extending the No 3 regulations will help ensure they have the tools to do their job.
We are all aware of the monumental challenge that Covid-19 has posed over the last 18 months and more. It was clear at the beginning of the pandemic that additional tools and powers were needed to enable a full-scale and wide-reaching response to save lives and livelihoods. We acted decisively to put in place the legislation needed to achieve this.
As noble Lords are aware, the Coronavirus Act 2020 came into force by Royal Assent in March 2020. It has been critical to our country’s response to this awful and devastating virus, giving the Government powers to take the appropriate action to respond to the challenge. I acknowledge the many concerns about how some of the powers in the Act have been used and assure the Committee that the Government have sought to use them in an appropriate and proportionate way, with arrangements to ensure accountability to Parliament. These include two-monthly reports to Parliament and six-monthly reviews, combined with confirmatory votes, without which the temporary provisions cannot continue. On each occasion, the House of Commons has confirmed that it is content for certain provisions to continue. The Government have also committed to expire provisions as soon as they are no longer needed. I will go into more detail on this shortly.
The Act has given us the temporary powers to ensure that the NHS and social care services have had the capacity to deal with the peak of the virus by allowing the temporary registration of over 28,000 nurses and other healthcare professionals and social workers. It has protected critical societal functions and ensured that they were able to continue—for example, enabling courts to use video technology in a wider range of circumstances. It has helped provide support packages for people and businesses; this includes the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has protected more than 11.7 million unique jobs—equivalent to over a third of the entire workforce—and the Self-employment Income Support Scheme grants, which have supported nearly 3 million self-employed people throughout the pandemic.
The Act has also shone a light on where public services can be improved in the longer term, such as allowing more virtual court hearings, and the Government will aim to secure these useful powers in alternative primary legislation.
The course of the pandemic continues to change, partly because of the strong defences we have built. It is right that we again reassess the legislative powers that are in place to deal with this pandemic and support the country. The third six-month review of the Coronavirus Act, which scrutinised its remaining 27 non-devolved temporary provisions, was published on 22 September 2021.
We have identified a further seven provisions in the Act as suitable for full expiry. Once that happens, Parliament will have been able to expire half of the original 40 temporary, non-devolved powers ahead of schedule. This includes removing some of the more controversial sections of the Coronavirus Act, such as powers to detain infectious people under Schedule 21 and issuing directions in relation to events, gatherings and premises under Schedule 22. These powers were taken at a time when the course and severity of the virus were unclear; we now recognise that they are no longer needed and should be expired.
We also propose suspending the remaining powers in Section 58, which cover provisions to ensure that, in the event of a very significant number of deaths, we can continue to deal with the deceased in a respectful and dignified way. Suspension rather than expiry of these powers is seen to be part of sensible contingency planning, since it allows them to be revived quickly if the public health situation requires it.
We will lay regulations as soon as possible to expire these provisions. Once expired, 20 temporary provisions will remain in the Act, three of which will be suspended. There are good reasons for retaining each of them. They continue to support the NHS, individuals and businesses throughout the potentially challenging winter months by allowing the temporary registration of healthcare professionals and statutory sick pay to be claimed on day 1 of self-isolation, but we hope they will help protect the progress we have made so far in beginning to recover from this awful pandemic. The legislation and regulations we are debating today help ensure that we have proportionate powers to help protect our public services, individuals and businesses.
This virus has presented the greatest public health threat to the United Kingdom in recent history, requiring a heroic response from everyone across the country, including our doctors, nurses, carers and other healthcare staff but also other key workers including transport, postal and delivery workers, who delivered much-needed food and items during lockdown.
We owe it to every person and organisation that has made sacrifices to protect themselves and others during this difficult time not to allow ourselves to fall at the final hurdle and to ensure that we emerge in the spring with the worst of the pandemic well and truly behind us.
Lastly, please allow me to repeat and highlight the simple things each and every one of us can to do to help limit the spread of Covid-19. First and foremost, get vaccinated. There are still around 4.7 million unvaccinated adults in England, and I welcome the advice I have been given by noble Lords across the House about how we can target some of the demographics that have not come forward for vaccines in line with the rest of the population. Let us all urge everyone who can have the vaccine to come forward.
If it has been more than six months and one week since your second jab and your GP has not contacted you, you can register at the NHS booking service online or call 119 to book your booster. Some noble Lords have told me about problems in this area. I am assured that these have been resolved but, if you come across anyone who is still experiencing issues getting through to either of those, please let me know and I will forward it to the appropriate person and make sure that we can target and tackle this.
Let us also urge people to take a flu jab when offered it. Please self-isolate and get tested if you have symptoms of Covid-19. Anyone who is told by NHS Test and Trace that they have tested positive or been in close contact with someone who has tested positive should follow the public health advice and self-isolate where required. Even if we are well, we can wear face coverings, meet outdoors or in well-ventilated rooms indoors, regularly wash our hands, and, where possible, makerapid tests part of our weekly routine.
I look forward to noble Lords’ continued scrutiny and valuable contributions to this debate.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction to the debate and the statutory instrument. Of course, Covid has brought unequalled challenge to us—a challenge that we have not seen for decades. It has disrupted our lives and many people have died as a result. Of course, the powers that the Government have taken to themselves have been quite exceptional. I do not agree with everything that Big Brother Watch says, but I think it is right to point to the draconian nature of some of those powers. I was very glad the Minister said what he said in relation to Schedules 21 and 22. My understanding is that every single charge made under those schedules was found to be unlawful. As he read out the powers, I shall not repeat them—but they are draconian. They may have been justified, but they were misused. The Minister said that they will be withdrawn. Can he clarify whether they will be withdrawn through a statutory instrument?
The second area I wanted to raise is parliamentary scrutiny. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raised during the Urgent Question repeat in the Chamber the point that the Government now seem to announce everything in the media before coming to Parliament. The way in which Parliament has been dealt with over Covid has been very unsatisfactory. We have had more than 500 pieces of secondary legislation; most were rushed out and considered by Parliament retrospectively. The Justice Select Committee reported on this and stated:
“Parliament plays an important role in making sure that the law and any new criminal offences are so far as is possible intelligible, clear and predictable. It is not satisfactory … that Parliament was not … able to fulfil its function when Members were required to consider statutory instruments already superseded”—
this has happened on a number of occasions.
Although it falls to the Commons to vote on the renewal of powers, while we have simply a Take Note approach, the powers are substantial and I must say that I do not think that they should be debated in Grand Committee; they are important enough to be debated in the Chamber and I find it very disappointing that we are here, having to do it in this way.
It is notable that, since we came back in September, there have been hardly any debates on Covid. Again, I find this very worrying, and I would like the Minister to tell me why there have been no Statements. I think the Statement last week was the first one we have had on Covid since we came back. This really is not satisfactory and hardly counts as parliamentary scrutiny.
I also ask the Minister what has happened to SAGE. There has apparently been a downscaling of SAGE’s role. It seems that it now meets only once a month. Can the Minister confirm that and tell me why it is? A government source has been quoted as saying that there is now a lessened demand for scientific advice. Well, I do question whether that is accurate. We are still in a difficult situation: Covid infections are rising and there is a real risk that the booster jab and school vaccinations are behind where they ought to be—hence the Minister’s comments at the end of his introductory speech. My concern is that the Government’s mistakes and, frankly, dubious exceptionalism at the beginning of Covid look like being repeated time and again.
There was another very good joint Select Committee report, from the Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees, which was published on 12 October and looked at what has happened over the past 18 months. The report pointed out that the UK was not alone in having suffered badly because of Covid, but we did significantly worse in terms of deaths than many countries, particularly when compared to those in east Asia, even though they were much closer geographically to where the virus first appeared. The report said the UK’s pandemic planning was too narrow and effectively based on a flu model, which failed to learn the lessons from SARS, MERS and Ebola.
Particularly telling was the report’s comment that the Government’s desire to avoid a lockdown because of the harm to the economy that it would entail had a big impact. In the absence of other strategies such as rigorous case isolation, a meaningful test and trace operation and robust border controls, a full lockdown was inevitable and should have come sooner. We saw history repeat itself last autumn, when the Government’s decision not to have a circuit breaker did not follow the scientific advice and Ministers were clearly optimistic in their assumption that the worst was behind us during those summer months.
The question before us today is whether history is repeating itself. We know that our weekly death rate stands at three times the level of other major European nations. We know hospitalisations are rising, and they are certainly at a higher level than in many countries on the continent. The decision to end compulsory mask wearing and to pause plans for vaccine passports in England has made the Government an outlier in their management of the pandemic. By contrast, western European countries such as France, Italy, and in particular Spain, have brought down infection rates to their lowest level since the summer of 2020.
The Government have not been short of advice. When the latest October minutes from SAGE came out, they pointed to current population behaviours being estimated as being closer to pre-pandemic norms than at any point since March 2020—which I think means that people are not wearing masks very much and are not distancing themselves socially. SAGE pointed to early interventions that may reduce the need for more stringent, disruptive and longer-lasting measures to avoid an unacceptable level of hospitalisations.
We have also heard the NHS Confederation calling for not just plan B to be implemented but plan B-plus: calling on the public to mobilise around the NHS and do whatever they can to support front-line services this winter. On the other hand, it has been reported that modelling by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has suggested that cases will peak soon and fall away steeply in the winter months. So I ask the Minister to set out current ministerial thinking. I see the temptation to wait and see, in the light of the London School’s modelling. On the other hand, every time the Government have waited and seen, they have turned out to be wrong, so I think at the very least we ought to know today the hard thinking behind the Government’s position in relation to plan B.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I am married to a doctor, a former GP who ran a big practice in Biggleswade.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
I am sorry, there is a speakers’ list. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is next.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I have so far not had a chance to welcome the Minister to his new role. I wish him well. I think he has already found out that it is going to be a very busy portfolio, and, with the present climate we find ourselves in, quite rightly so.
Before the Minister was in post, many statutory instruments were laid before Parliament after they had come into operation, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, just said. This has continued to be a worrying trend, because it is a way of getting round normal parliamentary scrutiny. It becomes ministerial diktat and law by the scribbling of a Minister’s pen.
The statutory instrument says:
“These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health”.
Paragraph 6.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:
“In accordance with section 45R of the 1984 Act, the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
We are talking not about something that puts somebody into isolation to stop the spread of coronavirus but about relaxing when people can come out of self-isolation. It is not an imminent threat; it is not an emergency. The Government knew that 27 September was coming and could have planned for it so that normal legislation could have gone before Parliament, rather than this emergency approach of ministerial diktat, which affects millions of people in this country. It has to stop. There are times when emergency legislation for public health use is appropriate but, like others, this one is not appropriate.
What stopped the department and Ministers knowing that 27 September was coming? This did not have to be emergency legislation if they had planned ahead. This statutory instrument was laid five days before the planned date of extinction of the previous regulation. It is either poor planning or legislation to try to bounce Parliament. Either way, it is not acceptable.
I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, as set out in the register. The other part of this is about the powers to local authorities. I have believed right from beginning, as other noble Lords did, that local authorities should play a large part in this, rather than having national responses. Some national responses were needed, but so was a more local response.
Back in March 2020, I tabled an amendment to the original Bill with a power of general competence for local authorities to be able to act, which would be debated through normal legislation without statutory instruments having to keep coming with powers for local authorities. We were told that that was not required, so why do statutory instruments need to keep coming with powers for local authorities? Why did the department not listen at the time and grant a power of general competence in an amendment to the Bill, which could have been dealt with in the normal way rather than in emergency legislation? It has to stop. I want to talk about some interventions that might be required based on where we are at present as a nation.
I am clear that we will need interventions over and above those in place, but the Government are not listening to public health experts, people who work in the NHS or the epidemiologists who say that further action on Covid is required now, not just to deal with the potential crisis in the NHS but to stop future lockdowns that harm the economy and people’s livelihoods. They are saying it is a step to stop lockdowns, so I would like to understand from the Minister why that advice has not been taken. What assurance do the Government have that if action is not taken now and cases continue to rise, as well as the pressures on the NHS, either local or national lockdowns will not at some point be required? What modelling exists at present to prove that point?
I want to look at the rates per 1,000 population. On a seven-day rolling average from yesterday’s figures, the UK has 488.5 cases. France has 54.9 cases, Portugal has 51.9 and Spain has 28.3. Even taking into account testing variations, the UK is a significant outlier there. I know what the Minister will say: “Oh, there’s a lower death rate—that’s why. It’s not just cases. We have to look at the death rate”. Let us look at the death rates in those countries. On the rolling average for the last seven days, Spain has a death rate per million people from Covid-related disease of 2.87. Portugal has a death rate of 3.12 per million; France has a death rate of 1.88 per million; and the UK has one of 10.7 per million. In terms of both cases and deaths, the UK is an outlier.
I suggest that the reason why the UK is an outlier is that those other countries, rightly, are vaccinating—in some cases, they have now increased their vaccination rate above that of the UK—but have not put all their eggs in one basket. They are taking mitigation and vaccination as a way to deal with a public health crisis, because this is not a political or philosophical discussion. It is not an argument of libertarians versus those who believe in a more restrictive approach to the state. This is about public health and trying to keep people alive and healthy. It is about taking lessons from what is happening abroad and using them as good practice. If experts are not being listened to, I suggest that people look at what is happening abroad and learn the lessons there: mitigation and vaccination combined are a way of dealing with this. It is about having not draconian lockdowns but simple mitigations, so let us look at some of the issues within those mitigations.
Some politicians are worried that the public just will not buy some of the issues. A UK YouGov poll from today clearly shows that the public are becoming worried and starting to get ahead of the Government: 81% support having face coverings on public transport and 76% are for them in shops and restaurants. Meanwhile, 67% support social distancing in pubs and restaurants—but there is no majority for lockdowns. We have become a country obsessed with having plan A or plan B. It does not have to be such a binary choice. We could take steps to deal with the threat to public health as we come into winter. We could look at what happens abroad and bring about the use of mandatory face coverings, which have no economic impact. If you are a libertarian, their use restricts freedoms very little but helps reduce cases, along with other issues. We could ask for face coverings on public transport and in shops.
Some noble Lords opposite are shaking their heads. I am not basing my facts on some theoretical study; I am basing them on what is happening in France, Portugal and Spain. That is the evidence, not an academic study. Mitigation, along with vaccination, works. If not, noble Lords will have to explain when they get up why those countries have fewer cases and deaths. It is because they are not just jabbing but asking for face coverings.
Now, there are other, much wider things in plan B that I do not support. For example, I do not support the use of Covid vaccination certificates—not as a matter of political philosophy but because, although someone may have a certificate saying that they are double-jabbed, we know that 30% of people who are double-jabbed also get the virus and could be asymptomatic. It gives a false sense of security. That person may go out thinking, “I’m jabbed, I’m okay, I’ve got my vaccination certificate”, but they could be one of the 30% of people out there who are asymptomatic and helping to spread the virus. So, the reason why I believe that vaccination certification is not worth introducing is practical, not philosophical.
We are at a severe crossroads in this public health crisis. If we go one way, the country will go into lockdown and there will be harder economic and social consequences. That road means continuing as we are, putting all our eggs in the vaccination basket and not taking extra action now. Or there is another way we could turn: phasing in some simple mitigation requirements, such as face coverings and potentially looking at social distancing. These are not like the draconian “Stay at home to work” order or lockdowns.
I believe that we need to take a different course. To avoid lockdown and the harm we have seen, we need to do something extra beyond just talking about vaccinations. European countries that have taken those measures show that it can be done. They will not eradicate the virus, but they will mean we manage it better, helping the NHS and the economy and doing something that we need to do: take our advice and approach from public health, not political philosophy.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I certainly do not oppose these measures since I believe them to be going the right way. I am pleased with that.
I want to concentrate on face masks. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, mentioned them quite a lot because he believes that everybody wearing them would save lives; they were mentioned in the Minister’s final words as well. They have become a bit of a totem for both sides of the argument on coronavirus restrictions. They divide society, actually. On the one hand—I find myself on this side—I do not believe them to be effective so I do not wear one. It is an act of individuality, if you like; you might even call it an act of rebellion against being told what to do. On the other side of the argument, where the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is, believers in further restrictions believe that wearing a mask shows virtue and solidarity and provides reassurance to others. That is a perfectly reasonable position, I suppose.
Whatever the opinion polls say, I reckon that about 40% of people on the Tube do not wear a mask now—not 13%, as the noble Lord suggested. That 40% has given up, basically. Children are not required to wear them, of course, but they obviously cannot pass on the virus; I will come back to that later.
In the Chamber of the House of Commons, there is a great political divide between the Government on the one hand, wearing hardly any face masks, and the Opposition on the other, where practically everyone wears one. Last month, I went to a packed memorial service in the Brompton Oratory. It is a huge church—perhaps not the biggest Catholic church in London, but huge. One person was wearing a face mask. None of the clergy was. However, last week, I went to David Amess’s memorial service, where probably about 20 masks were being worn in the congregation. All the bishops and clergy, as they processed behind the unmasked choir, were wearing them. We almost have a Reformation divide now, with Catholics versus Anglicans.
My question for the Minister is simple. Are masks effective? We have, I fear, had some mixed messaging from the Government over the past 18 months. Either masks work or they do not. I am certainly not an expert; I do not pretend that they will or will not do good because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, I do not know whether they work.
However, full surgical masks worn in operations presumably work. All the doctors and nurses wear them and have done so for some time—but they are proper surgical masks. Flimsy paper masks are being worn by several people in this Committee, and by the general public. I do not know whether those masks do any good, but I suspect that they do not. What I do know is that Jenny Harries, who is now the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency and was the Deputy CMO previously, said in March last year that it was “not a good idea” for the general public to wear them. She also said that they “trap the virus” and cause people to start breathing it in.
I have a series of quotes, if the Committee will bear with me, that show the confusion in this matter. I am not saying that I am right. Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, who noble Lords will know, said on April 4 last year that the wearing of face masks by those who are not sick was not recommended by the British Government. He said that there was
“no evidence that the general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society.”
That is his view—or it was in April last year. I do not know. Sir Patrick Vallance, who, again, we have got to know well over the past 18 months and is the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, told MPs last May:
“The situation with masks … is that the data and the evidence are not straightforward”.
In this House, the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, said on 21 April last year that
“the British Government have been sceptical about the efficacy of face masks. We do not want to be in a position of misleading or providing false reassurance for the public when there is not sufficient scientific evidence for the relevance of face masks.”—[Official Report, 21/4/20; col. 22.]
The following month, on 19 May, he said:
“There is an instinctive human belief that face masks make a difference, but the scientific proof that they do so is not crystal clear.”—[Official Report, 19/5/20; col. 1096.]
Then on 11 June he quoted the World Health Organization and said that
“‘the widespread use of masks by healthy people … is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence’”.—[Official Report, 11/6/20; col. 1908.]
On 22 June, 11 days later, he said that the mandatory of wearing of face masks was not recommended by the Government.
Now I genuinely do not know, but the situation is certainly confusing; I think everybody can agree on that. I am willing to accept that I am a bit confused. At the Labour Party conference, everybody wore face masks in the hall—we saw them all on television—but they did not wear them at the karaoke parties or receptions. The Liberal Democrat conference was of course virtual, so that was fine. However, they would not have had to wear them because it would not have been very crowded.
So what is the evidence now? Can the Government publish the evidence that made them change their position of last year, with the quotes I have given, to encouraging people to wear face masks? Perhaps there are studies. If they are conclusive, I will wear a mask. That is a promise—but I warn the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who has just spoken, that one should not rely and base one’s policies on opinion polls.
All the calls that we hear for a return to restrictions should, again, be based on evidence. Are things getting worse? The vaccines certainly seem to work. Indeed, I had a message today to get my booster jab. Deaths are actually right down on what they were a year ago. Can the Minister tell us the percentage of deaths from the virus among those who are over 85? I understand that the average age of death is 85, which is actually higher than average life expectancy.
The Office for National Statistics shows that about half of all new infections are among school-age children—in other words, the unvaccinated young—with few lasting ill-effects. Is that true? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on that. Is it the case that there are now studies predicting that cases are likely to fall sharply in the winter? That was in a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which was covered in the press yesterday. Is that the case?
We have now heard one or two doctors panicking about flu and calling for the wearing of face masks because there will be flu around. Wear face masks for ever. Every year, on average—it varies dramatically—about 11,000 people die from flu. That is about the same number who are dying every week. So will the Minister reassure me that the Government will not be panicked into reintroducing any dramatic restrictions, or plan B, without basing the decision on very serious evidence?
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, is not with us, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I will begin by reflecting on how we arrived at this point today: a gentle reminder of the course of this pandemic might be useful. In September 2019, four months before the rest of the world was alerted to Covid-19, the Chinese authorities were temperature-testing passengers at Wuhan and other airports across China. I spent more than 20 years in the aviation sector prior to my 20 years’ travelling to Brussels and Strasbourg, so you could say that I have landed at quite a few airports. However, I had never seen, in my entire career and in my life, such a measure ever taking place. However, it was not until the end of December 2019 that they let it be known that there was a problem. In the run-up to Chinese new year, thousands of nationals and others, living and working across Italy and the rest of Europe, flew to Wuhan and elsewhere to celebrate new year—only to find that it was cancelled. So they flew back. They were none the wiser. Europe was on holiday—skiing in Italy, France, Spain and Austria—and oblivious to the situation, quite rightly. And so it unfolded.
But it was not the first time. In 2002, SARS broke out in China and, yet again, the World Health Organization was not notified for six months. Fortunately, by comparison, it was not as lethal; nevertheless, it is known that Covid-19—or SARS-CoV-2—is closely related. Sadly, this virus has killed millions. The World Health Organization has not been allowed to investigate thoroughly, but the thinking is that it must have come from a lab. So I just wonder when the Chinese authorities will be held to account, as they continue to propagate the source as a wet market—which, ironically, they are again operating across China.
As we look at the consequences, we should also put the situation in context. Fear of the unknown caused all Governments across the globe to react quickly, and the first lockdown was supported, I would say, by the vast majority of the country. We did everything that we were asked to do: hands, face, space; isolated, stayed at home, did not mix; and practically washed our hands raw to save the NHS. The silver bullet would be the vaccine—and they were right. It was a phenomenal success, which I wholly support. But these measures have continued, off and on, and the consequences have been horrific.
Under the Act, citizens were arrested for sitting on a park bench. People were followed by drones just for going for a walk. Police were going into private premises to check whether people were there. And it got worse: locking up students on campus; closing schools and businesses across the UK; the Government telling people whom they could talk to and sleep with; and locked-away, vulnerable elderly people, many of whom never recovered. Daily mainstream media, particularly the BBC and Sky News, were always frightening the life out of most of us—and the £300 million budget will continue until next year.
So the vaccine was a godsend. They said once the over-50s were vaxed, we could open up—but it did not happen. We waited, with the population becoming more anxious and ill by the day. Yet, despite the success of the vaccine programme, the sword of Damocles still hangs over our heads. Some scientists, medics and politicians want to bring back restrictions now—which I vehemently oppose, along with any imposition of a domestic vaccine passport.
That brings me to the context. In 2020, according to the ONS, 680,000 people died in the UK. Approximately 70,000 had Covid on their death certificate. The average number of deaths ran at 1,800 a day. The major causes were dementia, cancer, heart disease, strokes et cetera. About 10% of those had Covid on their death certificates, and I understand that around 5% died directly from that awful virus. That averaged about 90 people a day—and that is 90 too many, because we want to eliminate this, hopefully, at some stage in the future. But it is not easy.
Fortunately, the vaccines are effective and the medicines now available are truly ground-breaking, with the majority fully recovering. Although the elderly are still at risk, the over-65s are now back to normal for this time of year. Positive tests are predominantly among older teenagers, who are not at risk. For those keen to impose plans B, C and anything else, the fact is that 200,000 teenagers have been referred for mental health treatment in the last three months—that does not even come into the elderly and the vulnerable—alongside the millions of patients waiting for diagnosis and treatment on the NHS. Front-line medics are waiting to operate but patients are not being referred, because of Covid restrictions, by GPs and others. Along with the Nightingales, the NHS spent £400 million a month requisitioning 8,000 private beds and 20,000 staff, and managed to refer eight patients a day.
That brings us to the true cost; this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Coronavirus Act 2020 is past its sell-by date. Notwithstanding the urgency to legislate speedily, it is blindingly obvious that the Act has major flaws. There was no parliamentary scrutiny, and even now it is a take-it-or-leave-it approach every six months. This legislation affects people’s everyday lives and criminalises ordinary behaviour. It continues to use delegated rather than primary legislation to implement changes in policy. New laws come into effect at very short notice; there are no impact assessments—or very few—and little debate. They continue to portray public health advice as having the force of law, which is wrong. This is unacceptable and highly dangerous, and results in police forces acting beyond their powers by enforcing government guidance rather than law.
I have outlined my thoughts on some of the actions taken so far. As mentioned, it has been difficult to debate, as anyone challenging the status quo is seen as some sort of anti-vaxxer or troublemaker. It is about listening to all sides of opinion, so I conclude by noting that many scientists and medics do not agree with some of the decisions that have been made. As mentioned, the mainstream media is still bringing messages of doom and gloom on a daily basis, nearly two years on. The time has come to manage where we are.
Other countries have been mentioned but let us look at Scandinavia. A month ago, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway lifted all restrictions. They stated that we need to get back to normal. I agree. Living in fear is not living at all. I therefore urge my noble friend to actively address the lack of scrutiny and parliamentary debate as we move forward.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, whether we approve of these restrictions or not, and despite the relaxations of last summer, we should be honest with ourselves and admit that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, this remains one of the most illiberal pieces of legislation the House has had to consider since the days of Oliver Cromwell. Actually, Oliver Cromwell abolished this House, so that might not be true.
That it will extend into 2022, two years after the rules first came into force, is alarming. It surely reminds us that the Government made a mistake when they declared an emergency under health legislation rather than the Civil Contingencies Act. Under that Act, we would be able to revisit these regulations much more frequently—monthly rather than six-monthly. When he winds up, will my noble friend express the strongest possible commitment—and hopefully promise—that this is the last time we will extend these regulations?
I am the first to admit that we are not out of the woods. Infections, hospitalisations and deaths remain higher than we would like, although far lower than even the most optimistic of SPI-M-O’s models published in early September—yet another failure of modelling, I am afraid. Already, the recent mini-wave, which is mainly happening among children, seems to have peaked. I urge the Government to resist the increasingly noisy calls for another mandatory lockdown, vaccine passports and mandatory mask-wearing. We can get through this winter with faster vaccinations, especially boosters, and sensible voluntary measures. Remember that, thanks to vaccines, the overall mortality rate for people who get Covid-19 is now down to about 0.1%, as low as flu.
Of all the measures taken, by far the most effective has been vaccination. Lockdowns have undoubtedly also helped but at a brutally painful cost. All other interventions have, as far as I can read from the evidence, proved either surprisingly ineffective, such as handwashing, or ambiguous at best, such as face masks. I want to focus on face masks and the argument for making them mandatory.
I am completely open-minded as to whether face masks help; they might or they might not. I have been willing to wear them. I favour them on precautionary grounds and if anybody can present me with a decent study on their effectiveness, I will read it and shout it from the rooftops. However, in preparing for today’s debate, I read a lot of scientific papers and I came up empty. The papers that purport to vindicate masks tend to be flimsy or flawed: they ignore the effect of other measures; they confuse correlation with causation; they compare apples with oranges; they rely on modelling rather than data.
For example, a meta-analysis commissioned by the WHO claimed that masks could lead to a reduction in the risk of infection, but the studies considered mainly N95 respirators in a hospital setting and not cloth masks in a community setting. Another study in the PNAS claimed that the correlation between declining infections and mask mandates was due to causation, ignoring similar declines elsewhere, and 40 scientists recommended that the study be withdrawn. Early in the pandemic, the advocacy group, #Masks4All, argued that Czechia had fewer infections thanks to the early use of masks. In reality, the pandemic simply had not reached eastern Europe by that stage. A few months later, Czechia had one of the highest infection rates in the world despite an early and strong mask mandate. A study in the US and another in Bangladesh were eventually withdrawn; a German study claiming to vindicate masks actually found no net change overall; a Canadian study claimed that countries with mandated masks had fewer deaths, but it compared very different countries and only the first few weeks of the pandemic. A review by Oxford University claimed that face masks are effective, but it looked at healthcare settings and not community settings—and so on and so on.
Meanwhile, the studies that are well designed and carefully executed have all reached the opposite conclusion: that they cannot find evidence that masks help. An April 2020 review by the University of Illinois, a May 2020 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, a May 2020 US CDC meta-study on pandemic influenza, a July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, an October 2020 randomised control trial with close to 8,000 participants, a November 2020 Danish randomised control trial with 6,000 participants, a November 2020 gold standard Cochrane review—sorry about this; I am nearly at the end—
Viscount Ridley (Con)
A February 2021 review by the European CDC, a July 2021 experimental study published by the American Institute of Physics and an August 2021 study published by the International Research Journal of Public Health all failed to find causation. It might be there; they are not saying it is impossible, but they have not found it. If somebody can produce a study showing a strong and significant effect of masks on transmission then I will change my mind, but it has to be a decent bit of work.
Talking of experts, Gary Lineker said of mask wearing on Twitter that
“the evidence is clear that it reduces your chances of catching Covid”.
Well, which studies is he referring to? He did not cite a particular study.
Yet surely it is common sense that covering your face must help. To some extent, I am convinced myself that it probably does. It certainly stops large droplets. However, one thing that we have learned in this pandemic is that decades of advice about how such a virus is spread has turned out to be wrong. We now know that the way that this kind of virus spreads is generally not through droplets, which masks stop, but through much smaller aerosols, which are essentially evaporated droplets. They go straight through or out the side of most masks. Catching aerosols with masks is like catching midges with a tennis net.
Masks can give false reassurance. Like my noble friend Lord Robathan, I went to a memorial service yesterday, albeit a different one. There were hundreds of people in the church. The organisers suggested taking a lateral flow test before coming, which was a good idea, and I did. They also said that mask wearing was a condition of coming and I did that too. So did anybody else. But did that give me and the others there just slightly too much reassurance? Risk compensation behaviour is a real phenomenon: motorcyclists drive faster with helmets on. Do people take slightly more social risks when wearing masks? I fear it is possible that they do, so it is not necessarily the right policy.
Masks signal that you care and that you are being careful. That is worth something, I admit, but is it enough to justify making them compulsory? I do not think it is. Again, I say this not because I want masks to be ineffective—I would much rather they were useful; I do not find them particularly enjoyable to wear, but I do not particularly mind wearing them—but I try to think with my head and not my gut. It is data that should guide us, not feelings.
I have one final point. I declare an interest in that I am about to publish a book about the origin of Covid—I might have mentioned it before. The fact we still do not know and that we most certainly cannot rule out that it was a lab accident, as my noble friend Lady Foster said, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology means that another such pandemic is possible and could happen any day. That fact alone will have encouraged rogue states and terrorist organisations to investigate the possibility of deliberately causing a pandemic. The UK Government have shown surprisingly little interest in this issue so far, leaving it to the American Government, the Chinese Government and the WHO, but as one of the leaders in scientific research in the world the UK Government should give it their attention. I ask my noble friend to put it in his no doubt very thick in-tray.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I want first to register that the no-vote on the Coronavirus Act in the other House last week, with the seemingly glib statement that the House was not in the mood to vote, was unsettling. Although a majority of the most illiberal and worrying uses and abuses of the law over the last 18 months have been acted through public health legislation, none the less the Coronavirus Act remains as a legislative symbol of the state accruing enormous and unprecedented powers to deal with the public health emergency.
To be clear, when the Act was brought in there was an emergency. Whatever my own reservations or those of fellow civil libertarians, we could see that a worldwide pandemic gave an excuse to the Government in having to act quickly and respond in the way they did, and it explains some of the extreme measures. But that was then, and whatever possible excuses there were for little parliamentary scrutiny when the Act was initially passed, since then there is no excuse for the lack of post-legislative scrutiny and for accountability being so woeful. I echo the thoughts and concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.
When, every six months, the House of Commons is asked to vote for or against, there is no option to amend or expire individual provisions. Sufficient time is never allocated to renewal debates to allow detailed scrutiny. It becomes more or less a fait accompli. By the time the renewals arrive here in this House, it feels, like now, that we are going through the motions and making speeches for the sake of it, which is why I assume many of us are trying to make speeches that might say something beyond nodding something through.
Let me say this: the urgency of the initial stages of the pandemic has passed. There is no longer a public health emergency. Of course Covid is still a serious challenge and needs to be managed carefully. I do not underestimate it; a family member sadly died of Covid only recently. However, the crisis stage of the pandemic has passed, and this legislation is just not needed. Its continued existence and the Government’s reluctance to revoke it represents another kind of crisis: the undermining of the rule of law in democratic decision-making under the auspices of Covid.
It really does feel as though Ministers have grown rather too accustomed to the Covid-related ease with which laws can be made, now that the Government have enhanced legislative control and seem reluctant to relinquish newly accrued powers. To quote Big Brother Watch,
“the emergency mode and its perks—rapid law-making without scrutiny and a ratcheting of executive powers—has persisted”.
Perhaps most galling for me is that the Government seem reluctant to provide impact assessment statements for legislation, which means that Parliament has often not had the information it needs to properly scrutinise measures that have profound social, economic and health impacts—let alone assaults on our liberties.
This lack of transparency also blindsides public debate. Too often, citizens are left to speculate as to why certain laws are being introduced when there seems so little evidence of their efficacy. Undoubtedly this has fuelled conspiracy-mongering and undermined trust in politics and institutions. Look at the egregious way in which proposals to mandate vaccines for care home workers was dealt with. There was a rushed 90-minute debate in the other place and a cavalier use of secondary legislation to interfere with workers’ hard-won employment rights that is likely to create a huge staff shortage crisis in care homes. All this was done in the face of a wide range of opponents pointing out the shortcomings of the proposals—I am thinking here of everyone from trades unions to Tory Back-Bench MPs agreeing—and despite a lack of evidence that this policy will lead to any extra protection for vulnerable residents, as alleged.
Now the Government are doubling down and targeting NHS staff. Just when we are told that one reason why the Government might bring in further restrictions is if the NHS cannot cope this winter, the Department of Health and Social Care has the brilliant idea of implementing a policy that will mean effectively sacking thousands of front-line health workers, creating a staff shortage crisis that could have—guess what?—catastrophic implications for healthcare and make matters worse.
Here is my great dilemma for the Minister. We have all—or almost all—welcomed the shift from legal restrictions to public health guidelines and trusting the public to take personal responsibility for weighing up risks. That was, and is, it seemed to me, the message from the Prime Minister and the Cabinet—or that was what I thought. So it is unfortunate that, despite assurances and even promises that 19 July was the terminus date and the pledges that relaxing restrictions would be irreversible, and despite the good news of extremely high vaccine take-up and levels of antibodies, and evidence, as we have heard, of the virus being under control, Ministers keep threatening the public with really quite draconian measures again. It is totally demoralising and disorientating.
What we really need to hear from the Minister today is that the Government will no longer use the criminal law to manage public health. Instead, what we have is another attack on freedoms hanging over us in the form of vaccine passports. Despite a range of U-turns and contradictory ministerial public pronouncements on vaccine passes, despite the findings of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that Covid passes have no basis “in science or logic”, despite leaked but not publicly available cost-benefit analysis from the DCMS that passes will decimate hospitality, arts and sports event venues, which I read about in a newspaper rather than in anything produced by Ministers, despite the fact that the Prime Minister inadvertently admitted that immunity from vaccination was not the same as a guarantee that you cannot contract the virus or pass it on, hence rendering vaccine passes irrelevant in containing the social spread of the virus, as was well explained by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, despite the fact that the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s vaccine confidence project has found that the introduction of vaccine passports will most likely reduce vaccine take-up among the already hesitant and will more likely consolidate a loss of trust in pharmacological interventions in general, as well as in political institutions—despite all this, we still hear the misinformation from the Government that vaccine passports as a policy will protect others. They just will not.
Where is the opportunity for Parliament, never mind the public, to debate all this fully, without fear of being demonised or silenced by big tech, and discuss the implications of an illiberal, divisive, show-your-papers culture? As we talk here today about the renewal of the Coronavirus Act—the emergency, allegedly temporary Coronavirus Act—my dread is that we are signalling the permanence of a state of emergency embedded in law by even contemplating a two-tier checkpoint society. When Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister, smirked as she stressed that vaccine passes would mean two classes in her country, I was chilled—and I realise that such open discrimination is also the new normal much closer to home, in Wales and Scotland.
The truth is that our Health Ministers need to move away from vaccine passes because they have enough on their plate. Rather than getting embroiled in these politicised rows over Covid-related laws, surely it is time to move on; goodness knows they now have some real public health emergencies to sort out. From the now-understood catastrophic impact that lockdown measures have had on the late diagnosis of everything from cancer to dementia, to backlogs, waiting lists for treatment and the unhelpful actions of GPs—not only are they seemingly hesitant to resume face-to-face contact; there is also the BMA’s truculent behaviour in instructing surgeries to close their lists to new patients and threatening industrial action—Ministers have a lot on their plate.
There are also reports in primary schools that the lack of social interaction during the pandemic will affect young children’s speech, language and general development, and that those problems are likely to persist for several years. Then there is the ongoing and frankly inhumane treatment of care home residents, who are still being deprived of normal social contact with loved ones by risk-averse, short-staffed residential homes, leading to entirely preventable extra health issues.
I have a lot of sympathy for the Minister because he has a lot on his plate. In this context, the now-diminishing threat of Covid as an emergency should be low down on the priority list. All legal sanctions brought into being to deal with Covid now need to be revoked for the sake of the health of the body politic and so that the noble Lord can get on with being a Health Minister for non-Covid health emergencies.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I start with a quote from the front page of the regulations which I find quite over the top:
“These Regulations are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.
Presumably this threat arose in the week between Parliament rising for the Conference Recess—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee will adjourn temporarily.
Lord Balfe (Con)
I shall go back to the beginning because I cannot remember where I stopped.
I start with a quote from the regulations, which
“are made in response to the serious and imminent threat to public health which is posed by the incidence and spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus”.
This could not have occurred in the week between the session we had in September and the Minister making this instrument on 22 September. The text carries on,
“the Secretary of State is of the opinion that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary to make this instrument without a draft having been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
The first thing I ask the Minister is to get an agreement to discontinue this way of making legislation. It may be some time before the Government repeal all the Acts but they could certainly give an undertaking. I realise that the Minister cannot do that today, because he has to consult the department, but the department could give an undertaking that future regulations will be made after consultation with Parliament.
This pandemic has shown me something. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, referred to her travels around the world. I have done a lot of lecturing on history, particularly the history of western Europe. I will not castigate any country in particular, but all countries have an undertow of authoritarianism in their public dimension. The pandemic has brought that out in this country. We have seen a level of authoritarianism in the way that people have used their power which is totally unacceptable. It can be seen in the way that the doctors have rewritten national health protocols, and the way that the police decided that they would or would not enforce parts of the law. Let me stress that “would not”; I sometimes wonder why we are here, when I look around and see how much of the law the police decide is not worth enforcing.
So we have an authoritarianism problem in this country but, as we move forward, we will have to learn to live with this. It will perhaps decline, as Spanish flu did in 1920-21, but it will not go away, and the possibility of further viral attacks is on the horizon. I echo the call made to the Minister that the Government should look at viral—and electronic—warfare and attacks as part of their defence capacity, because we could be liable to those sorts of attacks. It is important that we move forward from thinking that our defence consists of sailing a battleship round the Black Sea to a point where we accept that there is a much wider area in which public good can be interrupted for malicious reasons.
We have heard a fair bit about the number of people who have been vaccinated and the various plans that have come forward. I am an occasional subscriber to and regular reader of the Daily Sceptic, which I receive by email. It has put another view on some of the material that has been released about Covid. For instance, we hear very little about the Oxford group and a group of people who have looked carefully at all the evidence and concluded very similarly to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on matters such as face masks. Not all the evidence is being presented; indeed, some outlets take great pride in saying that they are Covid-friendly and, basically, supply you only with government propaganda.
So I welcome the new Minister and the new Secretary of State, because they have an opportunity to move us forward towards a better situation. I have mentioned the problem of GPs in the past, but that situation also covers the rest of the National Health Service. I live in Cambridge, which could probably claim to be the medical capital of Britain. I live in a street that is packed full of doctors, because only doctors and former MEPs can afford the houses there. Some of my best friends are doctors, as they say, and some of their stories about what has been going on are, shall we say, not in line with what we have been led to believe is going on. One of them said to me, “I don’t know what the GPs are doing. We haven’t seen any of them in our hospital, I can tell you that”.
So we must get the health service and private hospitals back to work. Our local private hospital was bought out by the NHS and basically stood empty for the best part of a year, with the consultants doing their consultations at home. It was absolutely ridiculous. The way to get a consultation with your specialist relied on knowing their home phone number and getting on to them and going to see them at home. So they were finding a way round the regulations, and the hospitals were closed but still earning large amounts of money from the NHS.
So the Minister is going to find that there are a lot of themes to unravel. On the subject of vaccination, I counsel the Government not to take on battles that they are probably going to lose. If they take on this battle of trying to get vaccination certificates and vaccination approvals before people can do certain things, they will end up in a morass of bureaucracy and in the end they will lose. Leave it to the market. If a venue wishes to say it requires proof of vaccination to enter—as, for instance, some restaurants in France require—let it administer it and look at the certificate. All I would do is say, “Please put a notice on the door”. Do not get involved in what could turn out to be a terribly authoritarian effort.
There is one question I would like to ask the Minister. We are constantly urged to get lateral flow tests. How much do these cost? I was asked to get a lateral flow test before I went to David Amess’s memorial service. Why? I also question whether they should be free and whether it is our priority as a health service to carry on spending this amount of money. How much does it cost and, more importantly, what plans does the Minister have to wind it down or at least make it a paid-for service, which seems a quite reasonable thing to do?
My final words are that I am pleased that we are moving forward. I hope this will be the last SI we have to debate that is laid in this way, and I hope we will move forward, end this image of a terrified country and continue getting back to normal, so that we can start to get back to where we were some years ago, as normal human beings in a normal society.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)
My Lords, before the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, joins us remotely, the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will speak briefly in the gap.
Lord Naseby (Con)
I am most grateful. I will make three points about communication. Last Saturday, I queued up at Chicksands centre—two hours’ queueing, with no appointment. Fine—I make no criticism of what was done there. But I then found out that Biggleswade, a town of 30,000-plus which previously did jabs, has no provision. So my advice to my noble friend is to double-check in all the substantial towns to make sure that there is jabbing going on.
Secondly, I mentioned my wife earlier. I declare an interest in that she is a doctor. She was very ill with Covid; she came out six months ago. There was no GP contact and nothing from the hospital. We will monitor it and make sure she is all right, but we are waiting to see whether she gets any communication from anybody—for a woman aged 83.
Thirdly and finally, I was in charge of the communication for the three-day week for an advertising agency. I met daily with the department involved, and the Minister, and we ensured that we had mass communication. Frankly, I see very little in the nationals or in the local papers. I see nothing in the ethnic newspapers and I do not see anything on television. If you want to get this hard core to have vaccinations, you have to swamp the media. I was a professional advertising man before; you do tell them once, you do not tell them twice—you tell them 10 times and then they might hear. I thank noble Lords again for allowing me to take part in the gap.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I start by echoing the comments of my noble friend Lord Scriven and many other noble Lords. Regardless of where your Lordships stand on wearing masks, for example, we are all agreed that the way this Government have brought forward far too much Covid legislation as emergency items—
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, there is a Division in the Chamber. The Committee stands adjourned until all Members have cast their votes.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the Committee will resume. I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to continue her speech.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, regardless of where your Lordships stand on mask wearing, I believe that we are all agreed that this Government have brought forward far too much emergency Covid legislation, much of which has not even been presented to Parliament before being brought into use. Why, once again, are regulations coming to the Lords for which the expiry date was well known in advance and is not an emergency at all? The Minister’s predecessor heard time after time over the last 20 months many noble Lords complaining that too many statutory instruments were being brought to us as emergency procedures, making a mockery of the scrutiny of your Lordships’ House.
The regulations talk about self-isolation. It remains vital for those who have Covid-19, but can the Minister confirm the rumours that many people are not taking lateral flow tests, even if they are symptomatic, in order not to have to report the results and to avoid self-isolation? I am also hearing that there has been a resurgence of the old problem we had last year of late pinging, presumably because of delays in a struggling test and trace system as case numbers rise dramatically.
The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, raised concerns about whether lateral flow tests are necessary and should be paid for from the public purse. Lateral flow tests are now proving extremely reliable. Actually, we are advised as Members of Parliament to have two lateral flow tests during any week in which we are present in Parliament. Many other workplaces demand even more tests per week than that. It is one of the safest ways we can catch Covid early in people, particularly if they are not yet symptomatic. If we are asking many people to have two, three or five lateral flow tests a week—as I know happens in some places—while the pandemic is still around, it should be paid for from the public purse.
I echo the Minister’s thanks to directors of public health, our local resilience forums and local authorities. Can he confirm that the funding for their work on Covid, including test and trace, is guaranteed for the next financial year and will not end, as is currently planned, in March 2022?
Once again, I ask why the messages from government Ministers repeatedly encourage us to believe that face masks are totally a matter of personal choice. Many noble Lords have expressed their concern about them and said why they do not want to wear them. Even the Secretary of State for Health, when pressed over the weekend, reluctantly said that he would use a mask. However, he refused to say that he would recommend it to his colleagues on the green Benches—although he thought that they should perhaps consider it—whereas the Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, has completely eschewed the scientific advice and said that Tory MPs do not need to wear masks because they all know each other and get along so well. The new Minister for Vaccines was of a similar mind on the radio yesterday.
However, as my noble friend Lord Scriven said, vaccination on its own is not the sole answer to Covid. A third of cases at the moment are among people who have already had their vaccinations. With a seven-day rolling average of around 1,000 admissions to hospital per day and with more than 8,000 beds occupied—and with those numbers increasing—I asked the Minister just now, in the Urgent Question in the Chamber, about accident and emergency departments and ambulance services. Conversations with GPs show that they, too, are hard-pressed at the moment in dealing with the increased number of Covid patients calling them for help.
One of the advantages of vaccination is that many people do not get Covid so seriously, but anyone who listened to the “Today” programme from Lancashire this morning will have heard many people say that, even though they had Covid mildly, it was the most unpleasant thing they had had to deal with and that catching their breath all the time was very difficult. GPs are much in demand in offering advice, hopefully to turn people away from hospital and give them the help they need.
Case rates in unvaccinated children remain very high, and despite being told many times in 2020 that children do not get Covid, they clearly do.
On 17 September, Sajid Javid wrote to the 3.7 million people who are clinically extremely vulnerable; that is 5% of our population, though not as large as the 22 million of the over-50s, the clinically extremely vulnerable and NHS staff having booster shots. This group comprises those who have serious problems making antibodies and are at high risk of getting very strong Covid. I declare my interest as being within the severely clinically extremely vulnerable group. Its numbers have expanded from 500,000 to 800,000 over the last two to three months following the publication of a number of clinical trials which were able to show that more categories of people were taking immunosuppressants, which moved them into this group. The news of the antivirals is vital for the clinically extremely vulnerable, and I welcome that. However, as my consultant said to me, “We don’t want you in hospital at all; we absolutely do not want you to end up on many of the drugs coming through yet. You need to keep safe.”
For those of us who have low or no antibodies and were told on 17 September by the Secretary of State that our doctors would now tell us what we needed to do, the outside world is a worrying place. The letter from Sajid Javid said that I should ensure that I did not go into any environment where there were people who were not double vaccinated. I have joked before whether, before entering my local greengrocers, I should stand at the door and shout, “Everyone double vaccinated in here?” I do say that.
The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, can make his own decision about wearing a face mask, but 5% of the population, a mere 3.7 million people, remain at high risk even if they have had their booster jabs. They do not have the choice. I ask him please to reconsider; even when you think you are safe, you may be protecting someone as you may not know that you have Covid and are likely to pass it on.
The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, quoted our scientists in March and April 2020 as saying they did not see the evidence for face masks being helpful. He clearly missed the screeching U-turn in the summer of 2020 after our experts, both in the UK and at the World Health Organization, realised that Covid was much more airborne than they had understood. The noble Lord asked for evidence. This is from the World Health Organization in December 2020, and it is still current advice:
“Masks should be used as part of a comprehensive strategy of measures to suppress transmission and save lives; the use of a mask alone is not sufficient to provide an adequate level of protection against COVID-19.
If COVID-19 is spreading in your community, stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, cleaning your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue. Check local advice where you live and work. Do it all!
Make wearing a mask a normal part of being around other people. The appropriate use, storage and cleaning or disposal of masks are essential to make them as effective as possible.”
SAGE told Ministers in May that schoolchildren should wear masks. SAGE did not get rid of masks on freedom day; it was the Government. They decided against the advice. Frankly, it has not been a freedom day for the many people who have caught Covid since mid-July and been in hospital, or for the many who have died.
Sky News reported on 6 July on a report in the Lancet that showed why masks were effective. If noble Lords doubt me, they should just put “Sky News” and
“COVID-19: Do face masks work? Here is what scientific studies say”
into their browser. The evidence is there for the noble Lord, Lord Robathan. It includes that the American CDC reported an incident where two hairstylists with minor Covid symptoms
“were found to have interacted with 139 people during an eight-day period. The stylists and the clients all wore masks”
and a not a single one became infected. Sky News said that, on the USS “Theodore Roosevelt”,
“where living quarters and working environments leave little room for social distancing, a study found there was a 70% reduced risk of infection among those who used a face covering.”
The article also said:
“In Thailand, a retrospective case-control study found that among 1,000 people interviewed as part of contact tracing investigations”—
real people and real cases—
“those who reported always having worn a mask during high-risk exposures again experienced a 70% reduced risk of becoming infected compared with others.”
A quick search of the internet will produce many other examples.
The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said that many masks do not contain the aerosol droplets as well as the hospital-grade masks do. That is right, but too many people wear their masks insecurely—not pinching the nose frame or pulling back the ties properly. That is the point the World Health Organization was making. Worse, I am sorry to say that too many think they are protected when they wear their masks under their chins. That does not provide for any protection at all.
As before, the problem of recording third doses versus boosters remains. This is vital. The Minister’s predecessor said that this would be dealt with by the end of July. Because third-dose people need a booster in a few months, it has to be listed separately from ordinary boosters. When will the online system be able to record third doses? Those who took part in vaccine clinical trials or have had their vaccines abroad still cannot get them logged on to the systems. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, promised that this would be sorted before the summer break.
Since 19 July, when we released all mitigation measures here in the UK, why is it that France, Portugal, Spain and other countries have seen a rapid drop in case rates, while the UK has seen a rapid increase: from 320 cases per 100,000 to 488.5 per 100,000? It is very simple. Our plan B is, in fact, those countries’ plan A across western Europe. Those countries have mandates for masks, social distancing and ventilation. These are not studies but real-life examples.
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, cited Denmark in her contribution. In Denmark, a country that has been particularly successful, there is not even a mandate but the public choose to wear masks and socially distance. They have accepted this because of the strong messaging right from the start by their Government and local government about taking personal responsibility for their friends, neighbours and community. By comparison, the UK stands alone in saying that a daily case rate of up to 100,000 and, from the Prime Minister’s own mouth, 50,000 deaths a year are acceptable. We are creeping towards those numbers right now. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to Ministers appearing to believe in UK exceptionalism. Perhaps this is exceptionalism of exactly the wrong kind.
I ask the Minister: why has SAGE been meeting only monthly since July? Who calls those meetings and, if SAGE members feel that they need to advise Ministers, do they have to wait for Ministers to seek that advice? That would be helpful to know.
I believe that every single noble Lord who has taken part in this debate would not want to see plan C having to be enacted, especially if it means that the Prime Minister will have to cancel another Christmas. Experts across our country, and even in the World Health Organization, have expressed real concern that if we do not take at least some of the mitigating measures in plan B right now, the Government will have to move to plan C. We do not want that, so please can the Ministers listen to SAGE and put in the mitigations that most of our neighbouring countries accept as normal and good behaviour, to prevent us ever having to retreat into draconian shutdowns again?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, we do not oppose the renewal of the Coronavirus Act. As the Minister himself acknowledged, the pandemic is not over and many of these measures remain necessary. These provisions include: powers around the emergency registration of healthcare workers, which is important in ensuring that we can get workers who have retired from the healthcare system back into it, and participating in the vaccination programme; provisions for sick pay from day one, rather than day four, to help those required to self-isolate; and derogations that make it possible for remote participation in court proceedings to take place.
Not opposing the extension has been made easier, I should say, given that some of the more concerning and draconian measures have been removed from the Act. This includes Schedule 21, which contained the power to detain potentially infectious persons and has been used for a number of prosecutions, every one of which was found to be unlawful by the Crown Prosecution Service. A year ago, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that these powers “ought to be repealed”. We, too, have long called for those powers to be removed from the Act and it is right and proper that they have been. However, we would question whether some sections which are also set to be removed should be.
We are disappointed, for example, that the powers in Section 78 to enable local authority meetings to take place remotely have been removed from the Act. Surely it should be the case that local authorities should decide for themselves if they would like to continue online meetings, especially as we approach a challenging winter, with the Health Secretary warning that cases could well rise to 100,000 a day. I look forward to the comments of the Minister as to why that intervention on the organisational arrangements of councils is being made.
Nevertheless, the Coronavirus Act itself is not the legislation that put us into three national lockdowns and imposed the regime of local lockdowns, the three-tier system, travel restrictions or mask-wearing mandates. Indeed, I am sure from this debate that I am not the only one who has lost count of the number of SIs laid under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, the legal basis for coronavirus restrictions in England. I note that no changes to the public health Act are planned. Over the past 18 months, the House has repeatedly expressed its concern, as we have heard today, about the myriad regulations that have been introduced with limited scrutiny, bypassing Parliament and leading to executive dominance. These concerns have been further exacerbated by the Government’s reliance on the “made affirmative” procedure, meaning that, all too often, Parliament has not been given the opportunity to debate or scrutinise regulations before they became law.
That includes the health protection regulations that we are also debating. They were laid on 22 September and came into effect on 27 September. We fully support the provisions to amend the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include those who have received doses of two different approved vaccines or clinical trials. We also support the extension of the requirements for those who test positive for coronavirus and who are unvaccinated to self-isolate, and the extension of local authorities’ enforcement powers to 24 March 2022. However, I do not understand why this legislation was laid under the “made affirmative” procedure. I should be grateful for the comments of the Minister when he responds. After all, the department knew that the original expiration deadline was approaching and has long acknowledged that cases could rise to 100,000 this autumn or winter, thus necessitating continued self-isolation and enforcement powers.
While this is of course a rather straightforward SI, the Minister’s predecessor—the noble Lord, Lord Bethell —failed to make the case when introducing far more onerous Covid regulations that were laid using the emergency “made affirmative” procedure to implement coronavirus policies. Many of these regulations were laid at the 11th hour—a point made by my noble friend—despite being in press releases days, even weeks, in advance. They included mask-wearing requirements and the system of mandatory quarantine backed by criminal sanction, which gave the police the power to enter people’s homes; it also allowed individuals to be detained and searched, and have their belongings seized. These are not minor changes to the law.
Although we understood the need for the Government to respond quickly in the initial phases of the pandemic because of the emergency, it is unjustifiable to continue doing so without scrutiny where pandemic management has moved from reaction to control. I hope that the Minister can assure the Committee that the Government will do much better if, or when, they reintroduce some restrictions in respect of the management and control of the spread of coronavirus.
We all know that the pandemic is not over. We see tens of hundreds of new recorded Covid infections every day. We know that there are hundreds of people in hospital, many of whom are in the ICU. We also know that, on average, over 100 people are sadly dying of this dreadful disease every single day. The Minister will be well aware that the NHS Confederation, the BMA and local councils have called on the Government to implement plan B immediately. It contains the measures that we already support and are familiar with, such as mask wearing and allowing working from home. The Prime Minister should never have abandoned these measures; it is extremely concerning to hear that he is not following the advice of SAGE. My noble friend Lord Hunt expressed concern about the downgrading of SAGE’s role. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.
It appears that there has been little learning in government of the lessons from the early stages of the pandemic when delays undoubtedly, regrettably and tragically cost thousands of lives. Indeed, we know that plan B will not be enough to prevent another lockdown. Let us look at some of the current practices. I refer the Minister to one particular aspect of test and trace: the messages sent to people who have been in contact with somebody who has tested positive for Covid. Can he tell the Committee what impact those messages and their wording, which I would suggest is not carefully constructed, have had on compliance? Also, what assessment has been made of the user experience of the people receiving those messages? How often is the messaging reviewed?
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, talked about the power of communication. I suggest to the Minister that, for any of us who are in receipt of these messages, the advice on what to do is, at a minimum, confusing. It is overly directive on the matter of self-isolation and takes a considerable time to establish that self-isolation is not necessary if one has been double-vaccinated. I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on that.
Furthermore, the Government must get a grip on the stalling vaccination programme: it has left almost 5 million people at a greater risk of catching Covid, as they are yet to receive their booster jabs and are at the mercy of waning efficacy. The Government have said that the vaccination programme will continue to be our first line of defence; yet on current trends, we will not see completion of the booster programme until spring 2022. This seems rather slow.
We note also that the rate of vaccination for children is shamefully low as well. Vaccines for 12 to 15 year-olds in the UK started on 20 September and, to date, only 15% of 12 to 15 year-olds in England have received one shot. With hardly any protective measures and delayed vaccination, the return to school last month has seen record numbers of children becoming infected. For the last three weeks, we have seen an average of 10,000 new five to 14 year-olds testing positive for Covid every single day. Thousands are missing school, and this cannot continue.
As we approach a difficult winter, it seems that Ministers have failed to put in place the necessary measures to improve ventilation in businesses, public spaces and schools, despite better ventilation having been proven to reduce transmission of Covid. They have also failed to provide for proper sick pay and to fully resource local contact tracing teams, which would also help reduce the spread of the virus. This is no time for complacency. We urge the Government to act on vaccines, ventilation, sick pay and masks.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords—apologies while I remove my mask—I thank all noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this important debate, and for the range of views expressed in the best tradition of our debates. The Government see extending the No. 3 and self-isolation regulations until 24 March next year as vital to allow local authorities to respond to serious and imminent threats from Covid-19, but also to ensure that the self-isolation system continues to protect the public during the challenging winter ahead. I have listened to and have taken on board—and will take on board—many of the concerns raised here today.
The Government believe that the Coronavirus Act continues to be a critical part of our country’s response to this awful virus, which has touched every corner of our society. In terms of parliamentary scrutiny, I understand the points that have been made by many civil libertarians here today. The Government believe that the Coronavirus Act has enabled them to provide help and support to people, businesses and our public services, and to boost the healthcare workforce at a critical time of need. I assure noble Lords that we will continue to review every aspect of coronavirus legislation, but we are now able to expire seven provisions and part of a further power in the Coronavirus Act. I hope this demonstrates the Government’s commitment to, and progress towards, winding down the emergency powers.
The Government see themselves as taking only those powers that are critical to our response and recovery—for example, powers that help make sure that the NHS is properly resourced and that statutory sick pay is available to those who are self-isolating. It is always a very difficult balance; we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, that she would have preferred us to keep some of the other emergency provisions. The Government’s autumn and winter plan sets out how we hope to sustain and bolster the progress that we have made thus far.
I turn to some of the specific points made by noble Lords; I hope I will have the time to respond to as many as possible. If I do not respond to every point, I will make sure that I write to noble Lords in answer to their specific questions. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked when an SI would be laid. He also talked about unlawful convictions and incorrect charges, as many other noble Lords spoke eloquently about. I thank them for their contributions about the incorrect charging decisions under Schedule 21 to the Act. Of course it is regrettable that 295 incorrect charging decisions have been made under the Coronavirus Act. The primary issue that the Crown Prosecution Service has identified is that individuals were erroneously charged under Schedule 21 rather than under other legislation such as various health protection regulations. Since April 2020, the CPS has agreed to review all prosecutions made under the Coronavirus Act and it continues to do so. I hope, in some ways, that that reassures the noble Lord.
The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Scriven, my noble friend Lady Foster, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Fox and Lady Brinton, asked about parliamentary scrutiny. I know that this is an issue of concern to many noble Lords. The Government are confident that they have upheld their promise to allow for proper scrutiny and accountability of the powers in the Act. Many criticisms were levelled, which I understand, and I hope that noble Lords will continue to hold us to account on accountability. Maybe I can have some conversations offline with some noble Lords to make sure we do this as much as possible.
My noble friend Lord Balfe talked about living in the same street as former MEPs and doctors. He then went on to say that the doctors were his friends, but he did not say anything about whether the former MEPs were also his friends. I hope so, but I assure him that he still remains my noble friend.
On occasion, it has been necessary to introduce urgent measures to protect the NHS and save lives. The Government have committed to debates in advance of regulations coming into force wherever possible for measures of national significance. This included Parliament being recalled to debate the national lockdown in January, and debates and votes on regulations covering the tiers system; the steps regulations in March, which set the path for implementing the Government’s road map out of lockdown; and, in June, pausing the move to the next step of the road map.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, talked about impact assessments. On the evidence for decision-making, a full regulatory impact assessment was not prepared for many coronavirus regulations, as they fell under the civil contingencies exclusions of the better regulation framework. The Better Regulation Executive will not seek to enforce the current administrative requirement for validating impacts for temporary coronavirus legislation in advance of the wider reform of the better regulation framework.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Scriven, accused us of ignoring the scientific advice by not implementing plan B now and asked who is advising us and what the trigger points are. Our approach has always been informed by scientific and medical evidence, and by the latest data. We take evidence from the Chief Scientific Adviser, the Chief Medical Officer, SAGE, of course, as part of that, the UK Health Security Agency, the NHS and others. They remain valuable when we balance the evidence of scientific opinion. Scientific experts have contributed directly to ministerial discussions.
As we have heard in this debate, many noble Lords have contested the science or referenced certain reports. It shows that, even around this area, science is contestable. That has been revealed in the way the Government assess all these trade-offs. What is also interesting is that many people in other parts of the health sector are concerned about some of the provisions, such as the impact on mental health and other unintended consequences. All these have to be balanced. The Government have benefited from the expertise of their science and medical advisers through the pandemic and remain deeply grateful for the role they have played in saving lives and protecting the NHS.
In our debate on Thursday last, I mentioned the work of Professor Mark Pennington, professor of political economy at King’s College London, who talked about the response to the pandemic via decision-making. He talked about the situation being almost a Hayekian, complex system, with many individuals having incomplete knowledge or, as Hayek said, the conceit of knowledge. That expresses and shows the difference of opinion. This is a case where we have to weigh up many different views, particularly among the scientific community, and, in addition, some of the papers referenced today by many noble Lords.
Noble Lords have asked what the set threshold is. The Government and our scientific advisers monitor a wide range of Covid-19 health data, including on cases, immunity, the ratio of cases to hospitalisations, the proportion of admissions due to infection, the rate of growth in cases and hospital admissions in the over-65s, vaccine efficacy and the global distribution and characteristics of variants of concern. In assessing the risks to the NHS, the key metrics include: hospital occupancy for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients; intensive care unit capacity; admissions of vaccinated individuals; and the rate of growth of admissions. The Government also track the economic and societal impacts of the virus to ensure that any response takes those wider effects—that is, socioeconomic effects as well as those in the medical and scientific professions—into account and assesses that range of views. It is not necessarily a binary decision but a range of views that must be considered and weighed up. Noble Lords have expressed eloquently in this debate the range of scientific views and papers on Covid.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton —forgive me if I do not remember the others—asked how regularly SAGE meets. Throughout the pandemic, SAGE has been a vital source of co-ordinated scientific advice and technical support to help guide the Government’s response. However, as I have said previously, we also consider other bits of scientific advice. Committee members utilise the latest scientific research, insight and analysis from across government, academia and industry. As new evidence or data emerges, SAGE updates its advice accordingly. As Covid-19 was completely unknown to us less than two years ago, this means that some of the guidance provided in the earlier stages of the pandemic has now been superseded or amended to reflect our ever-evolving understanding of the virus.
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, asked about face coverings—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the Government’s approach to SAGE, but I have to say that it is rather confusing since SAGE clearly encompasses a wide range of scientific views. The Minister seems to be saying that it has been given a subordinated role, meeting only monthly, and, in essence, the Government are looking for other bits of scientific advice. I would like clarification on this because, for me at least, this is clearly a significant change in policy and practice.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. As I laid out earlier and have said formerly, the Government listen to a range of scientific advice, including from SAGE but also from the Chief Scientific Adviser, the Chief Medical Officer, the NHS and a range of other views.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I am sorry to pursue this but it seems to me that the Minister has made a very significant statement because all those people are on SAGE, as far as I am aware from looking at the minutes. I do not think that the Government can get away with simply saying, “We listen to a whole range of advice, including from SAGE”. Surely SAGE is the primary place from which the Government get advice.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I can only repeat what I have said previously but I will look at this in more detail and respond to the noble Lord if he is not satisfied with my response. I will try to make sure that I send a satisfactory response.
A number of noble Lords talked about the evidence around face coverings. Some noble Lords said that they definitely work. Others said, “No, there is no evidence that they work”. Others said, “Actually, they are useful as part of an overall package of other measures”. If the data suggests that the NHS is likely to come under unsustainable pressure, the Government will implement their prepared plan B. That is why we have explained it in advance: so that we cannot be accused of doing things at the last minute. Plan B would include legally mandating face coverings in certain settings, but we are not yet at that stage. The continued efforts of the public in practising safe behaviours and getting fully vaccinated will be critical to ensuring that the NHS does not come under unsustainable pressure.
Lord Scriven (LD)
This is an important issue that goes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. We keep hearing the phrase “when the time is right, we will implement plan B, if required”. Who will the Government take that advice from? Will it be SAGE, which, until now, has given the Government clear scientific advice that the Government have acted on—sometimes belatedly but they have done so? What are the criteria and who will give the advice on determining when the time is right within normal government business, if SAGE is no longer seen as having the primary role in advising, since its remit is during times of emergency?
Lord Kamall (Con)
Before I answer that in more detail, perhaps I may say that we are not putting SAGE into a subordinate role. It is independent and we rely on its advice. However, as I mentioned, we also rely on the Chief Scientific Adviser, the Chief Medical Officer, the UK Health Security Agency, the NHS and others, and balance up views within the scientific and medical professions. I hope I have also laid out the range of data that is examined. The decisions are data-led. We look at immunity, the ratio of cases to hospitalisations, proportional admissions and so on to see whether the data suggests that the NHS will be overwhelmed. That is what leads to the difficult decision-making and balancing up whether the time is right.
One noble Lord—I think my noble friend Lord Ridley —and many others referred to the research of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine showing the range of views. Some scientists are saying that the virus will grow while others are saying that if we keep doing what we are doing and rely on the booster vaccines, the numbers will drop off. As one can imagine, there is a range of views but I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that we have not relegated SAGE. It is independent and we listen to its advice, as we listen to the advice of others.
On face coverings, the point made by my noble friend Lord Robathan was interesting regarding people who say they are in favour of face coverings but, as he sees when he travels on public transport, a smaller percentage wear them. That shows some of the difficulties in polling, whereby there are stated preferences but also revealed preferences. Although many people say that they will do things, one should judge them by their behaviour. I note that my noble friends Lady Foster and Lord Ridley also raised concerns about the efficacy of wearing face masks.
SAGE evidence states that face coverings, if they are worn correctly and of suitable quality, are likely to be most effective, at least in the short to medium term, in reducing transmission indoors where social distancing is not feasible. Reviews by the UK Health Security Agency in June 2020 and January 2021 found evidence that the use of face coverings in the community helped to reduce transmission. Once again, we have a range of views on the efficacy of face masks.
My noble friend Lord Robathan talked about schools, universities and transmission. In universities, there have been low case numbers among students since the end of the 2020-21 academic year, although there have been slight increases in recent weeks.
My noble friends Lady Foster and Lord Ridley asked why the Act was not being repealed. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, also asked that. Throughout the pandemic, the Government have been clear that the measures will not be in place any longer than absolutely necessary. That is why we are expiring a number of powers in the Act and intend to expire even more when, we hope, there will be a significant landmark in our progress. The two-year lifespan of the temporary provisions of the Act was chosen to ensure that powers remain available for an appropriate length of time and can be extended by the relevant national authority.
My noble friend Lord Balfe asked about test and trace, and the cost. We have released £280 million in funding thus far, which is broken down as follows: £114 million to cover the costs of the main test and trace support system, £116 million for discretionary payments, and £50 million for administrative costs.
My noble friend Lord Naseby asked about minority vaccine uptake. He asked what the Government were doing to drive uptake among ethnic minority communities. We are well aware of this issue and a lot of work is being done with a number of local community associations to work out the best way to reach them. Only yesterday, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, about how we could tackle particular demographics and got some very valuable advice from her on how we could focus. I fed that into the department, so hopefully that will be part of our strategy. What we have seen is pop-up temporary vaccination sites at many places of worship and community locations. One of the things we have been advised is to go to where the unvaccinated are and to see how we can pursue a targeted campaign.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked whether there would be a charge for lateral flow tests. Anyone in England can continue to order free lateral flow tests. I am afraid that I am going to run out of time, so I will write to noble Lords.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
May I just make a point? My noble friend obviously spent a lot of time on certain aspects of this debate, but he tended to skip a little bit past the issue of whether plan B would be introduced. My question is—because I think it is very key—what exactly the benchmark would be to introduce something such as plan B. The NHS has been overwhelmed every year that I can remember during the winter for the last however many decades. At the moment, fewer than 5% of hospital beds are currently occupied by patients with Covid. I appreciate it is under pressure—we might have more flu cases, et cetera—but I would like a little bit of clarification on what the Government would see as that benchmark, because this is a big decision that I would not actually support.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. One of the difficult things about answering it—believe me, it frustrates me as much as it does the noble Baroness—is that there is no set indicator, no one silver bullet or trigger point. There is a range of indicators that we will balance up to measure how they will affect the NHS and whether the NHS will be overwhelmed.
I know it has been a difficult 18 months, and people across the UK have risen to the challenge of Covid-19. We hope that the Government’s support package has helped to safeguard jobs, businesses and public services. With continued perseverance during the autumn and winter months, supported by only those essential powers remaining in place, subject to the scrutiny of noble Lords, I hope that we will get through this. I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and previous debates: their expertise and the range of views expressed are hugely appreciated. I also thank everyone across the UK for the sacrifices that they have made over the period.
I end by repeating my earlier plea to everyone to do their bit. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care made clear, quite small changes can make a big difference. Both my noble friend Lord Naseby and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, mentioned messaging. We all have a role to play in combating this virus, especially during winter, which we know will be a challenging period. We can all do our bit by washing our hands regularly, continuing to wear masks in crowds and on public transport, testing regularly where appropriate, staying at home when we feel unwell, and, most importantly, getting fully vaccinated against both coronavirus and flu—and urging friends and family to do so. By remaining vigilant together, we can help limit the spread of the virus in the months ahead. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2021
(3 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kamall
That the Grand Committee do consider the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2021.
Relevant document: 15th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
House of Lords
Ofcom: Appointment of Chair
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bassam of Brighton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the timetable for the appointment of the Chair of Ofcom; and when they expect the appointment to be confirmed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, the campaign to appoint a permanent chairman of Ofcom will be launched imminently. The announcement will include the timetable, details of the advisory assessment panel and the selection criteria. It remains a priority for the Government to find the best candidate for the role. It will be a fair and open competition run in compliance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments and regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, the wheels certainly seem to have come off the latest attempt to instal Paul Dacre as Ofcom chair. Reports suggest that the Government are struggling to identify credible individuals with a record in business or public life even to form an interview panel. If the appointment meets rules for public appointments, does the Minister believe that it will be seen as credible or help with the delivery of important things such as the online harms agenda? What can he say to the House to reassure the public that this and other public appointments will meet the tests of fairness and impartiality?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, of course the process will meet those tests. We want to identify the best candidate for this important role. As I say, the recruitment process will be launched imminently. Preparations are under way to ensure that it is successful in providing Ministers with a choice of high-quality candidates drawn from a broad and diverse field and we encourage lots of people to apply on that basis.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Are the Government considering the adequacy of Ofcom’s current budget in light of the increasing number of critical functions that it is being asked to regulate, not least, as has been mentioned, the absolutely critical online safety arena?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
This is an important point that we have also discussed in the context of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which has its Third Reading in your Lordships’ House later today. The Government have been working closely with Ofcom to prepare for the new regulatory regime. This includes work to ensure that it has the resources to carry out its functions as regulator effectively and, vis-à-vis telecoms security, that includes another £4.6 million this year.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
Will the Minister listen to the Conservative chair of the Culture Select Committee in the other place, who demands that the Government make clear in their new advert for the chair of Ofcom that previously unsuccessful candidates such as Paul Dacre cannot reapply?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the very clear rules about public appointments mean that, in reopening the competition, everybody is allowed to apply, including people who had applied for the first round. I will not be drawn on specific people, but we want to ensure that a diverse and high-quality range of candidates apply and are put to Ministers to choose from.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that whoever has the post must demonstrate a total and absolute commitment to the highest standards of public service broadcasting? Secondly, can he comment on something that I have heard, which is that for some time now Channel 4 has not been able to appoint full members of the board because Ofcom has not been able to go through the process? Could that be speeded up?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I am not familiar with the noble Lord’s second point, but I will certainly take it away and look into it as he asks. Yes, this is an important role with responsibilities not just in broadcast but across the communications framework, which is why we want a high-quality range of candidates to apply for Ministers to choose from.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his role, this being my first opportunity to do so, although he may not welcome my question. In a recent speech, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, who will be much missed in this Chamber, said that
“when the Prime Minister actively—and repeatedly—intervenes to manipulate an ideological ally into the chairmanship of Ofcom, every alarm bell should start to ring.”
Given that one of the most important functions of Ofcom is to uphold the broadcasting impartiality regime, does the Minister agree that it would be unacceptable for the new chair to be someone with a long record of extreme political partisanship?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her welcome and join her in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, whose views will, I am sure, continue to be heard, even if not in your Lordships’ House. This is an important role, which needs impartiality and the appointment of which is governed by clear rules on public appointments. The process has been run along those lines so far and it will continue to be.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on the launch of their great comedy drama “Ofcom Succession”. My understanding is that the first process was stopped because the Government had failed to appoint a headhunter to seek out the highest-quality candidates to apply for this important role. Can my noble friend tell me, first, has a headhunter been appointed? Secondly, if so, who is it? Finally, can I have their phone number?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. Yes, following Cabinet Office approval and a fair and open tender process, an executive search firm has been appointed. It is Saxton Bampfylde and I am sure that its contact details are available on its website.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that, in seeking the right person for this role, the qualifications will include knowledge of the radio spectrum and the universal mail service, and not former experience as a newspaper editor?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the full criteria will be set out in the advert, which will go out once the new campaign is being run. The noble Baroness’s point about the range of areas in the sector that need to be regulated is a pertinent one.
Lord McNally (LD)
It is McNally—the noble Lord and I have known each other for only 30 years. It has already been pointed out that Ofcom will shortly be given unprecedented responsibilities for regulation, once the Bill on internet harms has passed this House. Noble Lords have already expressed widespread concern about how this appointment is being made. The Minister mentioned that an appointments panel is about to be appointed. Would it not restore public confidence if that panel were genuinely cross-party and independent in its judgments?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the appointments panel will of course be governed by the public appointments rules. The job description and the names of those on the assessment panel will be available on the public appointments website when the campaign relaunches. The noble Lord is right also to point to the importance of the ongoing preparatory work for Ofcom’s role in online safety.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
Now that I have my glasses on, I offer my sincere apologies to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Now I am sure that it is the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Will the Minister note that one specific issue that the new Ofcom chair needs to urgently address is an egregious example of compromised media impartiality due to the powerful lobby group Stonewall, as revealed by the superb BBC Sounds 10-part podcast series “Stephen Nolan Investigates” on the influence of Stonewall’s gender identity on the output of the BBC, skewing impartiality? Perhaps the Minister can comment on the content of episode 9 revealing that Ofcom itself was using its judgments on audience complaints as evidence to Stonewall, as though it was judge and jury, to prove its LGBT credentials. That is not comforting from a neutral regulator.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I have not heard that episode but the example that the noble Baroness points to underlines the importance of a free and fair media that scrutinises everyone in power, whether that is those in government or in lobby groups. It also reflects the importance of the BBC broadcasting a range of views in fulfilling that important role.
HGV Drivers
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to evaluate the success of the measures they have put in place to address the shortage of HGV drivers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, we have taken decisive action to address the acute driver shortage, with 25 specific measures taken by the Government already to support the industry as it resolves this long-standing workforce issue. We are seeing results, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency dealing with around 4,200 applications daily, more than double the pre-Covid rate.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, we have a truly world-beating driver shortage in the UK. Given that the last time we discussed this the Minister said that the problem goes back to 2010, can she explain why the Government have had to resort to government by panic button, with some 25 last-minute measures to try to avert a crisis? Why was there no long-term plan to improve pay rates and conditions in order to attract the new entrants that the Government now say are so needed?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I think that I will probably say this many times: the haulage sector is a private sector and the Government do not customarily get involved in individual pay rates within those sorts of sectors. We have been working with the sector to address this issue. Indeed, many years ago now we commissioned a study into the availability of lorry parking and we are doing another one to see what we can do in that regard. So it is not fair to say that we have not been cognisant of this issue for quite some time. We have been working with the industry because it is mostly up to the industry to resolve it.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, this crisis was eminently predictable in light of the age profile of UK haulage drivers and the prospect of Brexit. Do the Government now recognise that temporary visas and increased testing capacity will not resolve the basic problem? Do Ministers accept that in order to attract and retain the next generation of HGV drivers we need not only to provide more training, increase pay and stop the permanent escalation of hours but to improve working conditions, particularly adequate and hygienic facilities at lorry parks, which are provided by public authorities in much of the continent but not here, so that too many drivers have to sleep in their cabs?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I think that the noble Lord has just pointed out the complex and convoluted nature of the solutions to this problem, which is indeed long-standing. I say again that we are working closely with the industry on this. Of course it is not just the haulage industry that has skin in this game; it is also the people who provide services to the haulage industry. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that I am working with National Highways to figure out what we can do to improve services at motorway service areas and to see whether we can develop some more.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, the information recently disclosed is that there was a backlog of some 56,000 HGV licences that were being delayed in the process, as well as delays in driver training, by the DVSA. This caused an outrage and, in addition, the threat of industrial action. Will the Minister please tell us what steps the Government have taken to address these issues?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I reassure my noble friend that I have had several conversations with the DVLA on this matter. I assure her that currently there is no backlog at all for provisional vocational licences; these are being processed within the normal turnaround time. As of Monday, there were 27,000 applications for vocational driving licences awaiting processing. However, the holders of the vast majority of those, which are renewals, will of course still be able to drive under Section 88 provisions.
On the strike at the DVLA, it was and remains extremely unwelcome and unjustified. The PCS has repeatedly claimed that increasing the backlog is a success. I do not agree; that is not a success. It is impacting our supply chains and those people who need to use their cars to travel. However, I also point out that the vast majority of DVLA staff are not striking, and I welcome the work that they do.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, does the Minister believe that we can learn from others, including our European neighbours, in the provision of dedicated roadside facilities, such as the Relais Routiers network of over 1,200 restaurants with safe parking and shower facilities? These are popular with British HGV drivers when they drive through France. The UK has no such dedicated facilities for lorry drivers, and we are in urgent need of them.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am not sure we will necessarily follow the French example, but I accept that we need to improve the quality and quantity of facilities for our drivers and the availability of lorry parking for rest breaks. Obviously, I am working very closely with the owners and operators of the 114 motorway service areas we have. Of course, there are countless other providers of facilities that are away from the strategic road network. I agree that we need to improve them and perhaps there might be something more about that in the spending review.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
No one should object to heavy goods vehicle drivers being paid a lot more for the valuable work they do, but now we read that some local authorities are facing shortages of drivers of refuse collection vehicles and gritters because they are leaving for newly substantially higher-paid driving jobs for supermarket chains, among others. Since this is a direct spin-off from the Government’s own hard Brexit, will the Government commit to reimbursing cash-strapped local authorities for the cost of paying drivers of refuse collection vehicles and gritters more to retain their services and ensure the maintenance of these vital public services this winter?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As the noble Lord knows, there is a shortage of lorry drivers across Europe so we would not necessarily have been able to rely on cheap EU labour in the current situation. I accept there will be a transition from where we were previously to where we are now. Some people will move jobs and I accept that the key to that is to increase training for HGV drivers. We are providing the tests and working with the training sector to provide training so that people can come through and drive our garbage disposal trucks and gritters.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton? Not present? I call the noble Lord, Lord Mann.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
If I were a foreign lorry driver, I would go home for Christmas knowing that on 1 January I would get another big cash bonus to retake up a lorry driving job. Considering that, can the Government guarantee that we will all have our turkeys available on Christmas Day this year?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As I think I have tried to point out, the Government are extremely active in this area: 25 measures and counting in terms of making sure that we not only address the short-term issues but consider the medium and long-term solutions to this current shortage.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My noble friend may not be aware that I am the honorary president of the UK Warehousing Association. It is deeply concerned about the shortage of forklift truck drivers, which is impacting once again on the supply chain. What can my noble friend do to work with the industry to try to resolve the situation in the run-up to Christmas so that we can empty the warehouses and get the supply chain moving as best we can?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am very happy to work with the UK Warehousing Association on any measures we can take to increase the number of forklift truck drivers coming through. In return, I would really like the UK Warehousing Association to encourage its members to provide decent facilities and places to have a rest for HGV drivers when they are dropping off.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister indicate what assessment has been undertaken of the potential impact on the availability of HGV drivers after the Government impose checks on goods coming in from the EU as a result of the Government’s hard Brexit?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
We do not believe there will be an impact from any checks coming from the EU.
Public Services
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review (1) the comparative costs, and (2) the effectiveness, of the provision of public services in England by (a) local authorities, and (b) private contractors.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
Local authorities are required to support continuous improvement through the delivery of their functions under the Local Government Act 1999. They decide how to run services. Services can be outsourced, or delivered jointly with another authority, provided that quality and value for money are maintained. As public bodies, they are subject to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Central government provides funding, improvement support and overall oversight. There are no current plans for a central review.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, this Question was prompted by the Government’s choice on test and trace to turn to multinational companies and expensive consultancy firms instead of making use of the expertise of local government and local public health officers. But it applies more widely: after 50 years of outsourcing, and having acquired experience on outsourcing local transport, probation services and others, will the Government not consider that the time has come to conduct an independent inquiry—or would they prefer an inquiry to be undertaken by an ad hoc Lords committee, for example?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I think the specific question relates to test and trace; I am sure that is part of the review of our response to the pandemic. But as a former local authority leader, I agree with the noble Lord’s comments about the experience that local government has in the competitive tendering of services.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, given my local government interest, I know it is not how services are provided but if services can be provided. For example, social care—a service provided by both public and private organisations—requires an extra £2 billion a year. Does the Minister agree with the Conservative County Councils Network, which says that council tax will need to rise by 8% each year so that basic social care needs can be met?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is for every council to decide what level of council tax it needs to set. Obviously, there is a latitude to increase council tax by up to 2% to help support the additional social care costs, but the Government have set out their plan to increase funding to social care, as the noble Baroness knows.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, many of us who remember the days when local authority direct labour organisations had a monopoly on public services such as refuse collection welcomed the decision in the 1980s to open these services to competition—a decision that has not been reversed since. Given all the pressure on local authorities today, is now the right time to encourage them to invest manpower and capital to re-enter this market?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I agree with my noble friend. There has been a tremendous success in the competitive tendering of services that has driven down cost and increased value for money for the taxpayer, and also seen an improvement in the delivery of local services. It is not surprising that £64 billion is now paid out by local government to private companies to deliver those services. Although local authorities have the powers to trade and charge, they should think very carefully before they decide to move back to the situation before the introduction of competitive tendering.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Does the Minister think there are any features of some services that make them completely unsuitable for outsourcing? I am thinking of life and death matters such as firefighting or test and trace; extremely vulnerable service users in prisons or secure academies; or natural monopolies such as polluting water companies.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
As the Fire Minister, I certainly recognise the importance of the delivery of the vast majority of our fire and rescue services through people who are currently employed by local government. As a former council leader, I know there is a whole host of statutory areas where you would seek to deliver services through people who are directly employed. But increasingly there are areas where you can drive down costs through competitive tendering. That also gives in-house services the opportunity to compete with the market to see whether they can deliver those services more effectively. Competition does drive down costs and increases the quality of the services provided.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Lord, Lord Flight, is not present, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, could I point to a case in Shropshire? The Conservative-run council has spent £1,000 a day on a pothole consultant. Does the Minister believe that this private contractor represents value for money?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I am not going to get into the use of consultants by a particular council, irrespective of the administration currently in control. A number of councils, both Conservative and Labour, have been subject to Secretary of State interventions because they have failed to fulfil their best-value duties. I point to the most recent intervention in Liverpool City Council, where, sadly, we have had to step in.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I declare my positions as a vice-president of the LGA and the NALC. Would the Minister agree that, in this age of shocks, when resilience is becoming more and more of a crucial issue—we addressed this in the last Question, on HGV drivers—eventually, if things go wrong and companies collapse, like Carillion, or fail to deliver services, as happened with the green homes grant, the Government have to step in and are always the final service of last resort? Surely we should stop pumping public money into private hands—taking all those risks of collapse that we have seen so often with private companies—cut out those extra costs and simply allow local governments to deliver services for local people?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it will not surprise you that I do not agree with that. Some £64 billion-worth of money is being spent by local government on the delivery of very efficient services through the private sector, but you have to be very careful about how you engage. There are plenty of examples where local authorities have not used competitive tendering but have chosen to enter into partnerships, which have had tragic consequences in the last year because of the pandemic. So I encourage local authorities to be judicious, fulfil the guidelines that are supplied around procurement, go through sensitive competitive tendering and check the creditworthiness of those whom they choose to bring on board.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
Many of the firms to which the functions of local authorities have been outsourced are motivated by considerations other than public service: the profit motive is dominant. I am aware of one firm, to which the traffic and parking services have been outsourced, that has been issuing spurious penalty charge notices for traffic offences. Their operatives are working under an incentive scheme. Their supposition is that many people will automatically pay the penalties, fearing that, if they do not, the charges will be doubled and they may be taken to court. Do the Government have any desire or means to address such abuses?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, revenue from parking is ring-fenced, and most local authorities would never incentivise any staff who are doing this to start to fine—
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
As someone who spent 16 years in local government, I certainly know that we ensured that we never incentivised our staff in relation to the volume of tickets and the revenue that they could collect. It is important to increase productivity and to have sensible oversight of these matters.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, on what the Minister just said, as a former councillor I know that such incentives do apply in some local councils. In any case, in any likely future review of government strategic effectiveness in the allocated cost of public services, will the Minister consider ring-fencing relevant funds for some specific services, such as those for domestic violence, social care for people living with disabilities and mental health conditions, and drug services for young people? Secondly, with regard to the private sector, will the Minister ensure that all contractors are fully cognisant of, and compliant with, our ambitious equality standards, including on their senior management and boards?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, a significant amount of the councils’ budget is already ring-fenced, including adult social care. It is for local councils to determine how they spend their resources to ensure that they meet local needs. The core spending power in the most recent local government settlement increased from £49 billion to £51.3 billion in this financial year. The ring-fencing of budgets can have the deleterious effect of forcing councils to do something that is not necessarily in the immediate interests of their local residents.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked, and we now move to the next Question.
Insulate Britain
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the costs to (1) public services, and (2) the wider economy, of the recent campaign by Insulate Britain of obstructing motorways and major roads.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, Insulate Britain’s irresponsible actions have disrupted thousands of people’s lives. National Highways estimates that the financial impact on drivers from time lost during just three days of disruption totals £559,946. This does not include the costs of missed appointments or of managing the incidents, disruption to manufacturing or retail, or the impact of disruption on other days. These costs would have been even higher without prompt action by the police to remove protesters and free up traffic.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, according to the Observer at the weekend, Insulate Britain activists are baffled as to why they are not in jail already. They thought that their campaign would be over in two days, rather than being allowed to go on for five weeks. I think that the rest of the country rather shares their bafflement. As they resume their very expensive campaign of disrupting ordinary people’s lives, can my noble friend say that the Government both have and will deploy the necessary legal powers to bring them before a court of law?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
We are investigating all possible legal avenues to bring these people to justice. National Highways and Transport for London have both rapidly put in place injunctions to deter these sort of dangerous actions. Only yesterday, the High Court granted National Highways an interim injunction banning activities which obstruct traffic and access on any part of the strategic road network—that is, all motorways and major A roads. Last Friday, National Highways applied for committal for contempt of court in respect of nine individuals suspected of breaching injunctions. If found to be in breach, these individuals could face an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that what appears to have been a cunning plan by the secret society of evil net-zero sceptics to get Insulate Britain to undermine the appeal of the Green movement was brilliantly executed? Was it not a particular triumph to choose upper middle-class twits to confront ordinary people trying to get to work or school? Was it not a stroke of genius to make sure that some of them had not insulated their own homes? Does she agree that it is surprising that the environmental movement has not yet seen through this stunt?
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, there is no doubt that the activities of the Insulate Britain campaign have caused problems and disruption for many people. I guess that was the point. Does the Minister agree that these problems will come to be seen as trivial when compared to the disruption we shall all face to our lives if we fail to address climate change?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
This Government have one of the strongest records in the world in tackling climate change, and I fear that using the word “trivial” in relation to this disruption is a poor choice of word. Insulate Britain has said that days of disruption are necessary to force the Government to act. This is just a small, rag-tag group of people who will not force the Government to do anything.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am sure that most of your Lordships’ House have been on demonstrations or protests during their lives, even if they do not want to admit it now. Those demonstrations were different: the police were involved beforehand and looked to make sure that the law was not broken. What we are seeing here are people who have gone out deliberately to obstruct ordinary daily life. Some of the demonstrators have said that they think they are not being arrested and charged properly and ending up in prison because of the COP 26 conference. There is a kind of feeling that they do not want people to be in jail for anything vaguely to do with climate change. Can the Minister confirm or deny this?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
It certainly has nothing at all to do with COP 26. Obviously, certain matters are operational matters for the police, but the noble Baroness is right: we all know of good protests. Getting a million people out on the streets on a Saturday afternoon where the police have been told in advance, where there is a good level of public support and where you do not destroy any statues is a good protest. Insulate Britain members are not good protesters.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Climate change is the major challenge of our time, and winning public support for the cause is critical. Blocking roads and antagonising people is not going to achieve that objective.
This week, the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has significantly extended London’s ultra-low emission zone. The Evening Standard yesterday said that it backed Sadiq Khan in
“taking steps to clean up our city’s toxic air and cut our carbon emissions in the process.”
Do the Government also back Sadiq Khan on this, regarding it too as an effective example of how the ballot box can prove to be an effective way for people to respond to the climate crisis?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As the noble Lord will know, we probably have a much closer relationship with the Mayor of London than we would ordinarily have at the moment. Although transport is devolved in London, owing to a substantial hole in TfL’s finances we have to provide it with quite significant funding every now and again. Indeed, the last deal we agreed with the mayor included that there would be no change to the extension of ULEZ.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, the laws already exist to deal with this matter, but the police are just not using their operational freedom to put them into effect. Could the police be advised that there would be a lot of public support if they were to use their influence and arrest people, and a few of them could spend a few days in prison? It might put them off further action.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As I noted, policing matters are an operational matter for the police, but I am sure that the Metropolitan Police will have heard my noble friend’s wise words.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Austin of Dudley. No, he is not present. In that case, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, as of March last year the cost of road congestion in the UK was £7 billion, estimated at £784 per driver. Clearly, the Government are irresponsible to let that congestion go ahead and really ought to have a plan to reduce it that does not involve building more roads, which actually will attract more traffic. Would the Minister like to say something about that? Plus—Insulate Britain is right. Its tactics might be colossally difficult for us to cope with, but it is right that the Government should be insulating the leakiest council housing homes in Britain, rather than allowing those people to spend cold winters, be ill and emit endless CO2 emissions.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Well, I am just relieved that the noble Baroness did not stand up and agree with her fellow eco-warriors. As I have previously set out, this Government have a very strong record on tackling climate change. I point the noble Baroness to the transport decarbonisation plan, published by the Department for Transport, which clearly sets out exactly how we intend to decarbonise our transport system.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, that concludes Oral Questions for today.
Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 2) Regulations 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the draft Regulations and Orders laid before the House on 19 July and 6 September be approved.
Relevant documents: 12th and 14th Reports from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 19 October.
Organics (Equivalence and Control Bodies Listing) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
The Earl of Courtown
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 6 July be approved.
Relevant document: 11th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument). Considered in Grand Committee on 19 October.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Water and Sewerage Undertakers (Exit from Non-household Retail Market) (Consequential Provision) Regulations 2021
The Earl of Courtown
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 20 July be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 19 October.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Minister, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Telecommunications (Security) Bill
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 View all Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 15-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (15 Oct 2021)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords from all sides of the House who have contributed to our debates during the passage of this Bill so far. Although that journey is not complete, their work has certainly helped us to interrogate the Bill and improve it. In particular, I would like to use this opportunity to thank my noble friend Lady Barran, who so expertly guided the Bill up to Committee; I was pleased to hear the tributes and thanks to her on Report a few days ago.
Throughout the passage of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, have helpfully challenged the Government’s approach from the Opposition Front Bench. I thank them for the constructive way they have done so and for their diligent approach, along with the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Clement-Jones, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, who have also applied keen-eyed scrutiny throughout the Bill’s passage so far. Although we have not always agreed on the fine detail, it is clear that we all share the same ambition: to keep our telecoms networks secure.
I also thank my noble friends on these Benches, particularly my noble friends Lady Morgan of Coates, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Young of Cookham, Lady Stroud, Lord Balfe and Lord Naseby for their contributions. The scrutiny that has been applied has already resulted in legislation that will allow the UK to protect our telecoms networks for years to come. It would be remiss of me not to extend my thanks also to parliamentary counsel for their usual brilliance in drafting the Bill, and to the House authorities for ensuring that the parliamentary stages could take place so seamlessly, including during the challenging circumstances of recent months.
I close by thanking the officials within my department, most of whom have been working on this Bill for well over a year now. Their knowledge, organisation and patience has allowed me, and I hope all noble Lords, to understand and scrutinise with relative ease what is a technical but very important Bill. It is a large Bill team and I make no apology for listing their names; it illustrates the breadth of work that has gone into what is quite a technical Bill. I thank Kathryn Roe, John Peart, Byron Grant, Thea Macdonald, Euan Onslow, Alex Walford, Malcolm Campbell, Dan Tor, Rosemary Buckland, Chris Frampton, Charlotte Carew, Will Jones, Yohance Drayton, and our lawyers, Sean Murray, Martha Hartridge, Simon Gomes, Luke Emmons, Richard Lancaster, May Wong, Harriet Preedy, Julia Clayson, Sean Wilson and Matthew Smith. All of them have supported the passage of this Bill excellently.
As my predecessor said at Second Reading:
“The Bill will … protect our telecoms networks even as technologies grow and evolve, shielding our critical national infrastructure both now and for the future.”—[Official Report, 29/6/21; col. 707.]
I am encouraged that your Lordships’ House agrees that the Bill will achieve this, and I beg to move.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, this has been my first Bill since I joined your Lordships’ House a little over six months ago. Some would say that I was thrown in at the deep end but in my view, I was simply given the opportunity to swim in rather warm and pleasant parliamentary waters. It has been fascinating and enjoyable and I am very glad that my first Bill has been such an important one for the security of the nation.
The Minister has of course been a constant throughout consideration of this Bill, and we saw his worth recognised as he was promoted from the important role of Whip to the Minister tasked with bringing the Bill home. I thank him for the courteous and professional manner in which he has conducted himself throughout, and I also express my thanks to the former Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. From these Benches, we also express our gratitude to the Bill team, the clerks, the staff of the House—indeed, all those who have worked front of house as well as behind the scenes to make this Bill possible.
Throughout, it has been my pleasure to work with my noble friend Lord Coaker, who has brought his valuable experience and knowledge to proceedings. We have been blessed to have the highly professional support of Dan Harris, our excellent adviser who has guided and advised us throughout, to whom we express our thanks. Her Majesty’s Opposition strongly believe that our nation’s security is above party politics, and I thank all noble Peers who have worked cross party on this Bill.
New technologies have long transformed how we work, live and, of course, travel. Our experiences during the pandemic have upped the ante on the degree to which we rely on telecommunications networks. At the same time, it has reinforced how intertwined these networks are with issues of national security, including the top priority of any Government: to protect its citizens from risk. This Bill is a necessary step to protect us.
I am very glad to welcome the Government’s acceptance of our arguments that codes of practice, to be issued by the Secretary of State to telecoms providers, must first come before Parliament. However, the Bill raised key questions and concerns, especially given the absence of an effective plan to diversify the supply chain and in respect of our telecom security depending on strengthening our international bonds, in particular through the Five Eyes, involving the UK, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his work on that issue.
I hope that the other place will give sympathetic consideration to the changes we have made on both those matters, and that the Minister will recognise that the amendments passed by your Lordships’ House make serious and important improvements to the Bill and have widespread support across the Chamber. My concluding wish for this Bill is that the Government will reflect and feel able to support these improvements to the Bill and the security they provide.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister said, this Bill entered the other place a year ago. It has variously been urgent, in the long grass, urgent again and now quite close to passing. I will not delay its passage many more seconds. I have shelved my inner churl, but I absolutely sign up to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron. There are outstanding issues that your Lordships commented on and put into the Bill as amendments that I hope can be picked up. I hope that when this Bill is finally put to bed, it really does protect the security of this country, and we will work, on these Benches, to help make that happen. There is a lot of unfinished business in this area. I fear that the Minister himself, or one of his successors, may very well be bringing other Bills before your Lordships quite soon.
I thank the Ministers, first the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and then the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for their work and their willingness to communicate with those of us who were seeking to scrutinise this Bill. I join the noble Lord in congratulating the DCMS Bill team, and I hope he did not leave anybody out. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on their legislative debuts. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his spirited, highly principled and really important, contributions on the Bill.
Finally, I thank my noble friends Lord Clement-Jones and Lady Northover, without whom this scrutiny would not have been complete, and Sarah Pughe, our legislative officer, for her invaluable support. With that, we wish this Bill onwards, with speed and effectiveness, because it has a very important job to do.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, before we pass this Bill, may I add to a comment to what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said? I express my thanks as well to everyone who was on the long list that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, gave us, but also to his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. As Ministers, I do not think they could have been more helpful and more responsive to the points we made both in Committee and on Report.
My noble friend also mentioned the all-party amendment moved last week by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, which we also raised in Committee. It raises the need for reviews to take place when another jurisdiction—specifically, in this case, many of us cited the United States of America—had banned a particular company which was not banned in the United Kingdom but working within the telecommunications sector.
One example the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I gave in our debates was Hikvision, which is banned in the United States. It makes the surveillance cameras that are used punitively against the Uighur people in Xinjiang but are also used in our own high streets and public buildings. That amendment called for a review: that when any such company is banned in another Five Eyes jurisdiction, it is to be reviewed in the United Kingdom. It is a very reasonable all-party amendment, but it was opposed by the Government. Before the Minister completes his remarks today, could he tell us what has happened to that amendment and how the Government intend to respond to it?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I was remiss in not adding to the long list of names I read out those of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who signed that cross-party amendment to which the noble Lord just referred. Of course, the amendment goes to the other place, which will look at it, the official record and the debate we had on it. I am sorry I was not able to persuade the noble Lord and my noble friend of it, but I will work with my colleagues in DCMS to make sure that they take into account the views of your Lordships’ House as expressed in the vote. I will not pre-empt the debates that will be had in another place, but I look forward to seeing what it sends us back in continuing that debate.
In the spirit which all noble Lords have mentioned today of wanting to see this important Bill on the statute book swiftly but with the proper scrutiny that both places want to give it, I beg to move.
NHS England Funding: Announcement to Media
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
The Minister must by now be aware of the chronic staff shortages in the NHS. He will also be aware of the desperate state of some of our buildings in the NHS, and indeed the inadequate facilities for some of our mental health wards. This announcement mentions diagnostic staff, of which already one in 10 are missing. There is a 55% shortage of consultant oncologists, a shortage of radiologists, a shortage of specialist cancer nurses and, so far, no comprehensive NHS staff plan. Could the Minister tell the House who will run the proposed diagnostic centres? Will it be the NHS? Where will the staff for the diagnostic centres, surgical theatres and to operate the new equipment come from?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Since 2010, we have increased the clinical radiology workforce by 48%, from 3,239 to 4,797 full-time equivalent posts. Numbers of diagnostics radiographers are up by 33% since 2010 and therapeutic radiographers are up by 44%. We are offering those who want to join the radiographic workforce at least £5,000 as a non-repayable grant for each year of their training to be a radiographer. Since 2016, we have seen a 26% increase in those studying diagnostic radiography and a 10% increase in those studying therapeutic radiography.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the £5.9 billion in the Chancellor’s early announcement is to pay for physical infrastructure and equipment, not for current services. The NHS Confederation says that next year’s NHS funding allocations are nowhere near enough either. Last week, the Royal Cornwall Hospital declared a critical incident in its A&E department when it had 100 patients in the 40-bed department and 25 ambulances queuing. Its ambulance service is also under intense pressure, reporting that 50 ambulances have queued at times—again, that is much larger than the actual department. This is echoed across the country. How will Ministers help A&E departments and ambulance services in crisis right now?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness refers to what she sees as the workforce shortage. The Government are fully committed to supporting our health and care professionals and to making sure that we have the right number of people with the right skills to deliver excellent patient care and support the increased elective activity committed to under Build Back Better: Our Plan for Health and Social Care. The Chancellor will confirm to the House our three-year settlement for wider health budgets at the spending review on Wednesday, which will support the NHS to undertake long-term planning for the workforce and elective recovery. I will write to the noble Baroness on specific staff numbers for A&E.
Lord Laming (CB)
I wonder whether the Minister would agree that the NHS cannot succeed without adequate social care. In the last seven days we have had two reports that show just how vulnerable the social care system is. Can the Minister sign up to a new agreement to protect the NHS by supporting social care? That was absent in this statement.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that suggestion. We see social care as incredibly important, which is why we will soon have before the House a health and social care Bill to make sure that we look at both health and social care, from birth all the way through one’s life.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the sum of £5.9 million, which comes on top of the additional commitments that were previously made by the Government. However, it remains the case that, with demographic changes, an ageing population and many more chronic diseases and illnesses, we will see a rise in cost. Can my noble friend say whether there is an active plan to look at a forward-thinking strategy as to how we will deal with this funding in the long term?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. Last week we had a discussion on healthy ageing and making sure that the population of the UK is able to live healthy lives for longer. That is very much part of the overall thinking on health reform and we hope to have more details in due course.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that Ministers are dealing with workforce shortages. But surely he knows that, throughout the health service, there is a critical crisis. No one is in charge; it does not seem to be the responsibility of Ministers, Health Education England or NHS England. Who will sort this out and who will be held to account?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord makes a valid point on workforce shortages. The Chancellor will confirm wider health budgets at the spending review, which is in only a few more days. We have already increased training places this year and will feed through into the available workforce. Ensuring that we have the workforce necessary to support this expansion will be driven by a combination of things, such as enforced workforce productivity, including from the spending review digital diagnostic investments, which are expected to deliver a 10% to 15% workforce productivity uplift. We are also looking at existing Health Education England funding, which will provide a pipeline for growth in training numbers.
Lord Cormack (Con)
I congratulate my noble friend on an auspicious beginning to his ministerial career. But I also draw his attention to the wording of this Urgent Question, which mentioned an “announcement to the media”. I give strong support to Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the other place for rebuking the Government for time and again bypassing Parliament. The Government are answerable to Parliament—that is fundamental to our constitution. It is an absolute disgrace that, time after time, Ministers blab to the press before making Statements in either House.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My noble friend makes a valuable point. It is important that we are accountable to Parliament, and we will continue to be so. I hope that the fact I am here today shows a willingness to be accountable to Parliament.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The Minister has just said in a previous answer that, to deal with the social care crisis, a Bill will be coming forward. The crisis is now. Care homes are not able to take people and are turning them away because of the lack of staff. You will not clear hospitals while social care cannot hope. What will the Government do now to deal with the social care crisis in this country?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The money that has been announced is for April 2022 onwards, for three years. In dealing with the specific issue now, believe me, we are having conversations within the department and elsewhere about how we address some of the issues that people are raising with us.
Lord Patel (CB)
Going back to the Question on the Order Paper, can the Minister state whether it is the Government’s intention to involve the private sector in delivering some of these diagnostics? If so, will they be paying the private sector tariff or the NHS tariff?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. It is important that we recognise that this is a public/private partnership and that we make sure that we can rely on expertise and investment from the private sector. On the specific question, I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I point out that the NHS has an insatiable capacity to spend money. I put it to the Minister that political control must be re-exerted over the NHS. Nye Bevan did not found the NHS by asking civil servants to do it. I encourage the Minister to bring a Bill to this House PDQ to get political control back into the NHS and into running it.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the very important point he has raised. A friend of mine with completely different politics from me—probably closer to that of noble Lords on the Benches opposite—once said to me, “The thing about working in the NHS is that we always want more money and we are always looking at how to balance that when we get more money”. I think it is important for the public, but also for workers, staff and patients, that we remember value for money and ensure that we spend as productively as possible.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, every NHS provider and professional group is telling the Government that the key shortage in the NHS is staff—and staff who are not exhausted. Can the Minister share with the House the evidence that led the Government to conclude that what the NHS needs above all else for the next three years is kit?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness makes a valuable point. We appreciate the hard work that the NHS workforce—doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals—has put in. This announcement lays out how we will be spending on more kit but also how productivity will help take some of the pressures off the NHS workforce.
Sexual Misconduct in the Police
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Coaker (Lab)
Since the dreadful murder of Sarah Everard and the appalling revelations of the abuse of police powers by her killer, there have been many other shocking allegations of the failure of the police to deal with misogyny and sexism in their own ranks. Today, we learned from the Independent Office for Police Conduct that, in the last three years, 66 officers and members of staff have faced disciplinary proceedings for alleged abuse of position for a sexual purpose; let alone those not reported, that is a big rise in the last year. The trust we rightly have in the police is everything. What, as well as the inquiries, are the Government doing now to change a culture where there are too many examples of totally inappropriate behaviour, which, at its worst, allowed a serving police officer nicknamed “The Rapist” to continue in post?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
I must join the noble Lord in expressing my disgust. Every one of those numbers represents a person who has been the victim of sexual misconduct by a serving police officer. On the one hand, any number is too many but, on the other hand, we should look to the legislation that we introduced last year to give additional powers to the IOPC. That includes the power of initiative, which allows it to bring forward and investigate allegations without requiring referral from the police. In addition, forces must refer all allegations of serious sexual offences or of police officers abusing their position for a sexual purpose to the IOPC. For the first time now, the Home Office will be able to collect and publish data on internal sexual misconduct by officers, and we aim to publish the first tranche in the new year.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I was a police officer for over 30 years, and I want to be proud of that fact. We do not need working groups, inquiries, inspections and a task force to reassure the public. When will the Home Secretary give the Independent Office for Police Conduct the additional resources that it needs to effectively investigate sexual abuse by police officers? As a former Home Secretary did with racism after the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence, when will she tell police chiefs: “Misogyny is a problem and you must address it now”? That is not just what we want. It is what every decent, honest, hard-working police officer wants.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I repeat my response to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that every report or allegation of police misconduct for a sexual purpose must be referred to the IOPC. It will be up to individual force chiefs to decide but if it is sexual misconduct it must be referred to the IOPC. We have that additional layer in that the IOPC now has the power of initiative. Decisions on whether officers have committed sexual misconduct, and, if so, what sanctions there ought to be, are for misconduct panels led by the independent, legally qualified chairs.
Additionally, following the recommendations of the Zoë Billingham report, we will be working closely with the new national police lead for tackling VAWG, DCC Maggie Blyth, who took up the post recently to address the report’s findings and drive forward improvements in policing’s response to VAWG.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
The Minister appreciates that trust in the police has taken a real hit, particularly among young women. Given the problems that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, had with non-co-operation from the Metropolitan Police—including, I am sorry to say, the commissioner—with her Home Office review of the Daniel Morgan case, will the Government please consider putting the new inquiry announced by the Home Secretary on a full statutory footing, with powers of compulsion?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that question and for the conversation that we had the other day on this matter. On whether the inquiry could be on a statutory footing, one change since February 2020, when we amended the law, is that police officers are now under a duty to co-operate as witnesses with investigations, inquiries and formal proceedings under the revised standards of professional behaviour. They are guilty of a disciplinary offence if they fail to do so. On the fundamental question, should we assess it necessary, the inquiry can be converted into a statutory inquiry where witnesses can be compelled to give evidence.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a practical measure which would enhance the confidence that women have in the police force would be for any officer against whom a credible complaint of sexual misconduct is made to be immediately suspended, and that it is not good enough for this matter to be left, as it currently is, to the discretion of chief constables?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Officers can be and are suspended for allegations of misconduct. Every case is different, so it is left to the discretion of police chiefs to decide on a case-by-case basis. I would not want to make a blanket determination because there may be spurious allegations. It would be up to the police chief in question to determine whether a suspension was relevant or appropriate.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, following the terrible, tragic murder of Sarah Everard and all the revelations that followed after the conviction of Wayne Couzens, it became very clear that there needs to be a serious culture change within sections of the police force. In order for that to happen root and branch, there needs to be change in the atmosphere where women and other police officers—we have heard particularly from female police officers—have witnessed this kind of toxic behaviour but felt unable to do anything about it, or, if they complained, felt that they were ostracised or demoted. What is being done about that specifically to enable whistleblowers or serving police officers to come forward to report such behaviour and to ensure that it will be dealt with properly?
Also, Commissioner Cressida Dick has announced that when plain-clothes police officers stop a lone woman, they will now have to video call into a police station for an identity check to prove that they are actually a serving police officer—something called Safe Connection. How would that have helped in the case of Sarah Everard? Wayne Couzens was a serving police officer, so it would not have helped.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I have the utmost sympathy with the second part of the noble Baroness’s question, because, were I to have been stopped by that killer, I would have complied. Something that is at the forefront of the Home Secretary’s mind, and must be on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s mind, is trust in the police. Such events are, mercifully, rare—in fact, I do not know of one that is the same in my lifetime—but the noble Baroness absolutely hits on the point: had the same thing been repeated under what the Metropolitan Police has suggested, would it have happened again? That gives both the Metropolitan Police and the Home Secretary something that they need to—and will—reflect on.
On culture, again, I totally concur with the noble Baroness’s point, and the second part of the inquiry will look at a range of relevant issues, from policing culture to whether enough is being done to join up, identify and report patterns of behaviour of those individuals who could go on to abuse their policing powers.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, the police are in the middle of a recruiting drive which will recruit about 45,000 officers in the next two years. One of the issues raised by the terrible murder of Sarah Everard was whether the appropriate vetting was carried out on Wayne Couzens, both in his transfer and, obviously, for new officers. First, can the Minister say something about how vetting standards have changed since 4 March this year—since when I would hope that things have moved on? Secondly, what action is being taken about information coming from within the forces—such as the comment that this officer had been known as “the rapist”? If that intelligence is around, what has changed to do something about it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
On the noble Lord’s latter question about “the rapist”, it is pretty disgusting, if indeed it is true. On what the Home Office is doing now about vetting, new recruits are subject to a rigorous vetting and assessment process to assess suitability for the role of police officer, and, although decisions about police recruitment are made within a national framework, they are locally managed by the police. On the inquiry, the first part will of course examine the recruitment and employment of Sarah’s killer and whether there had been opportunities to intercept him along the way.
Environment Bill
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Environment Act 2021 View all Environment Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 57-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Reasons and Amendments - (25 Oct 2021)
16:56 - Division on Motion B1 - Ayes: 114 / Noes: 207 - Motion B1 disagreed.
17:15 - Division on Motion C1 - Ayes: 202 / Noes: 210 - Motion C1 disagreed.
18:19 - Division on Motion F1 - Ayes: 223 / Noes: 172 - Motion F1 agreed.
18:34 - Division on Motion G1 - Ayes: 207 / Noes: 172 - Motion G1 agreed.
19:55 - Division on Motion J1 - Ayes: 213 / Noes: 60 - Motion J1 agreed.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 1, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 1A.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
With the leave of the House, I will also speak to Motions B, B1, C, C1, D and D1. This historic legislation is now not only within sight; it is within reach. I thank Members for their conversations with me and my officials and for the debates that have taken place in this House.
I begin with Amendment 1, on biodiversity and the climate emergency, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and I thank him very much for the meetings he has had with me. I hope he noticed that last week, the Prime Minister pledged that:
“We will meet the global climate emergency but not with panicked, short-term or self-destructive measures as some have urged”,
but with the actions he set out in the net-zero strategy, and indeed through actions in this Bill.
We introduced in your Lordships’ House a duty to set an additional legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030—a clear and significant response to the biodiversity emergency we face. However, as I have said previously, addressing these twin challenges requires action, which this Government are taking.
The net-zero strategy builds on the action from the 10-point plan, the energy White Paper, the transport decarbonisation plan, the hydrogen strategy and the heat and buildings strategy. It sets out ambitious plans to reach net zero across all the key sectors of the economy. The net-zero strategy outlines measures to transition to a green and sustainable future, helping businesses and consumers to move to clean power, supporting up to 190,000 jobs in the mid-2020s and up to 440,000 jobs in 2030, and leveraging up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030. It includes £3.9 billion of new funding over the next three years for decarbonising heat and buildings so that homes and buildings are warmer and healthier. We will boost the existing £640 million Nature for Climate Fund with a further £124 million of new money, ensuring total spend of more than £750 million by 2025 on woodland creation and management, peat restoration and so on. This will enable more opportunities for farmers and landowners to support net zero through land use change. Furthermore, the Bill’s powerful package of measures, including biodiversity net gain, local nature recovery strategies and a strengthened biodiversity duty on public authorities, will drive action towards our biodiversity targets and objectives.
We are playing a leading role in pressing for an ambitious post-2020 global biodiversity framework, to be adopted at CBD COP 15. This is my number one international priority, but it is also the Government’s. Putting the declaration in Amendment 1 into law is therefore not necessary. However, I hope noble Lords are reassured that the Government are taking action at pace to deal with these crises, and that calls from a number of noble Lords to hear the phrase “climate emergency” from the Prime Minister’s mouth have now been answered.
Turning to Amendments 2 and 2B, on soil health, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, first, let me first make it clear that the Government take soil health seriously. As Minister Pow said in the other place:
“It is the stuff of life.”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 793.]
It is a priority, and I do not think anyone doubts that. This is why we are currently working with technical experts to develop the appropriate means of measuring soil health, which could be used to inform a future soils target.
However, an amendment to make soil health or soil quality a listed priority area would require us to bring forward an objectively measurable target by October 2022, and I am afraid we do not yet have the data to do that. Until baseline data and a metric to measure success are developed, we cannot commit to setting a robust soil target at this time. However, as I have also said, that is not to say that it is not a priority for us. Defra is working with partners right now to develop the baseline data and metric needed to set that target.
As I announced on Report, we will deliver a new soil health action plan for England. Noble Lords will find more detail on this action plan in the Written Ministerial Statement published last week, but I highlight that it will provide clear strategic direction to develop a heathy soil indicator, soil structure methodology and a soil health monitoring scheme to support the delivery of a future potential soil target.
We refer to the use of “soil health” over “soil quality” because soil quality sometimes refers to a measurement of the current status of a soil while soil health more accurately captures how well the soil is functioning. The soil health action plan aims to help soil to function better to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and wider benefits and outcomes, such as increased biodiversity, carbon storage, food production and flood mitigation.
I recognise the compelling arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and commend their very successful efforts to raise this issue up the agenda. I hope that the action I have set out, and the new soil health action plan for England, demonstrate our commitment to this critical aspect of our natural environment. This includes our commitment to improve the health of our precious peat soils, in line with the England Peat Action Plan published earlier this year and supported by the extra funding I mentioned earlier.
On Amendments 3 and 3B, on air quality, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I thank her for her time spent meeting with me on multiple occasions. I recognise the strength of feeling on this issue both in this House and in the other place; it is a feeling I share. The two targets we are currently developing—a concentration target and a population exposure reduction target—will work together to both reduce PM2.5 in areas with the highest levels and drive continuous improvement across the country. This unique, dual-target approach is strongly supported by our expert committees, the Air Quality Expert Group and the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants. They will be an important part of our commitment to drive forward tangible and long-lasting improvements to the air that we breathe.
Colleagues in the other place last Wednesday rightly called for urgency in tackling air pollution. I emphasise that we are not waiting for these targets to be set before taking the necessary action. We already have legally binding national emission reduction targets for five key air pollutants for 2030. Our Clean Air Strategy was praised by the World Health Organization as
“an example for the rest of the world to follow”,
and sets out the actions we are taking to deliver on these targets. For example, legislation to phase out the sale of house coal and deal with wet wood, and to introduce emission standards for manufactured solid fuels for domestic burning across England, came into force from 1 May 2021. We are also delivering a £3.8 billion plan to clean up transport and tackle nitrogen dioxide pollution.
This House will have heard these points before, but I want to emphasise that delivering our ambitious reductions in PM2.5 will require co-ordinated action. The more ambitious these targets are, the greater the level of intervention that will be needed—from national and local government, as well as businesses and individual citizens. To achieve a level such as 10 micrograms in our cities would require fundamental changes in how we live our lives; for example, significant changes to farming practices to reduce ammonia, which reacts in the air to form particulate matter. This would be likely to be in addition to a total ban on solid fuel burning, including wood, and restricting traffic kilometres by as much as 50%. That would include electric vehicles, which release non-exhaust emissions from tyre and brake wear, for example.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her further amendment, which challenges us to go further and set a target of 5 micrograms by 2040, in line with the latest recommendations from the World Health Organization. While we recognise that there is no safe level for PM2.5, it is also important to acknowledge that PM2.5 is not a pollutant that can be fully eradicated. The reasons for that are manifold. First, contributions to PM2.5 from natural sources and from outside the UK, particularly in the south-east of England, are currently modelled at around 5 to 6 micrograms. That is before we take into consideration the everyday activities of the millions of people who live in those towns and cities in the south-east. Essentially, our current evidence strongly suggests that it is not possible to achieve reductions in PM2.5 concentrations to levels as low as 5 micrograms in numerous locations in England, particularly in the south and south-east. Setting an unrealistic target would be disingenuous, and the target would be meaningless as a result, as well as ineffective and potentially counterproductive.
Before setting targets, we need to understand what reductions are possible, the scale of measures required to achieve them and the impact and burdens that would be placed on society. Members of the public will want, and deserve, to understand the specific health benefits and then we can decide upon the fundamental changes that would be required. So we will hold a public consultation on these targets early next year. Once we have carefully considered the responses to the consultation, we will bring forward the final, statutory targets by October 2022. That is a legally required date that we cannot and will not miss.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I always think that ping-pong can be rather a brutal affair. I have spent months working on an amendment; the combined House of Commons comes back and says
“the provision made by the Amendment is unnecessary”—
and there we are, it has been written off. However, the House of Commons, in its wisdom, is absolutely right: the amendment was unnecessary because all it actually needed was for the Prime Minister and this Government to declare, as many local authorities have, a climate and biodiversity emergency. Therefore, I accept what the Minister has said. The Prime Minister in his foreword to the Net Zero Strategy—a document that we all welcome, although it is rather late, before COP 26—says:
“We will meet the global climate emergency”.
I truly welcome that; it is a shame in a way that he then says
“but not with panicked, short-term or self-destructive measures as some have urged.”
That somewhat takes the shine off it—but I accept that that declaration is there; it is by the Prime Minister and it is published in one of the most important documents that the Government have released in recent times, in the run-up to COP 26. However, I also point out that it does not include the biodiversity crisis, which is particularly pertinent to this Bill. The motive for this amendment was to give equality to both those emergencies, and to stress their interconnectedness—the vital relationship between the two.
However, that declaration is there. The other Motions that we are going to debate during this afternoon are, perhaps, of greater practical importance to the future of the environment, our country and our planet, so I shall not contest this. I thank the Minister and his officials for the conversations that we have had since passing the Bill in this House and today in finding ways in which to solve this area. I shall not contest this judgment, brutal as it was, by the House of Commons.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and to agree with every word that he just said. I thank the Minister for his introduction to this debate and thank him and his officials for the very detailed and useful discussion this morning, particularly with such a lively avian accompaniment.
I shall take a second to reflect on the place of your Lordships’ House. I had a discussion a couple of days ago with a Cross-Bench Peer for whom I have the greatest respect, who expressed great frustration at the huge amount of work done in your Lordships’ House, which so often—as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has just said—gets casually dismissed in the other place. Yet we are so often told, “Oh, we can’t send too many things back to them; we can’t resist too hard; we’re the unelected House.” That, of course, raises a whole other question about the constitution. None the less I fear—and we have seen some cases of this already—that many of our strong, fine Peers are getting fed up and really considering whether they are going to continue to devote their time to your Lordships’ House. It is crucial that we recognise that we are in a different political time and that we are crucial to the future of this country, its environment and people, and we need to stand firm.
I have come under strong pressure, as I am sure many are aware, not to push forward with the soils amendment. Those looking closely will notice that I have not pushed forward with the same amendment as was sent to the other place. My amendment in lieu simply refers to soil quality rather than soil quality and soil health, as in the amendment sent to the other place. Health very often talks about the biology of the soil; quality is frequently used to refer to the structure. I am guided here particularly by the Sustainable Soils Alliance but also by academics, independent experts and farmers, who say that it is possible to use the metrics from the soil structure monitoring scheme to establish a target specifically for soil structure which would fit the definition of quality. As the Minister said on Report, targets can be iterative—they can be developed, evolved and finessed over time.
I acknowledge that the Minister here and those in the other place have spoken often and very clearly, and clearly are engaged with the issues of soil that are so crucial, but we all know that Ministers change. The only thing that will guarantee a way forward is with soil being on the face of the Bill. I put it to noble Lords that this Bill will be fundamentally deficient if we do not have soils there with equal weighting and place alongside air and water. I am afraid that the Minister in debate also said at one point that, if we were looking after air and water, we will sort of be looking after soils as well. I am afraid that very powerfully makes the argument for me—that soil risks falling into a second order unless it is given the same status.
I note that, in your Lordships’ House on Report, the margin by which this vote was won was equal top with that for the amendment on sewage tabled by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. This was a very clear voice from your Lordships’ House on Report.
I also particularly wish to acknowledge the very strong efforts in this area by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, who has done a tremendous job and has seen some steps forward from the Government. But those steps are still not enough.
I finish, given the pressure of time, by noting that I do not believe that the amendments we are looking at today are either/or. All the amendments that have been retabled today are crucial. My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb will address interim targets in more detail, but I stress that that is crucial as well. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, in supporting my amendment last time. I urge your Lordships to show that we are really here to make a difference. I give notice of my intention to push this Motion to a vote.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment on soil from the noble Baroness who has just spoken. This is a crucial issue. But first I want to ask my noble friend the Minister a question about what he said when he introduced the discussion on this. He quoted the Prime Minister, who said that there is a climate crisis that will be solved but not by panicked measures. That seemed to indicate that he thought some of the amendments put forward by this House were “panicked measures.” If that is the case, I would be grateful if my noble friend could tell us which of these amendments, which we so carefully debated in Committee and on Report, could be classed as a “panicked measure”.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, was absolutely right to tell us that the Prime Minister did not acknowledge that there is a biodiversity crisis. One-quarter of the world’s biodiversity crisis is in the soil, and that is a major problem for us. There ought to be an alignment between the Environment Bill and the Agriculture Act. We got soil into the Agriculture Act and we were then told that that was not the right place for it and that it ought to go in the Environment Bill; now we have got to the Environment Bill and my noble friend tells us it is not necessary in this Bill. It is necessary in this Bill. It should be put into this Bill.
Only 0.4% of 1% of England’s environmental monitoring budget is spent on soil. That is derisory. Could my noble friend tell me what he anticipates that spend to be within one year and within five years? Soil is the basis of everything. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, which has done a huge amount of research over many years on soil, says that we cannot reach net zero without dealing with soil. That has been taken up by the Climate Change Committee, which has said exactly the same thing, and even my noble friend the Minister has said that we cannot solve the problem without addressing soil; yet soil is not going to be in this Bill.
I remember my noble friend Lord Deben said something on Report to the effect of: unless it is in the Bill, it is not going to be done. At that stage, I backed my noble friend the Minister against my noble friend Lord Deben’s advice. This time, I back my noble friend Lord Deben and say that this ought to be in the Bill.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I merely say this: I really wanted to support the Minister and I thank him for the conversations we had. I understand the argument that says soil cannot be exactly parallel with water and air because we have an agreed measure for both which enables us to put a date, but there is no reason we could not have a date, but a different date, to make sure that this Bill actually covers soil. I say this to my noble friend: I have been very disappointed that the promises made by the Government on trade have so clearly not been fulfilled. Therefore, it is very difficult to ask this House to accept the Minister’s personal support for this—which I entirely believe; I do not think there is any doubt about that. But we now have to accept that, unless we have soil in the Bill, it will not have the incredibly important emphasis that it needs.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I understand democracy. I have been elected. Indeed, I have been elected under two voting systems: proportional representation and first past the post. So I understand that the other House takes a priority over your Lordships’ House—I understand that. But, at the same time, the way the other House rejected our amendments so casually and so arrogantly hurt me. We worked for days on these amendments; we refined them and discussed them and, I hope, we actually convinced the Minister and the Whip that we were right. And yet the other House decided that they were of no value. I will be voting “content” today with anyone who wants to press their Motion to a vote.
I particularly want to speak in favour of the air pollution amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but, as I say, I am voting for all the amendments today. Air pollution is an issue I care very deeply about. We are talking about changing the law to make sure our toxic air becomes safe to breathe. This is a health issue. It is also a social issue, and we should understand that many people in our towns and cities suffer very badly. It also becomes an economic issue, because it hits the NHS, through people having to go into hospital with lungs that are badly damaged or through early death. Throughout the health crisis of the pandemic, the Government constantly said that they were being led by science. This is another health epidemic. It is toxic air, and it is time to listen to the scientists again, and to the World Health Organization, which says we need to bring our air pollution down to the levels in this amendment.
This is not an abstract issue. The young girl Ella Kissi-Debrah has been mentioned many times in your Lordships’ House—she was the first person in the world whose death certificate recorded death from air pollution. She suffered and died because of the toxic air where she lived and around her school. One child’s death is a tragedy, but there are probably thousands more who suffer with their lungs and die young who we do not even know about.
The House of Commons’ reason says that
“the powers conferred by clause 2 should not be limited in the manner proposed.”
Why on earth not? I do not understand. Without this amendment, it is left completely to the Minister’s discretion as to what level to set the target. That discretion is absurdly broad, and personally I do not trust the Government to do the right thing on air pollution without the intervention of your Lordships’ House. Quite honestly, the other place should have brought forward its own amendment on this; it should not just have swept our amendments away. It should have acknowledged the work, effort and expertise that we put in, and should have brought forward its own amendment. Instead, it just returned to the Government’s original wording.
I know that your Lordships do not like to defeat the Government too often, particularly in ping-pong, but this Bill is exceptional in terms of scale and scope. There are an exceptional number of issues that your Lordships ought to ask the House of Commons to consider again. I very much hope that we can pass this amendment along with all the others and that the other place will at least consider a compromise amendment that takes the issue of air pollution seriously.
I also want to speak briefly in favour of Motion D1, on the interim targets. I could not understand what the Minister said. I have huge respect for him, but, quite honestly, when he reads out, “If we have interim targets, they will not allow us to get to the final target”, I say that that is the whole point of them—we can actually measure progress towards the long-term target. It felt like an Alice in Wonderland speech. I feel very strongly that the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, has been generous to the Government and added an element of compromise to her amendment. I would not have compromised, but I can live with it, and I support it. I feel very strongly that we should ask the other place to look again at this issue of interim targets as well.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I intervene at this stage with a degree of real diffidence. During the Third Reading debate, I urged the other place—there are those present who know that I did—to recognise the wisdom and experience of your Lordships’ House and not to bother sending back a lot of amendments so that we could move forward and get the Bill on the statute book by the Minister’s target date of before the end of the COP conference, which is just about to begin. I meant that.
However, I have been provoked into speaking this afternoon by two Members for whom I have very genuine and real respect: the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, who was one of the best chairmen whom I have sat under in 51 years in Parliament, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, whom we all hold in great affection. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, got it right and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, got it wrong. The noble Lord would not have been wise in persisting with his amendment, and he made it plain that he would not.
There are amendments on the Marshalled List today that I shall be inclined to support—one of them is in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington—but we have to have a real awareness of our constitutional position in this House. I believe in this House passionately—I think that noble Lords know that—but it is not the elected House, and, although I sometimes think that the elected House behaves without due regard for what we have suggested that it does when it thinks again, it is nevertheless the elected House.
There were amendments, particularly that of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on which there was a sizeable rebellion in the other place. Where there is that indication, it is an encouragement to say, “A sizeable number wants us to think again”. I am not for a moment suggesting that we should roll over on every amendment this afternoon, but I am saying that we must not be prodigal in our treatment of the other House. We must listen with care and act with discretion.
If we really and truly feel, as I do with the amendment from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, that there is a sizeable number of uneasy Members sitting on the Government Benches in the other House, we can be encouraged. Where that is not the case, we have to say that this is the end of the road. We regret that they did not reconsider sufficiently sensitively and carefully, but we recognise that they have the ultimate political power.
I say this because I believe so passionately in your Lordships’ House. There would be no point or purpose in this House if we did not defeat the Government from time to time and ask the other place to think again. If we are indiscriminate in the way in which we use our grapeshot, we might put our own position in jeopardy. I would never wish to do this.
At this early stage in the Bill, let us approach this afternoon’s business with care and discretion. By all means, let us say on one or two occasions, “Please, you really must think again on this one”. On others, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, with a degree of reluctance but with real statesmanship, let us say, “Well, I have something, and I am going to accept it”. That was a wise counsel which we should all be extremely wise to follow.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)
My Lords, Amendment 12B would make interim targets statutory. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her support. I add my support to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, to the Minister to respond with a date for including soils.
I thank the Minister—as others have already done—for talking to me about this amendment on interim targets and for explaining the Government’s position. The Government feel that there is a need for flexibility in interim targets and are concerned that the short-term focus that a five-year statutory target would impose could inhibit the long-term action which is so needed for nature.
This amendment precisely covers these points of concern about flexibility and lack of action now for the long term. Nature and the environment need urgent action now for benefits which will come in 10, 20, 30 or more years’ time. There is a real challenge with funding actions now for future, long-term benefit, when funding is tight and where there are competing, more immediate priorities with short-term outcomes. It is always hard to argue for those future benefits. It is always easy to think that we could delay action for just one more year, especially when interim targets can be revised or replaced at every annual review of the environmental improvement plan. It is just too easy to discount the future.
I congratulate the Government, as others have done, on the world’s first comprehensive net zero strategy. It is a great example of climate change action at work and of the value of statutory, independently set five-year targets.
If the Minister will be patient with me, I should like to ask him a series of questions. First, is he able to provide assurance that funding will be committed to the delivery of the interim targets in this Bill?
Clause 11 sets out the conduct of the reviews of environmental improvement plans. Clause 11(1)(c) requires the Government to assess whether they should take further or different steps to improve the natural environment. Can the Minister confirm that this assessment of steps will include whether the legislative framework itself should be improved; for example, whether statutory interim targets would be helpful? Can he tell us when and how Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise the interim targets the Government will bring forward, and when and how Parliament will be involved in scrutinising the proposed long-term targets before the laying of the statutory instruments in October 2022, given how important these are to the Government’s overall environmental strategy? I recognise that this is quite a shopping list of requests, so if the Minister is unable to respond to them now, I would be grateful if he would write to me with the answers.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her Motion Cl and her Amendment 3B in lieu. I will be brief, because I know she will give a great deal more detail in her winding-up speech a little later, but before I go into that, may I just disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack? When I came into this House 21 years ago, I was told that our job was to ask the Government at the other end to think again. Given the way party loyalties have changed in those 21 years, and given the very short amount of time the Commons have had to debate the amendments we sent to them, I think we have every right to send some of our amendments back at least once—in fact, I know we have the right to do it more than once as long as we do not trespass on the governing party’s manifesto.
We have listened to the Minister’s objections to our earlier amendments on having greater ambitions to reduce small particulates, known as PM2.5, and have proposed instead an amendment which allows the Government a little more leeway on exactly which targets to set and when to set them. But it does hold the Government’s feet to the fire on the mean targets they can impose, aligned with the current and planned international WHO targets. I will not go into all the details of why it is so important to our health to do this, because noble Lords have heard this several times, but the Government’s net-zero strategy, published on 19 October, includes plans to phase out petrol and diesel land transport, and that is very helpful in relation to CO2 emissions. However, it does not tackle the whole problem of the small particulates which are so harmful to health. Much of this comes from brakes and tyres, as the Minister rightly said in his introduction, and some of it comes from industry, from static generators and other diesel engines. Therefore, we need an ambitious target for reducing small particulates from all sources, which would of course drive change in these areas too.
It is all very well to decarbonise our power system and make sure that we drive electric cars, but more is needed on the demand side. The Climate Change Committee has just done its independent assessment of the net-zero strategy and I note that one of its criticisms is on the lack of emphasis on consumer behaviour change. It said:
“The Government does not address the role of diets or limiting the growth of aviation demand in reducing emissions, while policies to reduce or reverse traffic growth are underdeveloped. These options must be explored further”—
in order to, among other things—
“unlock wider co-benefits for improved health, reduced congestion and increased well-being.”
This reference to “improved health” undoubtedly refers to the microparticles in the air we breathe; that is why we need Amendment 3B and the ambitious targets for clean air that it contains. Before I sit down, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that the answer lies in the soil.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Brown of Cambridge, who has already laid out why interim targets are so badly needed. When the chairs of the Climate Change Committee stand here and tell us that this is something we need, I think we—and, more importantly, the Government—must take heed of what they say.
None of us has a clue what is going to happen in the next 28 years and 2 months before we get to 2050. Because of the very poor state of our ecosystems, these are likely to be the most unpredictable years this world—and we—have ever seen. When the Climate Change Act was drafted in the mid-noughties, the Government had foresight and created five-yearly carbon budgets that had to be legislated for. One of those was legislated for in the weeks after the Brexit referendum when there had been a change of Government and a huge amount of upheaval and political distraction. Would this have happened if it had not been a requirement? Maybe it would, but maybe not. The point I am making is that when something has to happen because it is a requirement based in statute, it happens. That is what the machinery of this Government is programmed to do.
This Government often refer to themselves as world leading. The Natural History Museum would agree with that but, unfortunately, we are going in the wrong direction. We are leading the world is in nature depletion. We are bottom of the G7 and in the lowest 10% globally, coming a long way after China. In fact, we have little over half—just 53%—of our biodiversity left. I think that frames why we have to pull every lever to stop and reverse this, something the Government are on board with, and using binding interim targets is one of those levers. Are the Government afraid of putting in more targets and, if so, why? This seems an extremely important amendment and I absolutely will vote for it.
I would like to follow up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. In this instance, I too disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. I think it is the job of this House to keep going at something, and to not give in because what it faces, at the other end, is a government majority that just demands that the Whips make a few telephone calls. This is actually the important part of the debate. We cannot, for the sake of decorum or whatever, just wave our hands and let these things through. Quite frankly, the future of our planet may depend on it, even if only a little.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, when the Minister, Rebecca Pow, introduced the government amendments in the other place last week she said:
“The Bill is packed with positive measures … I am delighted that the Government have improved it even further.”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 791.]
But many of these improvements were ones that the Government had resisted as being not necessary or counterproductive until your Lordships intervened. However, the Government have not listened to noble Lords’ concerns on air quality, and I am disappointed that the Bill has not been changed to reflect these very serious concerns. I thank noble Lords who have expressed support for my Motion C1.
In the debate in the other place, senior Conservatives expressed concern at the Government’s lack of action on this matter. Neil Parish, chair of the EFRA Committee, said that he completely agreed with the intention behind our amendment and that we had to ensure that this is one of our great priorities, questioning whether the Government were taking the issue seriously enough. Bob Neill MP commented:
“When a coroner issues a prevention of further deaths letter, it is not done lightly”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 811.]
and called for “prompt and urgent action”. Rebecca Pow, the Minister, said that
“there is no safe level of PM2.5”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 797.]
Doctors are so concerned that a team of 30 paediatric healthcare providers are, right now, cycling from London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow to raise awareness of the impact of air pollution on health, ahead of COP 26. I am genuinely at a loss as to why the Government are dragging their feet, when delay costs lives.
The revised amendment before your Lordships’ House today takes into account the reduction in the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines, which were published after our Report stage, on 22 September 2021. I find it worrying that the Minister said in his opening remarks that it is not possible to meet these new guidelines in many areas. They add to the evidence that air pollution causes early death and has been linked, as we have heard before, to lung disease, heart failure, cancer—I could go on. Across significant parts of the UK, air quality still fails to meet the guidelines that were set by the WHO in 2005, let alone the new levels. According to analysis by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, just over a third of people in the UK are breathing levels of PM2.5 over the 2005 WHO guidelines. This is truly shocking.
These new guidelines should act as a road map to clean air, with the ambition and impetus to reach them set by central government now in order to catalyse the changes required to reduce the levels of PM2.5 in particular. The Environment Bill is still the golden opportunity to set this commitment to work towards the more robust WHO guidelines and help reach our net-zero targets, while bringing forward the health benefits. My amendment would require the Government to do just that. Government delay means that people, particularly children and the vulnerable, are paying the price with their health.
Earlier this week, I spoke to Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who told me that today is the 11th anniversary of her daughter Ella’s first becoming ill. Have the Government not waited long enough to act? I thank the Minister and his officials for taking the time to listen to our concerns. I now urge him to accept this amendment; otherwise, I am minded to test the opinion of the House at the appropriate time.
On Motion A, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that there is an imbalance regarding biodiversity that needs to be addressed.
I turn briefly to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on soil quality. I congratulate her and other noble Lords, such as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on pressing the Government on this matter sufficiently that they have made a commitment—which was welcomed by us and Members in the other place, including Caroline Lucas—to publish the new soil health action plan for England. It was also good to hear Rebecca Pow state that
“soil will be one of the top priorities in our new environmental land management and sustainable farming initiative schemes.”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 793.]
I listened to the noble Baroness’s introduction to her amendment, and she raises some important questions that the Minister needs to answer.
I will now turn briefly to the revised amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and I thank her for making her case so clearly. Of course, we all accept that environmental change cannot happen overnight and needs long-term planning, which is what the 25-year environment plan seeks to do. But you can and must be able to measure progress along the way, and that is why statutory interim targets are so important. We have heard again the argument that interim targets would undermine the long-term nature of the target and make it more complicated to meet the current 25-year environment plan. However, I draw attention to the Natural Capital Committee’s Final Response to the 25 Year Environment Plan Progress Report, published a year ago, which states that
“this report … highlights the lack of progress, and some worrying declines: nine of the 25 years have already passed, and it is now looking very likely the next generation will inherit a poorer set of natural assets.”
Rather than being in contradiction, the combination of binding interim targets and legislated long-term goals is complementary. The report clearly shows that unless you have something binding, it is not necessarily going to happen. This amendment is essential for delivering sustainable progress towards our environmental goals. I hope the Minister will reflect on the noble Baroness’s amendment further and reconsider his current position.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I begin by particularly thanking the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his comments and his probably slightly reluctant acceptance of the position we find ourselves in. I also very much appreciate the comments of my noble friend Lord Cormack.
There was really only one question, raised by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, on “panic measures”. I am certain that the Prime Minister was not talking about any of the amendments tabled in this House, none of which could be described as “panic measures”, even by people who disagree with them. It is more likely—indeed, it is clear—that he was talking about the calls made by some of the more radical protest groups, perhaps associated with Extinction Rebellion and others, some of which exceed what I think any expert would believe to be a possible and realistic solution. I do not think it is in any way a reflection on this House.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)
Will the Minister reply by letter to my other question?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I apologise; I thought I had answered. I will certainly reply on any questions that I have not answered—I commit to that. I am afraid I cannot do so now as I am not sure which questions are unanswered.
I understand the strength of feeling and thank noble Lords for the amendments they have put forward. I would be grateful if, in return, they could carefully consider the arguments made today.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
Before the Minister sits down, he has not answered the points raised by my noble friend Lord Deben. Notwithstanding the evidence that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and I have received that you can in fact set a target by the appropriate time limit within Clause 1, my noble friend Lord Deben raised the point that you could have a different date for bringing in soil quality targets. As I understand it, the only way that that is possible is for the soil amendment to be passed by your Lordships and for the Government to bring in an amendment in another place to meet the specific concern. If the Minister is convinced that his advice is right and the advice I had is wrong, he could at least bring soil into the Bill with a deferred date by which the target ought to be brought in.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My noble friend is right that I did not answer that question. I apologise—it was not deliberate. The reality is that I cannot tell him when the metrics will be ready, because I do not know; I am not sure Defra knows either. I cannot give him the deadline he requires.
I have said this before, but I think it is critical. There is zero chance of meeting any of the other targets we are setting in law unless we pay particular attention to soil. This is a matter of process rather than outcome. We will achieve the outcome, because we are legally obliged to do so and part of achieving it means dealing with soil. This does feel like a bit of a distraction.
Lord Deben (Con)
I am sorry to trouble my noble friend again. I want to be on his side on this because I know he is really on my side. He knows that if you have to write an article, a deadline is rather important. If you do not have a deadline, you will not write the article. It is like that here. We need to have a date, even if it is further ahead than we would like, otherwise we will not have the concentration that we need. Can my noble friend think again about the possibility of having a date, even though he might disappoint me in how far forward it might be?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I hear my noble friend’s arguments, but without the baseline, we do not know when we can deliver. However, we have a date, which is the 2030 biodiversity target, and if we do not meet that target, we will fall foul of the law. As he himself said, not just today but in previous debates, it is not possible to meet that legally binding target without major effort to protect and restore our soil. Therefore, we have that, and at the very least it is a pretty blooming powerful fallback position.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 2, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 2A.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 2B in lieu—
“(e) soil quality.””
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 3, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 3A.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 3B in lieu—
“(2) Regulations under subsection (1) may appoint different PM2.5 targets for different dates but must include targets for the annual mean level of PM2.5 in ambient air to be—
(a) less than or equal to 10µg/m3 before 1 January 2030, and
(b) less than or equal to 5µg/m3 before 1 January 2040.””
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
My Lords, I am sorry things are taking a bit longer. The voting in the Table Office is adding extra time.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 12, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 12A.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I have already spoken to Motion D. I beg to move.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 28, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 28A.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will speak also to Motions F, F1, G, G1, N and N1. We are now discussing the second half of our new, transformative system of environmental governance. This new system has been tailored specifically to a UK context, embeds the environment in future policy-making and takes the essential steps needed to strengthen environmental oversight.
I turn to Amendments 28 and 28B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. I sincerely thank her for our discussions on this issue and for her proposal to narrow the amendment specifically to cover “safeguarding national security”. However, I am afraid that even with this revised amendment it is the view of the Government that the original exemption for the Armed Forces, defence and national security is still required to provide flexibility to protect and secure the nation. The Government therefore cannot accept the amendment.
The primary function of the defence estate is to support our operations and maintain military capability. It provides homes for those who defend our country, offices for work, space for training, and conditions to prepare to meet the ever-changing threats that the UK faces. This means that defence land, defence policy and national security are inextricably linked. MoD land cannot be separated out; it touches on decisions across the Armed Forces, national security and defence. “National security” does not cover all defence activities. If the coverage of the exemption is reduced, as proposed in the amendment, that directly risks the readiness of our defence capabilities and could impact our responsiveness.
I know that this is a matter in which noble Lords have a keen interest and I emphasise again that these exemptions do not apply to SSSI management, where the MoD is on track to meet the 25-year environment plan target for SSSIs in favourable condition for the sites under its management. Natural England has assessed 48% of the department’s English sites as in favourable condition, which compares well with the English average of 39%.
I reassure the noble Baroness, on the back of the discussions that we have had, that the department will be providing further reassurance in writing of its intentions in relation to the protection, good conservation and improvement of the land under its management. I hope to be able to provide that to her soon.
I turn to the office for environmental protection. I will speak to Amendments 31, 31A, 31B, 31C, 75, 75A, 75B and 75C together, tabled by my colleague Rebecca Pow in the other place and by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. I reiterate the Government’s commitment to establishing the OEP as an independent body. This guidance power is required to ensure appropriate accountability and that the OEP continues to operate effectively because the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible to Parliament for the OEP. There are other examples of independent arm’s-length bodies where provision has been made for the Secretary of State to give guidance; for example, under Section 41 of the Climate Change Act 2008 the Secretary of State can give guidance to the Climate Change Committee regarding the exercise of its functions. We are seeking only to do the same in ensuring appropriate accountability and that the OEP continues to operate effectively by focusing on the most serious, strategic cases with national implications.
None the less, I acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about this power. In recognition of noble Lords’ comments, we introduced a new provision to ensure that Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly can scrutinise draft guidance before it is issued. The Secretary of State must respond to that scrutiny before final guidance can be laid and have effect. This has been reinstated in the other place, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for adding it to his amendment in lieu. I hope noble Lords will recognise that their concerns are being listened to with this measure.
I turn to the other parts of the amendment. I should be clear with noble Lords that we are confident that the right appointment processes are in place for the OEP. These are equivalent to those for other independent scrutiny bodies, such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission. This retains the right balance between ministerial accountability and operational independence. Furthermore, as set out in the Written Ministerial Statement on 7 September:
“The Government took the necessary steps to ensure that the role of Chair was listed as a significant appointment with the Commissioner for Public Appointments … The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Environmental Audit Committees conducted a pre-appointment scrutiny hearing before the appointment of Dame Glenys Stacey as OEP Chair Designate.”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/21; col. 19WS.]
I am happy to reiterate our intention that future chair appointments should follow a similar process, ensuring fairness, accountability and independence in future, as was set out in the Written Ministerial Statement.
I hope that that provides some reassurance for noble Lords and indicates why the amendment therefore is not necessary. Ultimately, Ministers are accountable and responsible to Parliament for public appointments. While we are committed to ensuring parliamentary scrutiny, it is appropriate that Ministers should retain the ability to make the final choice.
Amendments 33 and 33B, on enforcement, were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and I am grateful to him and the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for the engagement that they have given us over the preceding weeks and months. The OEP’s enforcement powers will operate more effectively than those of the European Commission as the OEP will be able to liaise directly with the public body in question to investigate and resolve alleged serious breaches of environmental law in a more targeted and timely manner.
Through environmental review, the OEP can apply for judicial review remedies—subject to appropriate safeguards—that will work to ensure compliance with environmental law. The Court of Justice of the EU cannot issue these kinds of remedies to member states and therefore the OEP could have a far more direct impact on third parties than the previous system. The protections for third parties brought into the OEP’s process of environmental review have therefore been specifically designed in recognition of the unique nature of this type of legal challenge.
We also have to consider the direct impacts that the OEP’s enforcement function may have on third parties. Through environmental review, the OEP will be able to bring cases to court outside of standard judicial review time limits, potentially long after the decisions in question have been taken. For instance, if a quashing order was placed on planning permission or consent for a new shopping centre many months or even years after the decision was taken and where significant building work had already taken place, this could result in substantial hardship for the various parties involved, which would not be fair. We need to ensure that the key principles of fairness and certainty are upheld for third parties who have acted in good faith on the basis of certain decisions and balance this with the need to protect the environment.
Furthermore, the principle behind the provision to protect third-party rights on environmental review is not new. As I have noted in previous debates, it is an extension of the existing position for legal challenges, including under the Senior Courts Act 1981 and the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. These Acts grant the courts discretion to refuse relief where there has been undue delay, and this would be likely to substantially impact third parties or be detrimental to good administration. We are building on these precedents here in a way that reflects the nature of environmental review.
While I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, for proposing Amendment 33B, I am afraid that it does not offer such protections for third parties against the quashing of decisions outside of normal time limits. The factors that it sets out, which the court would have to have regard to, would not provide sufficient protection or certainty, and therefore we cannot support it. The Government have reflected on this new amendment, but I am afraid that it still offers no further protections for third parties. I hope that noble Lords can understand our position on this matter and on the other amendments that we have been discussing.
Motion E1 (as an amendment to Motion E)
“(a) safeguarding national security,””
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I beg to move Motion E1, as an amendment to Motion E—I believe that is the correct phraseology. I read carefully in Hansard the debate on our amendment on the exemptions that we were calling for on the policy statement on environmental principles. I am disappointed that the Government did not support it, but I am grateful for the support for this case from the Labour Benches, the Greens and the SNP.
The Government cited financial privilege as a reason why we should not proceed with this amendment, and of course I accept that on the basis of the reference to the tax-and-spend points in the amendment that we proposed, when it went to the Commons. I am grateful that, in the Commons, the Minister made the point that all departments will be obliged to subject their policy decisions to the rigours of the policy statement on environmental principles. I am mindful that, clearly, the macroeconomic points that the Treasury has are outwith that—but I am grateful.
However, the Government gave no reasons for refusing the point, made by this House, that the MoD should not be completely exempt from having to take account of the policy statement on environmental principles. The Minister’s comments seemed to suggest that there was a fear of legal challenge. I find that quite surprising. I am not a lawyer, but I am well aware that the courts are very well equipped to filter out unmeritorious cases, as they stand. Equally, while we were in the European Union, the MoD was subject to all these provisions, with a very tiny exemption with regard only to security matters pertaining to munitions and arms. So it has been subject to all these requests to take account of environmental principles for, effectively, the last 30 years. There have not been any challenges, and it does not seem to have caused any problems. However, that is the reason that has been cited, so it is the one that I had to address.
For that reason, I narrowed the scope of the disapplication purely to “national security”, in the hope that that would reassure them. Again, I am not a lawyer, but my understanding from lawyers far more eminent that me is that the courts will always defer to the Executive on matters of national security. Therefore, it seemed to me that the proposal that I put forward was reasonable and met the needs, as they saw it, of the MoD to protect its fear of being challenged on urgent operational matters. It seemed to me that it also met this House’s clear desire that all government departments should be subject to having consideration of the environmental principles, with certain particular tightened safeguards. That was also the position of the Environmental Audit Committee, the EFRA committee in the other House and the office for environmental protection, when it gave its first and only advice to the Government, earlier this year.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Motion F1, which would amend the government Motion F. I also support Motion G1, which we will come to shortly. The issue at stake with my amendment is simply this: does the Bill give the office for environmental protection sufficient independence to allow it to fulfil its function of holding public authorities, including Ministers, to account in relation to breaches of environmental law?
Clause 24 gives the Secretary of State wide-ranging powers to issue guidance to the OEP on the matters listed in Clause 23(6). These include whether a failure to comply with the law is “serious”, how the OEP determines
“whether damage to the … environment or to human health is serious”,
how the OEP exercises its enforcement functions
“in a way that respects the integrity of other statutory regimes”,
how the OEP intends to “avoid … overlap” with relevant ombudsmen and
“how the OEP intends to prioritise cases.”
The Bill also gives the Secretary of State powers to determine the budget of the OEP and to hire and fire the board, including the chair. Many of us feel that this does not add up to creating a truly independent watchdog.
Therefore, on Report, I moved an amendment, with support from across the House, to rewrite Clause 24 in order to ensure that it gave independence to the OEP in its enforcement role and budget. It also gave parliamentary oversight of both the budget and the hiring and firing of board members. This amendment was passed by a majority of 29. The Government proposed an alternative amendment that would have involved more consultation with Parliament but did not remove the guidance powers or change the substance of Clause 24. This amendment is essentially the same as Amendments 31A and 31B that we have in front of us today.
In the other place, on 20 October, my amendment was rejected, in spite of the fact that, according to my reading of Hansard, the speeches that referred to it strongly supported it. In her response, Minister Pow made three points. First, she said that paragraph 17 of Schedule 1 requires the Secretary of State to “have regard to” to the OEP’s independence. But we all know that “have regard to” is a weak requirement.
Secondly, she said that the Secretary of State cannot intervene on “specific … cases”. But by intervening on a category of cases—say, new nuclear power stations—the Secretary of State could, in theory, preclude the OEP from investigating a whole raft of individual cases within that category; for example, if it was advised that it is not a priority.
Thirdly, Minister Pow said:
“The OEP does not have to follow the guidance where it has clear reasons not to do so.”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 823.]
It is a bit paradoxical to justify the existence of the guidance power by saying that the OEP does not have to take any notice of it. Furthermore, you could argue it would be a brave OEP that ignored the guidance from the individual who has the power to determine its budget and hire and fire the board, including the chair.
I am still not satisfied that the Bill will protect the independence of the OEP without further amendment. This new amendment—my Amendment 31C—is a genuine attempt at compromise, and I hope the Government will recognise this and therefore accept it. Let me briefly summarise. Subsection (1) sets out that the OEP has complete discretion in relation to its enforcement policy and functions and in preparing its budget. This would make it comparable to the Office for Budget Responsibility and the National Audit Office. Subsection (2), importantly, retains the guidance power for the Secretary of State but narrows its focus to certain strategic issues concerned with enforcement, as described in Clause 22(6)(c). Subsection (3) requires the OEP to have due regard to the guidance but allows for circumstances in which it may choose to disregard it. Subsections (4) and (5) refer to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of the guidance, and subsection (6) involves the relevant parliamentary committees in the hiring and firing of board members.
The long-term success or failure of this Bill will in large part be measured by the effectiveness of the office for environmental protection. All the good intentions of the other parts of the Bill could come to naught without a fully independent watchman. We all had high confidence in and high regard for Dame Glenys Stacey, and for her board. We also have high regard for and confidence in the good intentions of current Defra Ministers. But I believe we have to prepare for the long term and that this amendment is fundamental to protecting the OEP’s independence in the long term.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I will be brief, as this issue has been debated thoroughly at previous stages of the Environment Bill. I rise to move my Amendment 75C, under Motion N1, which would replace government Amendments 75A and 75B. This mirrors Amendment 31C, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and would achieve the same outcomes for the OEP’s independence in Northern Ireland as his would for the OEP in England.
My amendment would safeguard the OEP’s independence in the long term by amending the power of DAERA to guide how the OEP will hold Ministers to account on any environmental wrongdoings, to make it more targeted. It would also provide the OEP with complete discretion to undertake its activities in Northern Ireland and establish a role for the Assembly’s AERA Committee in overseeing the appointment of the Northern Ireland member on the OEP’s board. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said on Report:
“If the Government accept that the OEP should have complete discretion, surely a matter of this importance should be in the Bill.”—[Official Report, 18/9/21; col. 886.]
The recent DAERA consultation in Northern Ireland on environmental plans, principles and governance indicated strong support for the establishment of the OEP in Northern Ireland. I am in no doubt that that will be a huge boon for our environmental governance, but unless its independence is enshrined for the long term in this Bill, we will have missed a serious opportunity to ensure that this important new body is protected from future political whims. I say that with great reluctance, but we have to consider the political dynamics that exist in the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly. As the EFRA Committee chair Neil Parish MP said in the other place last week,
“we need to ensure that those offices are independent for all time.”—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 804.]
In summary, I disagree with the Government’s amendments in respect of the OEP in Northern Ireland and the need for it to be independent, and I hope the Minister will change his mind on this issue.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, in logical sequence, I will speak to Motion G1 and Amendment 33B, which concerns the conditions that must be satisfied before the High Court can grant a remedy to the OEP on an application for environmental review. Your Lordships will recall that as the Bill stands, in notable contrast to the normal position under judicial review, no remedy whatever may be granted on environmental review unless the court is satisfied that there is not likely to be any substantial prejudice or detriment to a developer, landowner or any other third party, and that there will be no detriment to good administration. So, the mechanism that appears to allow public authorities to be held to account for the non-performance of their environmental duties will in practice be ineffective in all cases where there are serious conflicting interests.
We accept that the interests of developers and landowners can and should be placed in the balance when courts are making decisions about remedies, but it is perverse and without precedent to suggest that those interests should automatically outweigh all other factors, including the public interest in a clean environment and having the law enforced. In any judicial system worth the name, the court must at least be able to have regard to those factors, which is our modest and limited objective.
We bent over backwards in Amendment 33 to accommodate the Government’s concerns, to the point where my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who signed the original amendment, said:
“I cannot see what greater protection any Government could legitimately seek.”—[Official Report, 8/9/21; col. 897.]
We have risen to my noble and learned friend’s challenge and, in response to the other place, imprecise though its comments were, we have been more accommodating still.
There are two additional reasons Amendment 33B should commend itself to the House. First, when listing the factors to which the court must have regard when deciding whether to grant a remedy, we have largely borrowed the list of factors used by the Government themselves for comparable purposes in Clause 1(8) of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which has its Second Reading in the other place today. Those factors specifically include the interests and expectations of developers, landowners and others who have relied—no doubt in good faith—on failures by a public authority to comply with environmental law.
Secondly, my noble friend Lord Krebs has conceded, in his linked Amendment 31C, that the Secretary of State may issue guidance to the OEP on the matters listed in Clause 22(6)(c): that is, the exercise of
“its enforcement functions in a way that respects the integrity of other statutory regimes (including statutory provision for appeals).”
Even if my noble friend’s amendment is accepted—and I hope it is—the Government will have every opportunity to ensure that environmental review, which we accept is designed to deal with systemic problems, is not used to circumvent the short statutory deadlines that apply in planning cases. That fundamentally changes the landscape in which my amendment features.
I am acutely aware that we have to tread delicately at this stage of a Bill, but make no apology for stressing the particular importance of this amendment. Arguments about the precise ambit of the environmental duties to be imposed on public authorities will be to little effect if those duties cannot be enforced in court in the normal way at the request of the body established for the purpose. If this in many ways admirable Bill cannot be made to achieve this, it will have a fundamental weakness at its core. For that reason, and unless the Minister can offer the necessary assurance, which I understand from our continuing dialogue may be unlikely at this stage, I propose to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 33B.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I will pose a couple of brief questions to my noble friend the Minister. He will recall that I supported the original amendment on the independence of the OEP at earlier stages. I cannot think of any other body to which a department has issued guidance that is meant to be overseeing that department. To be honest, I preferred the original Amendment 31 and am struggling entirely to understand the contents of the new Amendment 31C.
Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)
My Lords, as someone who spoke passionately about the independence of the OEP at earlier stages of the Bill, I support my noble friend Lord Krebs in his amendment.
The OEP will be at the centre of our country’s new environmental future: post Brexit, post COP 26 and post COP 15. The world is changing fast, and I am pleased to say that, as the Minister mentioned earlier, we are slowly waking up to the environmental dangers we face and gradually—very gradually—moving in the right direction.
We all have great hopes for and expectations of the OEP, and within the nation’s ambitions to drive a cleaner, more sustainable and more biodiverse future, I cannot stress how important it is that we get the OEP right. The success or otherwise of everything in the Bill depends on it. At the moment, it still looks as though it will be a tool of the very department it should be overseeing, as has been mentioned.
Let us not forget that Defra is in charge of and funds our most important environmental bodies: Natural England and the Environment Agency. Even local authorities do much of their environmental work in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency, so the auditing and bringing to book of these, our most important environmental bodies, will be crucial. Sadly, in my experience of working with NDPBs within the Defra family, I believe this is unlikely to happen if Defra is allowed to exert undue influence over the OEP. As I said in debates at earlier stages, the OEP has not only to be independent but to be seen to be independent, and at the moment there is a severe danger that it will be neither.
This House’s views on the vital importance of the independence of the OEP have been expressed again and again by noble Lords from all sides of the House with much more eloquence than I can muster, so I will not go on, but I urge Defra, which originally fired the arrow of an independent OEP when Michael Gove was Secretary of State, to now let it fly. This is the department’s chance to do that.
This excellently crafted compromise amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Krebs is, like all compromises, probably not to the satisfaction of all, but I strongly believe that the Government and all noble Lords should now grasp this opportunity to resolve the impasse and give us an OEP we can be proud of by voting for my noble friend’s Motion F1.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lord, extremely briefly, I offer the Green group’s support for all the opposition amendments in this group. On Motion E1, I have a question for the Minister. Will he acknowledge to the House that we cannot keep the same mantra of “It is either deal with climate change or deal with national security” and acknowledge that, as the integrated review says, the climate emergency is the number one threat that the Government should be focused on internationally?
On introducing this debate on Motions F1 and G1, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said that he was not commenting on any individual involved in the OEP. I shall comment on individuals, to note the two noble Lords moving those Motions and urge noble Lords to support those extremely distinguished Members of our House in their area of absolute expertise and get behind them.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, when these amendments were dealt with in the House of Commons, the Minister said that she was very satisfied to have the office of environmental protection independent. That is what I want, and I believe that that is what the Government want, but she went on to say that the Secretary of State will be accountable for the OEP. I am in difficulty about the precise nature of that accountability. This is not the easiest question to answer, so I gave notice this morning that I proposed to ask it, so that my noble friend might have an opportunity, if he wished, to think it over. Obviously, the Minister dealing with this in the House of Commons must have had an idea in mind.
This arises in connection with the giving of instructions. The strange thing about the instructions and guidance is that the guidance does not need to be followed. It has to be seen by the Houses of Parliament before it passes, but once it is passed, it need not be performed. To my mind, that is a rather exceptional situation. Why should Parliament be asked to study carefully what the department—the Secretary of State—is proposing but then the organisation that is to receive the instructions need do nothing about it? That is a remarkable situation, but it ties into the idea of the accountability of the Secretary of State for this independent body.
I should be glad to know precisely how this operation is supposed to work. How is the Secretary of State responsible, apart from saying that the OEP is independent and he must secure that at all costs? If that is all, very good, but I suspect that the Minister in the Commons was thinking of something a little more complicated than that, and I hope the Minister can explain it to us in due course.
I think that the Motions in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson, are pretty essential to the working of this arrangement, but the principal fact that I wish established is that the OEP should be independent, as the Minister said in the House of Commons.
Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con)
My Lords, I took the opportunity to support the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson, in the previous rounds of this proposal, and I will continue to do so.
The office for environmental protection is the beating heart of the Environment Bill. We are about to embark on an extraordinary gathering of people about climate change here in the UK, in Glasgow. The eyes of the world are upon us. There are suspicions that this particular element of the Environment Bill is not as strong as it needs to be. The amendments that have been put forward are a useful adjustment to previous amendments and I believe that they are workable. Without them, the pressures that we put upon Dame Glenys Stacey will be immense. The suspicion will linger always that she is somehow or other beholden to the Government in one fashion or another, and there will be continued requests for clarification, and for clarity about her behaviour as well as that of her board and her team—this will go on.
We need the absolute certainty of independence, which we can achieve here today, through these amendments. If we can do that, we can set sail upon a fine voyage—we set sail just before COP, with a very clear successor body to the European Commission, which can do what the European Commission once did—that is, hold power to account.
The amendments are before us. It is up to this House to decide what to do with them.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, first, I am grateful to the Minister for the discussions that he has had with us since Report. Secondly, we are disappointed that the Government have not seen fit to make a concession to the revised amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, to include defence in the scope of the Bill. However, we understand her generous decision to pull up stumps at this point, bearing in mind some of the other pressures on us this evening. Thirdly, we are very grateful, as ever, to the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson, and my noble friend Lady Ritchie for continuing to pursue the independence of the OEP and the need for effective remedies.
These noble Lords have all made hugely impressive and convincing contributions this evening; they do not need me to repeat their arguments. I also thank all other noble Lords who have added their voices in support. I hope that the Minister is getting a sense of the mood of the House on these issues. We very much hope that he can therefore agree to revisit them. If this is not possible, we urge the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord Anderson, to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. Beginning with Amendment 28B, the Government maintain the position that exempting the Armed Forces, defence and national security from the environmental principles duty is required to ensure the flexibility for our defence capability. I appreciate the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, but I am afraid that, as I said in my opening remarks, this is a red line for the MoD. I will secure the reassurance that we were promised together on a call that we made, which has been followed up since, and I very much hope that it directly addresses the plea that she has made to this House. We will continue those discussions afterwards.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I am very happy to reiterate something that I, she and many others have said many times: nature and climate change are inextricably linked. Indeed, climate change is in many respects the fever that the planet is experiencing as a consequence of the degradation of its natural environment. All the science tells us that there is no pathway to net zero, or to staying within 1.5 degrees, without massive efforts to protect and restore nature on a scale that we have never seen before. That is absolutely understood. I simply add that it is not just a reflection of my view but the position of this Government as they take us towards COP 26. We have sought to put nature at the very heart of our response to climate change, both here and internationally. I think, and hope, that we will see some real movement over the coming weeks from the global community.
I turn to amendments 31, 31A, 31B, 31C, 75, 75A, 75B and 75C. We believe that the guidance power is necessary to ensure that the OEP continues to operate effectively and provide appropriate accountability. To elaborate on a point I made earlier in response to comments by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the OEP will have an extremely broad scope and remit, encompassing all environmental law and with powers to investigate alleged serious breaches by any public authority, ranging from a local authority to a Minister of the Crown. Given this huge breadth, the guidance power is important to ensure that Ministers who are ultimately responsible for the OEP’s use of public money can ensure that it is functioning as intended, focusing on the most serious strategic cases. My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked for comparable examples of such guidance being issued. My understanding is that the Secretary of State has the power to provide guidance to the Climate Change Committee, and that power is enshrined in the Climate Change Act.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 31 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 31A and 31B in lieu.
“(6) Before issuing the guidance, the Secretary of State must—
(a) prepare a draft, and
(b) lay the draft before Parliament.
(7) If before the end of the 21 day period—
(a) either House of Parliament passes a resolution in respect of the draft guidance, or
(b) a committee of either House of Parliament, or a joint committee of both Houses, makes recommendations in respect of the draft guidance,
the Secretary of State must produce a response and lay it before Parliament.
(8) The Secretary of State may prepare and lay before Parliament the final guidance, but not before—
(a) if subsection (7) applies, the day on which the Secretary of State lays the response required by that subsection, or
(b) otherwise, the end of the 21 day period.
(9) The final guidance has effect when it is laid before Parliament.
(10) The Secretary of State must publish the guidance when it comes into effect.
(11) The “21 day period” is the period of 21 sitting days beginning with the first sitting day after the day on which the draft guidance is laid under subsection (6).
(12) “Sitting day” means a day on which both Houses of Parliament sit.
(13) The Secretary of State may revise the guidance at any time (and subsections
(6) to (12) apply in relation to any revised guidance).”
Lord Krebs
Leave out from “31” to end and insert “, do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 31A and 31B, and do propose Amendment 31C in lieu—
“OEP independence
(1) The OEP has complete discretion in the carrying out of its functions, including in—
(a) preparing its enforcement policy,
(b) exercising its enforcement functions, and
(c) preparing and publishing its budget.
(2) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to the OEP on the matters listed in section 22(6)(c).
(3) The OEP must have regard to the guidance in preparing its enforcement policy, unless there are material considerations that indicate otherwise.
(4) Before issuing the guidance, the Secretary of State must—
(a) prepare and consult on a draft,
(b) lay the draft before Parliament, and
(c) publish a response to the consultation.
(5) The Secretary of State must publish the guidance when it comes into effect.
(6) In making or terminating appointments under paragraph 1 and paragraph 5 of Schedule 1, the Secretary of State must obtain the consent of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Environmental Audit Committees of the House of Commons.””
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 33, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 33A.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich
At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 33B in lieu—
“(8) Where the court makes a statement of non-compliance it may grant any remedy that may be granted by it on a judicial review other than damages.
(8A) In deciding whether to grant such a remedy, the court must have regard to—
(a) the nature and circumstances of the non-compliance;
(b) any detriment to good administration that would result from granting or failing to grant a remedy;
(c) the interests or expectations of persons who would benefit from the grant of a remedy;
(d) the interests or expectations of persons who have relied on the failure by the public authority to comply with environmental law;
(e) any other matter that appears to the court to be relevant.””
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 43, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 43A.
43A: Because the law already makes provision to protect pollinators from the effect of pesticides.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, as well as Motion H, with the leave of the House I will also speak to Motions J, J1, K, L, M, Q and R. It is a pleasure to open this debate focusing on the protection of nature, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed throughout the passage of this Bill on these issues.
I begin by speaking to Motions H in my name and H1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I have listened intently to the concerns of this House on this matter and of course I share them. Countless plants in our gardens, towns and countryside simply could not exist without pollen being spread by bees and hundreds of species of other insects. Bees and other insect pollinators contribute more than £500 million a year to UK agriculture through improving crop quality and quantity, but in truth this figure barely touches the sides in terms of the true value of our pollinators to our country. They add immeasurable beauty and wonder to our environment and, indeed, our lives.
The Government wish to see pollinators thrive so they can carry out their essential services for the environment and for food production and provide such joys for people. We are committed to taking action to improve their status, and action through the national action plan, the National Pollinator Strategy and our Healthy Bees Plan 2030 will help better protect pollinators and allow them to flourish. I will set out a bit more detail on these plans for the House today.
First, I can confirm to all noble Lords that we will publish a national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides by the end of this year. The purpose of the plan is to minimise the risks and impacts of pesticides to human health and the environment while ensuring pests and pesticide resistance are managed effectively. Integrated pest management is central to the plan, and we are supporting a shift towards greater use of those techniques. The technique will benefit the pollinators that we all value, as it will involve designing pesticides out of farming systems as far as we possibly can and will include increased use of nature-based, low-toxicity solutions and precision technologies to manage pests.
In addition, the Government are taking action under the national pollinator strategy. This includes restoring and creating habitats for pollinators to thrive; raising awareness across society so that people can take action themselves; and supporting monitoring and research, including a national pollinator monitoring scheme, to improve our understanding of pollinators’ population status. Our Healthy Bees Plan 2030 provides a blueprint for how we will improve honeybee health, including working in partnership with beekeepers and bee farmers.
Finally, I will address the specific concern raised by Amendment 43B, which seeks to introduce a requirement to conduct a pollinator risk assessment report before a decision can be taken. I assure the House that, when we update the national action plan, we shall assess the use of pesticides in the round and their impact on the natural environment. Given the action that the Government are taking to protect pollinators and the existing regulations in place, as well as the upcoming national action plan for pesticides, I ask that the House agrees with Motion H.
I turn to storm overflows. Before I go into detail, I would like to talk briefly about the debate itself. Of course, we all feel very strongly about this issue, and it is right for the Government to be held to account. However, it has to be said that some of the language that has been used in recent days, including by one or two Members of this House, has been simply unacceptable. It has led very directly to a torrent of abuse, some of it extremely violent, directed at colleagues in the other place. It is obvious to anyone who follows this process that absolutely no one wants raw sewage anywhere near our waters and seas, and it is objectively the case that, even without any further improvements to this Bill, we will have regulations and standards to deal with this issue that significantly exceed what we had before; in other words, the Bill already represents a major improvement on the status quo. I have made it clear previously that we have been working for some time on ways in which to improve and significantly strengthen it, further details of which I shall come to in just a few moments.
With respect, I am going to address the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is in his place, engaged yesterday in an orgy of tweets, telling his followers:
“Zac Goldsmith … proposes pumping raw sewage into rivers & the sea.”
When he talked about
“Zac Goldsmith’s plans to allow water companies to pump raw sewage into rivers and the sea”,
he was spreading a malicious falsehood.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
It is a disgrace, and I am glad for that reassuring remark from behind.
Over the course of dozens of tweets, the noble Lord was trying to make his—let us face it—not always balanced Twitter followers believe something about me and the Government that is simply not true, and which he knows to be untrue. Indeed, by suggesting that we are making it easier for companies to pollute our waters, he was spreading a grotesque inversion of the truth. I understand why he has done so; it is nothing to do with the environment, an issue on which he has almost no record whatever. It is about wanting people to believe that Brexit means more sewage in our waters. He knows that this is not true—this is a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion—but he also knows that, because of his position, many will believe him. Some will be driven into a frenzy of rage, as we have seen—rage based on a blatant untruth. The noble Lord may have been driven to distraction by Brexit, but he is not a stupid person; he wants his words to have consequences. In this debate on sewage, the noble Lord has absolutely covered himself in the stuff—and I say shame on him.
There is, rightly, concern in this House, and indeed the other place, wider society and the Government, about the unacceptable frequency with which sewage is discharged from storm overflows into our rivers, lakes and seas. It is because we share that concern that we have moved so far already on this issue. In this spirit, I hope that noble Lords will allow me to outline in one simple list the measures in the Bill and outside it which will indeed deliver progressive reductions in the harm caused by storm overflows.
The Bill places, first, a new duty on government to produce a statutory plan to reduce discharges from storm overflows and their adverse impact, and report to Parliament on progress. Secondly, it creates a requirement for government to produce a report setting out the actions that would be needed to eliminate storm overflows in England and the costs and benefits of those actions. Both publications are required before 1 September 2022. Thirdly, it creates a new duty directly on water companies and the Environment Agency to publish data on storm overflow operation on an annual basis and, fourthly, a new duty directly on water companies to publish near real-time information on the operation of storm overflows. Fifthly, it creates a new duty directly on water companies to monitor the water quality upstream and downstream of storm overflows and sewage disposal works and, sixthly, a new duty directly on water companies to produce comprehensive statutory drainage and sewerage management plans, setting out how they will manage and develop their drainage and sewerage system over a minimum 25-year planning horizon, including how storm overflows will be addressed through these plans. The seventh thing the Bill does is to create a power of direction for the Government to direct water companies in relation to these plans if they are not good enough—the “big stick”. Eighthly and finally, it creates a duty on government to set and achieve at least one new target to drive progress in the priority area of water.
This significant package will work hand in hand with the action that we are taking outside the Bill. Significantly, for the first time, the Government made it crystal clear in our draft strategic policy statement to Ofwat that we expect water companies to take steps to “significantly reduce ... storm overflows”, and that we expect funding to be approved for them to do so. These are not just warm words: the price review is the mechanism by which funding for the water companies and their priorities are determined. This is our biggest lever to clamp down on sewage discharges from storm overflows.
Significant investment has been unlocked on storm overflows in the current price review period 2020-25. Water companies will invest £7.1 billion on environmental improvements in England; of this, £3.1 billion will be invested in storm overflow improvements. This is supplemented by an additional £606 million as part of the green recovery announcement. We have also committed to reviewing the case for implementing Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 in England, which would set mandatory build standards for sustainable drainage schemes on new developments, something that numerous noble Lords called for in Committee. In August 2020, we established the Storm Overflows Taskforce—indeed, it was my colleague, Rebecca Pow, who was here a second ago, who established it—to bring together key stakeholders from the water industry, environmental NGOs, regulators and government to drive progress in reducing sewage discharges. That task force has agreed a long-term goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows.
I and my colleagues across government have been clear that we are determined to tackle the harm from storm overflows and stop untreated sewage flowing into our rivers, lakes and seas. Last Wednesday, the Government and their Back-Benchers actively voted into the Bill six pages of new law directly on storm overflows. To imply that the Government and their Back-Benchers are voting to dump sewage into our rivers is factually incorrect. However, all that said, we have listened carefully to the feeling in the other place and this House and among the wider public. I am absolutely delighted to confirm that the Government will bring forward an amendment in lieu in the Commons at the next stage; it will place a direct legal duty on water companies to progressively reduce the adverse impact of storm overflows.
I want to heap thanks on my right honourable friend Philip Dunne and other Members in the other place who have spoken so strongly about this issue, in Parliament and on broadcast media. Indeed, they have driven action in their own constituencies. I am delighted to say that Philip Dunne has indicated that he is in agreement with the Government on the wording of our proposed amendment, which will follow the clear direction already set by the Government’s draft strategic policy statement to Ofwat, published in July, that we expect water companies to take steps to
“significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows”.
We cannot accept the amendment proposed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, as it is, but I assure noble Lords that the Government’s amendment in lieu will deliver the same action in reducing sewage discharges into our rivers. We cannot accept the amendment exactly as drafted, since we need to ensure integration with other legislation, including new measures in the Bill and existing duties in the Water Industry Act 1991. For example, although we absolutely support the noble Duke’s premise, his amendment does not dock in with the enforcement regime in the Water Industry Act or the range of enforcement remedies available to Ofwat within that Act. Consistency with the draft strategic policy statement to Ofwat and Ofwat’s price review mechanism is also important. Aligning the new duty with the existing framework in this way will ensure that the price review does its job, balancing the need for investment with the need to protect customers from disproportionate prices.
I thank again noble Lords across this House and Members of the other place, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, but many others as well. I hope that noble Lords will be able to support our position today. I look forward to setting out more detail before the Bill returns to the other place.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 43B in lieu—
“Bee and Pollinator Safety
Protection of pollinators from pesticides
(1) Prior to any authorisation for use of a pesticide product, an active ingredient, a safener or a synergist, a pollinator risk assessment report, containing scientific data and risk assessment conclusions relating to the effects of the relevant substance, must be published by an expert body consisting of individuals free from vested interests in pesticide use, who must have been independently appointed.
(2) The pollinator risk assessment report must include—
(a) data examining acute and chronic effects of the relevant substance on honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, butterflies and hoverflies,
(b) all available scientific evidence relating to effects on any pollinators,
(c) an assessment of synergistic effects, and
(d) the identification of any risks to pollinators where the available evidence is insufficient to reach a conclusion.
(3) The expert body must consult the public on the draft content of the pollinator risk assessment.
(4) A competent authority must not authorise for use any pesticide product, active ingredient, safener or synergist until and unless the public—
(a) has been informed early, in an adequate, timely and effective manner, that a decision will be made,
(b) has been consulted on the decision that the competent authority intends to make, including on any mitigation or restriction measures that are proposed, and
(c) has had access, for the full consultation period, to all statutory risk assessments required for the authorisation decision.
(5) In addition to considerations set out elsewhere, when making any authorisation decision the competent authority must—
(a) aim to achieve a high level of protection for the environment,
(b) be satisfied that there will be no significant short-term negative effect, and no long-term negative effect, on the health of honeybees or wild pollinator populations,
(c) publish, with the consultation referred to in subsection (4)(b), a statement explaining why the competent authority is satisfied that requirements (a) and (b) of this subsection have been met.
(6) This section comes into force on 1 March 2023.
(7) In this section—
“authorise for use” includes authorisation by derogation; “competent authority” means—
(a) in relation to England, the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to Wales, the Welsh Ministers;
(c) in relation to Scotland, the Scottish Ministers;
(d) the Secretary of State when acting with the consent of either or both the Welsh Ministers in relation to Wales and the Scottish Ministers in relation to Scotland.””
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his time and for that of his officials during the passage of this Bill on the subject of pesticides and pollinators, and for his comments this afternoon. I was disappointed, as were others, that the other place chose to ignore the vote of this Chamber and rejected our amendment on the basis that the law makes provision to protect pollinators from the effects of pesticides. I fear that this is not the case. It is clear from its response that the other place has not fully grasped the extent to which the existing provisions fail to protect any non-honey bee pollinators, and to which the proposed provisions fall outside the pre-existing provisions.
Insect pollinators are vital for the maintenance of ecosystem health and for global food security. Seventy-five per cent of crops species, 35% of global crop production and up to 88% of flowering plant species are dependent to some extent on insect pollinators. There is substantial concern as to their current and future conservation status. Key threats to pollinators include agriculture intensification, particularly habitat loss and pesticide use, climate change and the spread of alien species.
We have had detailed debates on this subject previously, and now is not the time to revisit that detail. I thank the Minister for his commitment and for his comments. I welcome the commitment to assess the use of pesticides in the round, and I look forward to hearing the detail. The Minister speaks very fast, so I will study Hansard to assess his detailed comments. I beg to move.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer as set out in the register. I also share with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, a considerable love of bees. I am not sure whether she intends to press the House on this, but I must set the record straight regarding the use of plant protection products as this is absolutely fundamental to agriculture in this country.
First, PPPs are targeted, not used in isolation. They form a critical component of an integrated pest management approach which carefully considers all available protection methods to discourage development of populations of harmful organisms; their use, and the use of other forms of intervention, are kept to levels that are economically and ecologically justified; and they reduce and minimise the risk to human health and the environment.
Secondly, there is a big misconception that farmers use PPPs even though they do not need to. Farmers only use PPPs when they absolutely must to protect our food supply against pests, weeds and diseases that would otherwise cause us to lose between 30% and 40% of our food production. When farmers use PPPs, they ensure they are only using as much as is necessary and take measures to ensure that they impact only on intended crops.
Thirdly, as stated on numerous occasions, the current regulatory system for PPPs is among the most stringent in the world. All products on the market have been subject to a thorough assessment to ensure a high level of protection of human and animal health and the environment. This includes bees and other pollinators. Insecticides are by their nature toxic to bees and other pollinators; however, the way they are used ensures that the risk of exposure is minimised to levels that do not harm bees or other pollinators. As part of the regulation, an appropriate risk assessment is carried out on all active substances and products before they reach the market. They can be approved for use only if it will result in negligible exposure to honey bees or it has no perceptible, acute or chronic effect on colony survival or development. That is the actual situation. I welcome the Minister’s response to this amendment and I look forward to the result of that.
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 45B to government Motion J, in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for agreeing to sign the amendment, but that is apparently not permitted in this House during the so-called ping-pong process, when only one signature is allowed. I must emphasise that this is a cross-party amendment and surely that is right; party politics should not be inserted into a matter like this. I was very disturbed to hear this morning that many Conservative Members of Parliament have received very disagreeable messages on social media. This is completely unacceptable and very regrettable.
This House passed a similar amendment to Amendment 45B to clean up our rivers some weeks ago, with support from all sides of the House. When the amendment was debated last Wednesday in the other place, there was again support for it from all sides of the House. One Conservative MP described it as
“the most important amendment we are faced with this evening.”
Another Conservative MP said:
“Yes, there are all these duties to report, to produce plans and so on, which is great, but should there not also be a duty on the water companies to actually do something”? —[ Official Report, Commons, 20/10/21; col. 841-61.]
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)
My Lords, I want to speak briefly on Motion H1 on pollinators. If the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, was disappointed with the other place, I was rather disappointed with our own House when we did not pass the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on the effect of pesticides on human health, because the issue of pesticides is about not just pollinators but human health as well. It is also about insects generally; I think we have missed out a few, such as moths, on the list of pollinators. I was delighted to hear what the Minister said. I am very pleased; we will keep a close eye on how the Government look at the issue of pesticides.
I will speak briefly on what the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, has just said. I, too, have been down the other end today and seen the vile abuse that many Conservative Members have received. It is absolutely appalling and has been encouraged, I am afraid—whether it is social media or whatever. People I know have worked really hard on this, including my noble friend the Minister. When we started this Bill, there was none of this in there at all, so we have moved very far on this issue. I want to put on record my extreme thanks to both the Minister here and the Minister in the other place for listening to that. Of course, it is not just sewage that we have to think about, although that is what we are talking about now. There are all sorts of other pollution going on, such as phosphates. The River Wye has been destroyed by poultry farms where excrement has leached into the water.
I was of the opinion that the Government could go further; from what I hear, they will. As far as I understand from my days down the other end, in order for the Government to table an amendment in lieu, today’s amendment must go through. I am rather hoping that it will go through without a vote, but if there is a Division, for the sake of the Government’s position, I will oppose the Government on it.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I am a sailor, and have sailed and swam in UK waters for six decades. I have constantly been appalled by the amount of raw sewage I have found in those waters, which has got worse.
I am not on social media but I was sent a digital view of what happened in Langstone Harbour, which runs out into the Solent—into Spithead, actually, which has a position in my heart, as your Lordships can imagine. For 48 hours last Thursday and Friday, raw sewage was pumped through a seven-foot pipe into Langstone Harbour. That is totally unacceptable. I am not blaming the Government for this. I do not do social media, and I certainly would not in a million years blame the Minister; after all, he has been in his position for only half a dog watch, and I know that he feels strongly about this as well. We really have to do something about this. I blame the water companies. How they behave has been appalling. We cannot let this go on. They must be held responsible and have their feet put to the fire.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord West, on these issues. I happen to have lived in the same area for more than 70 years and I know the Solent very well, so I share his sentiments on this exactly.
Can I remind your Lordships of where we are on this issue? We have debated this for many weeks now. The rivers, streams and inland waterways of our country all fail to pass the statutory chemical tests, and only 16% of them meet “good” ecological status. The United Kingdom is ranked near the bottom of 30 European countries for coastal water quality. Why? Water companies, particularly Southern Water, are flouting their legal obligations to restrict the discharge of foul raw sewage into our rivers and estuaries. They are instead increasing discharges, apparently happy to risk fines running into hundreds of millions of pounds, which hardly dent their profits and could be better invested in modernising their sewerage infrastructure. I ask again: why? The powers and resources of our regulating agencies have been progressively stripped of funding, leaving them toothless and ineffective. Again, we should ask why. Meanwhile, the biodiversity and ecosystems of our rivers and cherished chalk streams are dying. The reasons, of course, are clear.
I ask your Lordships to support the noble Duke’s amendment tonight so that we can begin to address these issues while allaying the concerns of the Government about unreasonable obligations being placed on water companies—because they are not.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Duke of Wellington and our honourable friend Philip Dunne in the other place on bringing us to this place today. I pay a warm tribute to the Minister, who has managed to administer this Bill and be open to a number of amendments already.
As he is aware, I am concerned when he refers to the regulations giving a mandatory scheme for new developments for the simple reason we debated at earlier stages of the Bill. I seek his reassurance yet again: will he please give us a timetable for the regulations that he says he will bring forward under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to ensure that statutory responsibilities are placed on planning authorities to treat water companies as statutory consultees? It is very important that water companies are given the tools to do the job. Unless we end the automatic right to connect, you will have major developments of 30, 50 or sometimes 300 houses seeking to emit sewage into antiquated Victorian pipes that simply cannot take it. The sewage then goes into the combined sewers and often comes back into existing developments, meaning that those people have to be evacuated for between six and 12 months before they can be rehoused because it is a public health risk.
I urge my noble friend to bring forward these regulations before the end of the year, if possible, to end the automatic right to connect—not to make it conditional but to end it completely, as Sir Michael Pitt called for after the floods in 2007. That way, I believe that we will not offload all the sewage into the rivers and seas—that is the focus of the amendment before us this evening—but will actually front-end it and make sure that this problem never occurs again in any future development.
Baroness Quin (Lab)
My Lords, I very much congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on all the work he has done on this issue. As a co-signatory of a similar amendment he moved on Report, I welcome the fact that he has retabled it to ask the other place—the House of Commons—to think again. Like him, I welcome the fact that there was a sizeable rebellion of the Government’s own supporters in the House of Commons; I hope that they will be joined by others if we return this amendment today, or that the Government will move even more in the direction that they have already signalled to us they are considering.
Of course, I deplore abusive tweets and messages and know the misery that they can cause, but I am glad, and welcome the fact, that people across the country are waking up to the extent of the problem of sewage discharges—which they certainly are. I hope that this proper public pressure will be brought to bear effectively in order to remedy this situation.
I will not repeat further what has been said but will simply make two points. The water industry itself seems to be behind other UK business sectors in its use of technology, yet if British expertise could be harnessed more effectively to tackle the problems of sewage discharges here at home, there is the consequent potential of being able to export environmental technology and equipment elsewhere, and thereby gain some economic benefits for the country as a whole.
My final point is to flag up an issue that has been touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and about which I will write further to the Minister, rather than detaining the House. I think that planning authorities need to take much greater account of the state of sewers, drains and discharges into rivers when looking at applications for more housing. My neighbours are already having problems with the present inadequate draining and sewage systems and the problems of overflows and numerous sewage discharges into a very sensitive river, the River Coquet. This is happening at the same time as new housing developments are being planned. This is not about objecting to housing as such, but objecting to schemes that will overload and overwhelm already fragile and inadequate drainage and sewage systems.
As I say, I will write to the Minister further about this, but I hope that, in the meantime, a very clear message in support of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, will be given by your Lordships’ House today.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend for Motion M and what he has done on conservation covenants. I was a great supporter of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, because, having been a surveyor, I know just how difficult those conservation covenants would be for some farmers, so the new wording is very much appreciated.
My second point is to support very much what my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering said about automatic connection for new developments. This is absolutely crucial. I spoke about it in Committee and on Report. Given the amount of new development there will be, the new regulations need to be brought in as quickly as possible.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I will give way to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who has tried about 20 times to stand up.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, at this stage, I know that the only thing noble Lords want is to get on with the vote or non-vote, so I will be very brief. I just want to say a huge thank you to the Minister and his wonderful team for the finagling they did with DLUHC—I call it the department of luck—in getting the concessions on ancient woodland protection. I am also delighted with what the Minister said tonight in association with that about the rigour of the reviews, the need for action following reviews and support for the ancient woodland inventory. How can we expect local authorities and developers to avoid ancient woodlands if they do not know where they are? The ancient woodland inventory is far from complete at the moment.
I will make two points before I sit down—my Front Bench is giving me hate mail. First, I hope the Secretary of State for DLUHC will take his new call-in duty seriously, because that is one of the most important parts of these concessions. Secondly, we really need to find a way of enfolding national infrastructure into the provision so that the majority of damage, which is now caused primarily by national infrastructure, does not continue. I was bemused, as were many other noble Lords, by the reason for the Commons rejecting my amendment:
“Because the National Planning Policy Framework and the Forestry Commission and Natural England’s standing advice already make provision to protect ancient woodland”.
Clearly, they have not seen the 290 cases that have arisen in the last 12 months alone.
I very much thank the Minister, his team and all noble Lords around this House, including the noble Lord, Lord Randall, who reminded me very firmly of the little kid who ran between Alan Bates and Julie Christie in “The Go-Between”, as he did shuttle diplomacy with his party at the other end.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I will speak on my own behalf now. First, I am absolutely horrified at the abuse that the Minister has received. I do not know about the practices in this House, but the other Member should be disgusted at his behaviour. I have not seen it all. I would check up, but he has blocked me. I think I offered a tiny amount of criticism once and he blocked me. The first person to block me was President Trump—so, you know.
The amendment from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, is absolutely necessary. We have seen a vast public outcry over this. The whole point was that the Government swept aside our amendment without really understanding just how much the public cared. That was a huge mistake on their part and I hope that they now go all the way to meeting the noble Duke. He has in fact amended the amendment slightly, making it much more reasonable.
Quite honestly, if any Conservative Members at the other end vote against this again, they will have to explain themselves. I thank Feargal Sharkey, the punk star, and Professor Jamie Woodward, who have given me huge amounts of information. I do not believe in abuse on social media, but if I see Tories being virtuous on this subject, I will highlight what is happening in their constituencies.
If we are going to fix the sewage discharges, we can also fix the discharges of plastic and microplastics. Apparently, we could do this all together. That is something we clearly have to do.
I was absolutely horrified by Conservative Central Office, which put out all that nonsense about how much this was going to cost. If the Minister wants to correct the record on that, I would be absolutely delighted, but I understand if he does not have the figures to hand. The issue of cost was not raised at the other end, because I am sure the Ministers did not want to mislead Parliament. Perhaps the Conservative Party’s office might just draw in its fangs occasionally and start to tell the truth.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, on his determination and persistence on this issue. Equally, I thank my noble friend the Minister, my honourable friend Rebecca Pow and the officials who have engaged so sincerely and robustly with us in exploring ways forward.
I am grateful for the progress we have made so far. However, before the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, laid amendments to this Bill, the Government seemed reluctant to place an actual duty on companies. I am hopeful that we can be extremely proud of the changes that we in this House have made in bringing this issue to the forefront of public opinion and prompting action from the Government.
I too express my abhorrence for any vitriol levelled against honourable Members in the other place. Have we not learned in recent weeks the dangers of that type of discourse and personal abuse? I implore noble Lords and those who may still have significant concerns about this Bill to accept that the progress we have made has been made in good faith by Ministers and officials who sincerely wish to make this a landmark piece of legislation—I believe it will be—and are committed to the environmental causes that are so important to so many of us.
Without the duty that the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, proposes, it is entirely possible that little or nothing would happen. That is not safe for public health. I declare my interests as in the register. I recognise the importance of private water utilities to many pension funds and institutional portfolios, which rely on their generous dividends. I have no interest in seeing these companies pushed into bankruptcy or public ownership, but I believe they have neglected their sewage overflow problems for years. They have failed to invest sufficiently to limit the problem and have even played fast and loose with the requirements to report overflows and allowed many illegal discharges. It is time to legislate to force them to spend significant sums to make up for past underspending and egregious behaviour, rather than relying on further promises which leave us with horribly polluted waters.
As the Rivers Trust said—I commend it on its work—more than half of Britain’s rivers are in poor ecological condition due to sewage discharges. This amendment does not call for the immediate elimination of sewage discharges but for ongoing reductions. Clearly, this will take time, but a new duty is so important as we have not really even started.
I noticed this afternoon that the Government have just announced and released on the Defra website plans to further strengthen the Bill with their own amendment to be enshrined in law, which I am led to believe will ensure that water companies have a duty to progressively reduce the adverse impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows. I sincerely hope that that is the case. For that to happen we will need to pass this amendment in this House tonight. I also congratulate my right honourable friend Philip Dunne and my honourable friend Richard Graham and others in the other place who have been working so hard behind the scenes to ensure that we move to a much better place on this amendment.
I therefore hope that noble Lords will support the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, in this important amendment, and I hope and believe that the Minister and the Government will take us to the right place very soon.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, in view of the Minister’s remarks, I should intervene briefly. The noble Baroness just made the crucial point that there appears to have been a major change of government policy. Let us not delude ourselves: that is because of the strength of parliamentary and public opinion. We have been doing our job in making it clear that the disgraceful situation which my noble friend Lord West, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and others have referred to, should not continue.
The Minister was so busy criticising me that he did not say explicitly that he is accepting the amendment in the name of the noble Duke. Are the Government accepting it? I see that the noble Baroness is shaking her head. Is it the case that they are not accepting the amendment? So we will have to vote. That is quite a significant point. The Government are still not in a situation where they are clearly accepting what the noble Duke said. The Government could, procedurally, accept the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, it would go back, and they could then move a further amendment.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I will give the noble Lord an answer. The Government encourage the noble Duke, the Duke of Westminster—I have done it again. I will go to jail voluntarily after this. The Government encourage the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, to press his amendment to a Division. The reason for doing so is because we will then be able to send it back to the House of Commons so that the Commons can then table our amendment in lieu. I would have thought the noble Lord would be aware of that and I suspect—in the same way that he continues to send absurd messages on Twitter in the last few minutes—that he probably already knew the answer.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I am well aware of the procedure of the House; I have been here rather longer than the noble Lord. The question is whether the Government are accepting it. Are they going to vote? No? So they are not voting. If they are not voting, that means that the amendment in the name of the noble Duke will go back to the House of Commons, and the right thing to do then is for it to be accepted or for them to move whatever technical changes they want.
On the substance of this issue, obviously the House congratulates the noble Duke on the stand he has taken. It is because of that stand that we are in this position this evening. On the business of criticisms of the Minister, let us make this very clear. Speaker after speaker in this debate has pointed out that unless there is this duty—an actual duty on water companies to reduce these illegal or unacceptable discharges—the current unsatisfactory position would not only continue but would probably get worse. The noble Earl referred to this.
With the scale of further development, the cutback of two-thirds in the Environment Agency—I am not giving way to the noble Lord; he can make his own remarks in a moment if he wishes to. I was criticised by the Minister so it is perfectly reasonable that I should reply. There has been a cutback of two-thirds in the staff of the Environment Agency over the last 10 years. In addition, the new guidance from the Environment Agency says that because of Brexit—yes, Brexit—where water companies cannot get the chemicals they need because of the HGV crisis, they are allowed exemptions from current rules. For all those reasons there is very good reason to believe that without the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the situation would get worse and not better. My statement was clear, that without the change which the noble Duke is proposing, the situation over which the Government are presiding—the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, is the Minister responsible—would get worse.
We are doing the right thing in supporting the noble Duke. The House has shown itself in its best lights in supporting him so strongly, I am glad that the Government have come to this position and now, I hope, they will start moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, had any part at all in encouraging the deluging of some of our colleagues in verbal sewage, he should apologise.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, who I imagine has not read any of this, is making totally unfounded allegations and he should withdraw them.
Lord Cormack (Con)
I said that if the noble Lord has any part in it, he should apologise.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, if we may return to the topic of the debate, I do not think the House is benefiting from this exchange.
I will briefly speak to the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. Before I do so, I thank the Minister for moving on the issue of conservation covenant agreements and agreeing to require that they must be executed by deed. I was pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and I congratulate him on bringing it to a successful conclusion.
I was likewise pleased to put my name to the original amendment tabled by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, to address the scandal that we have heard so much about this evening and in our previous discussions of the hundreds of thousands of sewage discharges into our waterways every year. We should recall that the House of Commons in fact agreed to the majority of the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, but they removed the critical lines 7 to 14, which he is restoring by his amendment. As we have heard, a significant number of Conservative MPs rebelled on this issue either by voting against or by abstaining, and those who did not were given pause for thought by the outpouring of public anger on this issue. I, of course, deplore any vilification that there was on this.
This is a critical issue for the public and for the health of our inland and coastal waters and our environment as a whole, so we on these Benches will be pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
In the interests of time, and due to the fact that noble Lords have made important contributions to this debate, I hope that your Lordships will not be too disappointed that I have decided to completely tear up my speech. Instead, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for giving us the opportunity to return to the important issue of protecting pollinators from pesticides. I also thank the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, for his tenaciousness in continuing to press the Government on this very important matter and for making serious progress. If he wishes to test the opinion of the House, he will have our full support, but I hope that the Government will not vote against.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank noble Lords again for their contributions to this debate. I will briefly address Amendment 43B. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for, as I understand it, agreeing not to press her amendment—I hope I have not pre-empted a decision—but more importantly, for her work on this vital issue. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that she has been very effective at raising this issue on the agenda. I am grateful to her for that, and I hope we will be able to continue to work together on this issue as we develop a robust pesticide action plan. I thank her very much indeed.
Much has already been said regarding storm overflows, so I will keep it brief. I thank Members across the House and in the other place for their informed, valuable and passionate contributions. I am pleased that we were able to announce progress today. In response to the noble Baroness on the Front Bench I say that, while the Government must vote against this amendment today, for procedural reasons and to ensure that the House of Commons has an opportunity to deliver the proposed amendment in lieu, that is not a reflection of an ideological difference; it is simply a procedural issue.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked a number of questions, in particular about a timeline for the implementation of Schedule 3. It has already commenced and will be completed in 2022; I cannot give a month, I am afraid.
I very much appreciate the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. On the costs that she talked about, there is a difference between the cost of eliminating harm from overflows and the cost of eliminating overflows. It is the cost of eliminating overflows to which those figures apply. I will not pretend that I have been through the figures myself but, based on everything that I know, the range is anywhere between £150 billion and £500 billion. In real terms, it is not a relevant figure, in that no one is proposing that this amount of money should be spent on infrastructure. The key is the elimination of harm, which would allow the overflow to happen in some cases and for investment in sustainable systems such as reed beds and the like. That would not be the elimination of overflows but it would be effective management of them. It is, however, the correct figure for eliminating overflows.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, asked a question on the chemical issue. Again, it is not the case that there is a shortage of chemicals preventing the water companies doing their job. There is currently no disruption to the supply of water, water treatment or the treatment of wastewater. The shortage of HGV drivers had meant that there was a risk that deliveries of ferric sulphate, a water treatment chemical, would be delayed, but the Environment Agency successfully and very quickly mitigated that risk.
On Amendment 65, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I assure noble Lords that the Government will publish a nature recovery Green Paper in the coming months, setting out our approach to supporting nature recovery in England. It will show our commitment to and focus on this matter, which I know is enormously important to almost everyone in this House.
On Amendments 94 and 95, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, I reiterate that we will not have in one year meaningful data with which to assess the effectiveness of this legislation. However, the disagreement that we have is entirely practical; it is not based on our hopes for the effectiveness of this legislation. As I said before, if it is clear before two years that something bad has happened and the Government have chosen to exploit or create a loophole, we will act long before the review deadline of two years. It will be very obvious to us should that be necessary.
Moving on to Motion K, although I ask the House to disagree to Amendment 66, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I very much appreciate her remarks and her commitment to the issue; she has pushed it right up the political agenda in a very effective way. I hope that your Lordships’ House will welcome the Government’s progress and the commitment to enhancing the protection of ancient woodlands, on which the noble Baroness and I have agreed, I am delighted to say.
On Motion M, I hope that noble Lords can support the Commons in its Amendments 67A to 67E, which will provide further reassurance to landowners on the issue of conservation governance.
I hope noble Lords agree that, in addition to the progress made in Committee and on Report, we have moved further today to protect our waters, our trees and our landscapes for future generations.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments, and I beg leave to withdraw Motion H1.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 45A (to Lords Amendment 45).
The Duke of Wellington
At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 45B thereto—
“141A Duty on sewerage undertakers to take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows into inland and coastal waters
(1) A sewerage undertaker must, as soon as reasonable, take such steps as are necessary to—
(a) demonstrate improvement in the performance of sewerage systems, and
(b) secure progressive reductions in the harm caused by untreated sewage discharges into inland and coastal waters.
(2) The Secretary of State, the Director and the Environment Agency must exercise their respective functions under this and any other Act to secure compliance with this duty.””
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 65, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 65A.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 66, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 66A.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 67 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 67A, 67B, 67C, 67D and 67E in lieu.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 75 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 75A and 75B in lieu.
“(6) Before issuing the guidance, the Department must—
(a) prepare a draft, and
(b) lay the draft before the Northern Ireland Assembly.
(7) If before the end of the 21 day period the Northern Ireland Assembly passes a resolution in respect of the draft guidance, the Department must produce a response and lay it before the Assembly.
(8) The Department may prepare and lay before the Northern Ireland Assembly the final guidance, but not before—
(a) if subsection (7) applies, the day on which the Department lays the response required by that subsection, or
(b) otherwise, the end of the 21 day period.
(9) The final guidance has effect when it is laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly.
(10) The Department must publish the guidance when it comes into effect.
(11) The “21 day period” is the period of 21 sitting days beginning with the first sitting day after the day on which the draft guidance is laid under subsection (6).
(12) “Sitting day” means a day on which the Northern Ireland Assembly sits.
(13) The Department may revise the guidance at any time (and subsections (6) to (12) apply in relation to any revised guidance).”
Lord Tunnicliffe
Leave out from “75” to end and insert “, do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 75A and 75B and do propose Amendment 75C in lieu—
“24A OEP independence
(1) The OEP has complete discretion in the carrying out of its functions in Northern Ireland, including in—
(a) preparing its enforcement policy,
(b) exercising its enforcement functions, and
(c) preparing and publishing its budget.
(2) The Department may issue guidance to the OEP on the matters listed in section 22(6)(c).
(3) The OEP must have regard to the guidance in preparing its enforcement policy, unless there are material considerations that indicate otherwise.
(4) Before issuing the guidance, the Department must—
(a) prepare and consult on a draft,
(b) lay the draft before the Northern Ireland Assembly, and
(c) publish a response to the consultation.
(5) The Department must publish the guidance when it comes into effect.
(6) In making or terminating appointments under paragraph 2(2B) and paragraph 5(8)(b) of Schedule 1, the Northern Ireland Department must obtain the consent of the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs of the Northern Ireland Assembly.””
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 85, do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 85A, 85B and 85C in lieu and do propose Amendment 85D as an amendment to Commons Amendment 85B and Amendment 85E as an amendment to Commons Amendment 85C—
“(1A) Regulations made by the Secretary of State may specify only items which—
(a) are single use items, and
(b) are supplied in connection with goods or services.”
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 94, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 94A.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 95, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 95A.
Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill
Tuesday 26th October 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2021 View all Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 54-I(Rev) Revised marshalled list for Committee - (25 Oct 2021)
Baroness Altmann
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the provision substituting “prices” for “earnings” and retains the earnings link for the 2022-23 year by stipulating the Government will assume earnings have risen by 3.8% for the purposes of uprating. This reflects analysis from an ONS blog suggesting that the underlying rate of earnings growth was between 3.2% and 4.4%. The figure of 3.8% is chosen as the mid-way point in that range.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 1, 2 and 3. I have to say to my noble friend that I truly believe that the legislation already allows for the provisions that we are trying to enshrine in this Bill. I actually do not believe that the Bill is necessary. It was passed through the other House on the basis of a false premise: that keeping the triple-lock earnings protection would require a pension uprating of more than 8%, at an Exchequer cost of around £5 billion.
However, we are amending Section 150A of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, and Section 150A(8) specifically states that
“the Secretary of State shall estimate the general level of earnings in such manner as he thinks fit.”
Given that we are supposed to be uprating benefits that are vital to the living standards of millions of pensioners —I am particularly concerned about the poorest pensioners, who are dealt with by Amendment 3—it is regrettable that the Secretary of State and the Government have chosen not to use the option in the Bill allowing them to estimate a level of earnings that would have allowed for what I think all noble Lords would agree is an exceptional impact from the measures taken in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic. That event is pretty unprecedented but could be allowed for when talking about uprating benefits that so many millions of our citizens rely wholly—or almost wholly—upon to be able to afford to live.
In my attempts to persuade and impress upon the Government that it is not too late to retain the triple-lock earnings link, I have tried to suggest ways in which we can still do this in the Bill, and I am most grateful to my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, who has supported me on Amendment 1. I stress that these are all probing amendments, but this one tries to help the Government by suggesting a level that could be used to reflect an actual level of earnings increase across the economy which is adjusted—in a way that has already been explained by the ONS in a recent publication—for the distortions relating to earnings figures in the normal measure, which has always been average weekly earnings.
The ONS analysis, which looked at the base effects and the composition effect, suggested that actual earnings growth was not more than 8% but was between 3.2% and 4.4%. I have just picked a number at the middle of the range: 3.8% is a figure that could be inserted into the Bill. The Secretary of State is at liberty to choose an alternative figure that she feels—perhaps with the advice of her officials and all the excellent analysts that the department has—would better reflect the actual number, but that itself would still preserve the earnings link that is so important, as we discussed at Second Reading. So, that is Amendment 1, which specifies that the general level of earnings obtaining would be 3.8% for the purposes of just this one year, which is what we are trying to do.
Amendment 2 is truly cross-party: I am hugely grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith, Lady Drake and Lady Wheatcroft. Again, this amendment intends to maintain the link between pension uprating and earnings while still explicitly accounting for the problem that, I believe, the Government have been advised to beware of, which is that not using average weekly earnings and not changing primary legislation to permit not using average weekly earnings could open the Government to challenge. I stress that I am also hugely grateful to my noble friend the Minister, who has engaged so constructively with noble Lords across the House, and to her officials, who have been very patient and generous with their time in going through these issues with those of us who feel so concerned about the social-policy and pensioner-poverty implications of potentially setting a dangerous precedent that, actually, increasing by earnings does not necessarily need to happen if the Government do not like the figure one year.
Amendment 2 aims to enshrine in the Bill a provision that says that, for this year only, those benefits—the basic state pension, the new state pension, pension credit, the minimum guarantee and the other smaller pensions, such as category B, category D and so on—need to rise in line with earnings, but that that level of earnings can be adjusted in light of
“the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level of earnings for the previous year”.
That, again, would open the way for the Government to maintain the earnings link and use an adjusted figure, while addressing the potential concern about being challenged if primary legislation is not changed.
At the moment, the decision seems to have been taken that, if average weekly earnings—the specific statistic produced by the ONS, which has always been used in the past—are not used, the only alternative is to drop the earnings link altogether. These amendments are designed to show that that is not the only alternative. Even though, within the legislation, it is okay to use a figure that the Secretary of State adjusts as she sees fit, this would explicitly state that.
I am puzzled that the officials still seem to think that this could be open to challenge. Very few people would disagree with the idea that average weekly earnings statistics, as reported in the 8%-plus range, were not distorted in some way and that it is not acceptable to adjust them in any way. Indeed, in the figures that have come out for average weekly earnings, the three months that were compared with three months from last year—April, May and June—were all at around 8.8%, but the more recent July and August figures, which have already come out, were significantly below that. They have come down to around 5% or below, so there is an element of MPs having made a decision without recognising that there are alternatives. I propose that we suggest to the other place that there is an alternative that allows retention of the manifesto commitment to maintain the triple lock and, more importantly, of the earnings link.
Finally and briefly, on Amendment 3, I am again grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Smith of Newnham and Lady Wheatcroft. This amendment is specifically aimed at the poorest pensioners—those who rely on pension credit. This credit has never been triple locked, so they have never benefited from that protection directly, although there has been a cash-terms increase to keep the pension credit a little more in line with the new state pension. Since its introduction nearly 20 years ago, it has always had to be linked to the level of average earnings. Suddenly, for one year, because of the pandemic, we are removing that protection even from the poorest pensioners. Typically, they are the oldest pensioners. The majority of them will be women who are not living on very much money; we are talking about £177.50, or thereabouts, a week, as the single pension-credit minimum-income guarantee level.
If nothing else, I am proposing that we do not abandon the earnings link for those poorest pensioners, so I have inserted a provision in page 1, line 8, at the end,
“for the purposes of paragraphs (za) to (c) … only”
of Section 150A(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. That would exclude this Bill from applying to the pension credit minimum income guarantee. It would, I stress, still allow the Secretary of State the discretion to use a different level of earnings than average weekly earnings should she decide to do that for reasons of policy, such as not having too big a differential or too big excess of pension credit over the new state pension. However, the main principle that I am trying to preserve within these amendments is the importance to pensioners, in the context of pensioner poverty and a state pension that is pretty much the lowest in the developed world, that the promised protection is in line with earnings. That is crucial. We must, in my view, not set a dangerous precedent, even for one year. We can take alternative measures to account for the distortions of the pandemic. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
I should point out to the Committee that if Amendment 1 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 2 by reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, I have put my name to the first three amendments because I believe that doing away with the earnings link would be a really dangerous step. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Altmann for doing such a lot of work on these amendments and providing the Government with a percentage, 3.8%, which should of course be acceptable. Nobody in this House knows more about pensions than the noble Baroness, and she has introduced this measure so effectively that I can be relatively brief.
Relying on CPI inflation, which would happen if we did away with the earnings link, will act to the detriment of pensioners, as it does not accurately reflect how those pensioners who rely most heavily on their state pensions spend their money. Last month, for instance, the greatest downward pressure on inflation came from hotels and restaurants. It is the basics of life which absorb pensioner incomes, though, not hotels and restaurants. Their money goes on food, fuel and housing, yet we know that the September CPI figure, which would be used to determine the inflation figure for pensions, does not and cannot take account of the increases that are going to dawn on food, fuel and housing prices over the next few months. Earnings are a good guide to where basic costs will go, and we should maintain the link for pensions.
Pensioner poverty is on the rise again. In June this year, Age UK reported that more than 2 million pensioners were living in poverty. We know that very many of those might qualify for extra benefits but do not apply for them, either through too little knowledge or too much pride, so it is crucial that the basic pension—currently, shamefully, the lowest in the OECD in relation to earnings—should rise significantly. There will be some who do not need the extra cash—members of that ever-reducing band with the benefit of a defined benefit pension, or those with an investment income—but the fact that they have more money does not mean that the basic state pension should not rise at a reasonable level: the tax system can claw back the excess. Would it not have been sensible to have made sure that the levy to pay for NHS and social care reform would come from income tax rather than from national insurance, which pensioners do not pay at the moment? I believe that those pensioners who are in work should pay.
However, these amendments make sense. They work as a package and therefore I support them.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to probing Amendments 2 and 3 in this group. The triple lock is not legislated for; it rests on a commitment given by successive Governments since 2011. However, indexing pensions at least in line with earnings is legislated for. Through this Bill, the Government are neither applying the triple lock nor the underpin of earnings indexation. Both have gone as a consequence of this Bill—albeit that the Government say that they will not do it next year.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the removal of both is causing concerns that the Bill is trailing the Government’s consideration of lowering the value of the state pension going forward. While recognising the anomaly in the data behind the 8.3% earnings figure, the pandemic will not account for all of that increase. The decision to raise the state pension by the consumer price index in response to the anomaly comes without any analysis of how that change might impact the value of the state pension in relation to actual earnings.
In fact, the Pension Policy Institute has done such an analysis and, assuming that the CPI increase is of the order of 3%, which it is, the PPI’s recent analysis stated:
“Increasing the State Pension by CPI means that overall, State Pensions will rise by less than the real increase in earnings over the past two years. An alternative approach would have been to consider the rise in earnings over two years to give a more realistic estimation of real wage increases without the artificial impact of the pandemic impact in the year on year earnings statistics. This would need a pension increase of 5.3% in 2022 to match the increase in earnings since the setting of the State Pension level in 2020. Increasing the State Pension by this amount would save £3.1bn in 2022”.
So, increases in pensions will not reflect the real rise in hourly wages over that two-year period—which rows against the clear intention of the underpin of earnings indexation that is in the legislation.
The PPI approach of considering earnings over two years would reduce much of the methodology challenge in establishing an adjusted earnings index for one year, which the Minister refers to as the Government’s main defence for the approach they are taking. In fact, we have not heard a proper explanation from the Government as to why they could not consider different approaches. Several could have been taken, such as looking at earnings over the two-year period. So can the Minister give a fuller explanation of why they cannot take a different approach to that contained in this Bill? How do the Government intend to address the fall in the value of pensions against earnings over the last two years?
The triple lock was intended to address the extended fall in the value of the basic state pension. As the Minister states in her letter of 25 October, following Second Reading,
“the triple lock was introduced in order to boost the value of the basic state pension”.
It was to recover from those years of decline against earnings—a sort of accelerator, to get back to a reasonable comparative position.
With the Library’s help, I looked at the hypothetical value of the basic state pension and the pension credit as if they had been uprated in line with earnings, rather than the triple lock, since 2011. Currently, that triple-lock boost delivered a basic state pension of approximately £18 higher a week than it would have been if it had been indexed by earnings alone. When the Bill passes, in 2023 the basic state pension boost will fall to approximately £12 a week higher than if uprated by earnings alone. The pension credit minimum income guarantee, targeted on the poorest pensioners, is approximately £14 a week higher currently than it would have been if uprated by earnings alone. In 2022-23, it will be only £6.79 a week higher.
I am sure that the Government will produce more precise figures than mine, because their ability to do so is greater than mine, but what I am absolutely confident that they will not be able to contradict is that there will be a clawback from the cash value of the current triple-lock boost. The pension credit minimum income guarantee is targeted on the poorest pensioners and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said, it is not uprated by the triple lock, although earnings uprating is legislated for. The Government have mitigated that omission by applying the underpin of a cash increase, to give what they feel is a fair increase, rather than conceding the full principle of the triple lock.
However, many older pensioners still face declining incomes, and women are particularly sensitive to changes in the state pension indexation. On average, women are more likely than men to have lower incomes at older ages: 60% of those in relative poverty over the age of 65 are women; and women are more likely to be eligible for pension credit—so there will be a direct gender impact if one starts to tamper with less generous indexation, and there is nothing about future accrual of pensions that suggests that that gender bias would not persist.
Pensioner poverty is rising, and we are now seeing falling life expectancy in areas with the greatest incidence of pensioner poverty. We have accelerated the state pension age; pensioner poverty is rising; and in those areas, life expectancy is falling. That trend was emerging before the pandemic—before anybody says, “Well, it’s the product of the pandemic”, no, that trend was there. I am sure it has been accelerated, but it was there before.
So why are the Government not taking a different approach to the uprating of pension credit targeted on the poorest pensioners and applying a cash increase greater than the value of the uprating by CPI? There need be no complicating legal or methodological issues in doing so. There is a clear precedent for the Government choosing to apply a cash increase.
Some argue that the triple lock unfairly advantages older people and should be scrapped for reasons of intergenerational fairness. But not all older people are experiencing a higher standard of living—older pensioners even less so. In 2020, benefit income was the largest component of income for both pensioner couples and single pensioners, and nearly two-thirds of the total income for single female pensioners.
In fact, younger people arguably have more to gain from the triple lock than older people because, when the state second pension was replaced by the new state pension in 2016, which will apply to future pensioners, its full value then was set at around 24% of average earnings—and that is low in comparison with any other advanced economy. But that is the base on which one is looking to make private savings work. To achieve a replacement income in retirement of 45% for the average earner, privately saving 8% under auto enrolment, the new state pension needs to be nearer 30% of average earnings. The Government argued when they introduced the new state pension that it was set because it was part of a package, together with the triple lock and the accelerated increases in the state pension age, which have been banked.
Again, research by the Pensions Policy Institute indicates that, without the triple lock, it will be harder, at least until the new state pension rises above a certain level, for young workers to achieve an adequate income in retirement, because it is the base on which their private savings will assist in securing them an income in retirement, and the dominance of the role of the state pension in pensioner income will persist long into the future.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin by apologising to your Lordships for not taking part in Second Reading due to the volume of Bills currently before your Lordships’ House.
I will be very brief. I rise to offer the Green group’s support for the intention of all these amendments. I express my pleasure in following the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and stress her point that we are not talking about a contest between generations here. There are some very poor people among our older communities, and they deserve not to live in poverty, but that does not mean taking money away from the young. I also stress the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, about how pensioner poverty is rising and that we should have a society where no pensioner is living in poverty.
I particularly want to address Amendment 3, which is the one I would most like to have attached my name to, had there been space. It is crucial: pension credit gets so many people to at least a basically decent, not awful, standard of living, but the fact is that that is useful only if you actually get it. I had a conversation—or a debate—with the Minister about a year ago. At that stage, the rate of pension credit take-up was 60%; that meant about a million pensioners were not receiving pension credit who would have been entitled to it. That was money the Government were not paying out—about £3 billion. It was estimated that it was costing the NHS and social care a spend of £4 billion. So not paying pension credit is actually costing the Government money. Can the Minister now—or later in writing, sharing it with other Peers—update me, a year later, on whether those figures still hold? Have the Government planned, as they did not plan a year ago, a programme to promote pension credit to ensure that those who are entitled to it take it up?
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, says, all these amendments seek to protect pensioners against price increases during a temporary suspension of the triple lock. I very much welcome the proposals made in Amendments 1, 2 and 3, and particularly welcome the proposal to include pension credit in the link with earnings.
I want to speak to Amendment 4 in my name, which seeks to base the uplift on the predicted increase as forecast by the Bank of England for April 2022. My amendment proposes that, as the pension increase will be in April 2022 and the previous pension increase was in April 2021, the best measure would surely be price increases between those two dates.
Circumstances have changed considerably since the Bill completed its passage through the Commons, including rising costs, rising inflation, unreliability of supply chains and the various pressures brought about by those circumstances. While we do not know what inflation will be by next April, there is plenty of reason to think that it will be higher than currently—that is sadly what the Bank of England thinks. For example, the energy cap went up 12% on 1 October, and is expected to go up again next April. I do not think the Government should be happy that these cost rises are not included in the inflation figure that they have used.
We know that pensioners, and older pensioners in particular, tend to spend more time at home and feel the cold more, and so energy bills tend to be a higher share of their household budgets. Given soaring energy costs, pensioner inflation is likely to be higher than average inflation. This is another reason to think that just linking to September’s average figure, when setting the state pension rate, is the answer to the wrong question. I know that some Members will think that using a forecast is not as robust as using an outturn, but this legislation is only for one year, so really we are not setting a precedent. In fact, I am reliably informed that, in the 1980s, the DWP used to use forecast inflation for benefit uprating.
Mention was made in the previous debate of the need to implement the new rates as quickly as possible. This really does not take as long, in this day and age; there are processes in place to make it much easier. Surely it would not take long for the preferred body—the Bank of England or the OBR—to come up with an inflation forecast; presumably the Budget will bring new inflation forecasts in any case.
If the Government are committed to protecting pensioners against rising prices when they set the pension in 2022, they should see that this is a more transparent, easily understood method of ensuring that pensioners are protected against the expected rise in prices, costs and pressures in the year ahead.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, there are two issues being discussed in Committee that I particularly want to address. First, what should be the provisions to determine the operation of the triple lock? Secondly—a distinct issue—what is the desirable level of the fixed-rate state pension, and how can we get there? These are clearly linked but distinct issues, which is why I sought to have them grouped apart. In this group, Amendments 1 to 4, we are dealing with the first issue. The question is: how should the triple lock work? We need to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for her work in producing these amendments, as well as the Minister, for the immense amount of time and effort she has put into explaining the Government’s position.
On the clause stand part debate, I will say that I am in favour of the 8% increase; I will explain why at that stage. However, as I said at Second Reading, given the Government’s clear and unambiguous commitment in their election manifesto to sticking by the triple lock, I do not understand why they are not prepared to adopt one of the approaches proposed by the cross-party group of noble Baronesses before us today. Unfortunately, of course, we have a Government who are now in the habit of breaking their promises; in this case in a relatively blatant fashion and, as has been explained, unnecessarily.
The Minister should understand that her Government’s refusal to give any consideration to any of these proposals is why there is so much fear—in this House and more generally—that this is not a one-off, that a precedent will be set that will be attractive to austerity-minded Chancellors in future, and that other excuses for breaking the link will be found. This is clearly not a party-political point. No one could accuse Age UK of being partisan, but it has said that
“it’s asking a lot for older people to believe that any scaling back of the triple lock would only be temporary, rather than permanent.”
The organisation goes on to point out that
“some of the prominent voices arguing for a suspension of the triple lock in response to the pandemic, are the same people who have called for its abolition in the past.”
The only way for the Government to mitigate these widespread concerns is to demonstrate commitment, either by sticking to the current legislation or, more likely in practice, through an appropriate amendment to this Bill. Such an amendment is now necessary to demonstrate the Government’s continued commitment —in practice and not just in fine words—to the key earnings element of the triple lock.
We must thank the Minister for her letter—which eventually reached me—and her explanation of why the Government believe that it is so difficult to adopt another definition of the earnings increase that would satisfy Section 150A of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. I am also glad to have had meetings with the Minister, at her instigation, to discuss the issue in detail. I thank her. But the case essentially comes down to “legal risk”. Unfortunately, I still find the argument less than compelling. On the face of it, the choice of the index is a decision for the Secretary of State. Subsection (8) could not be more definitive:
“The Secretary of State shall estimate the general level of earnings in such manner as he thinks fit.”
This puts it in the hands of the Secretary of State, so long as, that is, she does it in a way that is not irrational.
In truth, it is the decision to drop any link to earnings that is irrational—and, anyway, if it were correct that the Secretary of State’s choice is so open to challenge, it would be surprising that it has not been challenged in the past. For example, the prices index is based on a single month, September, whereas earnings are based on the three-month average from May to July. What sense does that make and why has one or other choice not been challenged? Earnings indices, along with those for prices, are inherently a matter of judgment and interpretation. It is not as though there is one true earnings index buried under the data that might ultimately be revealed in the course of legal action. Is any court really going to substitute its judgment for that of the Secretary of State? I am afraid that the excuses being offered for why the Government are unwilling to accept the approach suggested in these amendments bear all the hallmarks of post hoc-ism, the sort of clutching-at-straws justification that is commonly introduced to justify a decision that has already been made. The Minister has to understand that this is exactly why so many people continue to doubt the Government’s protestations that this is simply a one-off.
For these reasons, I shall support Amendments 2 and 3, in the spirit of helping the Government out of a hole that they have dug for themselves. Unfortunately, although I often agree with the noble Baroness, I am against Amendment 4. Just to give a brief history lesson, the idea of predicting prices figures is fatally flawed. I criticised it back in 1975 when my pensions hero, Barbara Castle, tried it, and I am against it now. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to use visual aids in this Chamber, but those noble Lords who have to hand the House of Commons briefing document can turn to page 22 and see a graph of the real value of the basic pension against earnings. Noble Lords will see that in 1975, when Barbara Castle was Secretary of State, there was a sharp downward dip, which is when they decided to adopt a projected rather than a hard figure. I am against it—I am sorry, because I am sure that the intentions are the best, but it gives too much scope for the Government to adjust the figures.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, at Second Reading I accepted the Government’s case for not increasing pensions by 8% or so, and I called for a review of the triple lock, because of the arbitrary nature of the triple element of the lock—that is, the 2.5%—while emphasising the importance of maintaining pensions and related benefits relative to average earnings as a general principle. I therefore support Amendments 1 and 2, which are consistent with that argument.
At Second Reading, as we have heard, the Minister argued that there was no robust methodology for establishing what the underlying increase in earnings had been this last year. But surely the ONS range of estimates, on which these amendments are based, is at least based on some kind of methodology, which is more than one can say about 2.5%, which can be used to increase pensions should it exceed earnings and prices. As it is, the jettisoning of earnings this year has given rise to understandable fears that the earnings link might be abandoned altogether in the longer term, just as it was by the Conservative Government in 1980, leading to a steady deterioration in the position of pensions relative to average earnings during the following two decades.
Moreover, the case for basing pensions on the underlying increase in earnings is the stronger, given what is happening to inflation, which is addressed by Amendment 4. All the indications are that inflation is going to rise above the 3.1% on which the uprating will be based. The Bank of England’s chief economist has warned that it could go as high as 5% in the next few months. For pensioners and others reliant on social security, the effective rate of inflation is likely to be higher still, given the differential impact of inflation when the increase in basics such as fuel and food, which constitute a disproportionate part of low-income budgets, is a key driver of inflation, as already mentioned. I raised this issue at Second Reading and asked the Minister whether she would undertake to look at how the problem might be addressed, but she did not respond then or in her subsequent letter.
The other day, the Chancellor said:
“I know that families here at home are feeling the pinch of higher prices and are worried about the months ahead. But I want you to know, we will continue to do whatever it takes, we will continue to have your backs—”
whatever that means—
“just like we did during the pandemic.”
The amendments we are debating here today would be one way of doing whatever it takes. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take them seriously and, if she does not accept any of them, explain how the Government will do whatever it takes to protect those reliant on social security in the face of rising inflation.
Finally, on pension credit, the subject of Amendment 3, I believe that the uprating should be protected legally. But I would like to return briefly to the issue of take-up raised at Second Reading by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, which also has implications for later amendments on pensioner poverty. I welcome the willingness of Ministers—and our Minister in particular—to discuss with Peers ways of improving the lamentably low take-up rate. I had understood that it had been agreed that one way of doing so was to include a suitably arresting and well-designed leaflet or similar in communications with pensioners. I have received a couple of communications from the DWP since then, neither of which has drawn my attention to pension credit. Just last week, the letter I received about the winter fuel allowance made no mention at all of pension credit. Could the Minister tell us whether the idea of such a leaflet has been abandoned and, if so, why?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Janke, for introducing their amendments, and all noble Lords who have spoken. We had a good discussion at Second Reading about the way the Government have gone about trying to find an alternative to the triple lock that would deal with the impact of the pandemic on earnings data. But I think it is fair to say that the Minister will have worked out from the contributions that this has not entirely satisfied noble Lords around the House as a way forward.
Let me look briefly at the three sets of issues raised by the amendments in this group. Amendments 1 and 2 from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, would replace the provisions of this Bill with the provision to uprate using an earnings measure designed to reflect an underlying rate of earnings growth. Amendment 1 sets that at 3.8%, being chosen as the midpoint in the range of this now famous blog by the ONS. I suspect the person who wrote it must be wondering whether they will ever blog again. But that blog suggested a range that—if you were to strip out the base and compositional effects—would give an indication of underlying basic earnings growth.
Amendment 2 takes a similar but less prescriptive approach, leaving it to the Secretary of State to pick a number informed by that same ONS piece of work. Given that a number of noble Lords have expressed scepticism about the Government’s defence—that one of the reasons they do not want to move away from average weekly earnings is fear of legal action—could the Government rehearse again exactly what they are worried about and why? I think that would be helpful, because, clearly, noble Lords are not persuaded by that.
I do not think anyone is very happy with where the Government have landed. My noble friend Lady Drake contributed, I have to say, another piece of astonishing, wonderful analysis. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, that I think it is possible that my noble friend is an even greater expert than the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, based on the strength of her contribution. We have huge expertise in this House, and we are greatly blessed by it. My noble friend summarised the matter when she said that, essentially, in this Bill, the Government have contrived to find a way forward in which they apply neither the triple lock nor the earnings indexation on which the triple lock is meant to build.
The quote from the PPI about what would have happened if the triple lock had been applied over two years was interesting. When we debated the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill 2020, I asked whether the Government had considered some sort of smoothing process, such as applying the principles of the triple lock over two years instead of one. I went back and read Hansard again today, and the Minister said—I paraphrase—it was all a bit uncertain. But that would have avoided the methodological complexity and any associated legal risks that Ministers are worried about, since presumably, they are using an established measure—immune, I imagine, to legal test. I ask the Minister again: did the Government consider it? Looking back, does she think that might have been a safer way forward?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their amendments and my noble friend Lady Altmann for her courteous note explaining her reasons for tabling her amendments.
Amendment 1 in the name of my noble friend Lady Altmann, would increase the benefits in this Bill by an adjusted earnings figure of 3.8%. My comments are also highly relevant to Amendments 2 and 3, also in the name of my noble friend Lady Altmann, which retrospectively increase the benefits in this Bill in line with an adjusted earnings figure and excludes the standard minimum guarantee from the Bill, increasing it by existing legislation instead.
The principal difficulty with these amendments is that they rely on a commentary from the Office for National Statistics, which, by its own admission, is intended to give a sense of the context in which the current earnings growth figures have arisen. The highly caveated range of figures in this commentary is, I am afraid, simply not robust enough to form the basis for an uprating decision. It does not have official status but features in a blog, already referred to, that the ONS published alongside its usual earnings statistics, starting in July this year. The blog explains:
“There are a number of ways you can try to strip out these base effects, but no single method everyone would agree on. We have tried a couple of simple approaches … Neither approach is perfect … Our calculations of an underlying rate are there to help users understand base and compositional effects, but … there remains a lot of uncertainty about how best to control for these effects”
so they need to be treated with caution. I submit to noble Lords that decisions affecting billions of pounds of public expenditure should not be grounded in a range of possible estimates in an environment where it is acknowledged that no single method can be agreed on.
A further point is that the ONS has calculated its range of adjusted underlying earnings growth for a measure of regular pay. The usual measure of earnings used for uprating is total pay, which is regular pay plus bonuses, because this gives a more complex picture of earnings, in which bonuses can play an important part. There are no such problems with CPI, which is a robust national statistic and provides a clear and sound basis for this year’s uprating with no need for any adjustments.
In the light of this, the Government decided that the most transparent and robust way to proceed in this exceptional second year of the pandemic is to suspend the link between earnings for one year and instead uprate the relevant state pensions by at least 2.5% or in line with CPI, whichever is the higher. Noble Lords will recall that we also suspended the earnings link last year because otherwise the relevant state pensions would have been frozen. I accept that the circumstances in the two years are different, with a slump in wages followed by a spike, but the Government consider an unrepresented spike in state pensions to be unfair to younger taxpayers this year, just as last year they considered the slump or freeze in state pensions to be unfair on pensioners, even though the cost of uprating was borne by younger taxpayers.
Under this Bill, the Secretary of State must increase the relevant pension rates by at least 3.1%, assuming a 3.1% increase is applied to the current rate of the basic state pension in 2022-23. This would mean that the full yearly rate would have increased since 2010 by £570 more than if it had been uprated with earnings and £720 more than if it been uprated with prices. That is over £2,300 more in cash terms than in 2010.
Finally, I remind the Committee that this Bill applies for one year only. From 2023-24, the legislation will revert to the existing requirement to uprate at least by earnings growth. The Government’s triple lock manifesto commitment remains in place.
Amendment 3, tabled by my noble friend Lady Altmann, seeks to exclude the pension credit standard minimum guarantee from the provisions of the Bill so that the underlying legislation would apply. This would mean uprating the standard minimum guarantee in line with the growth in earnings rather than, as provided by the Bill, not less than the higher rate of 2.5% or inflation, which we now know is 3.1% for the reference period used for uprating.
In structural terms, the standard minimum guarantee is linked to earnings so that pensioners on the lowest income share in rising national prosperity. However, as we have discussed, the earnings growth figures for this year have been inflated by the temporary slump in wages last year, followed by an unprecedented rebound as the economy and businesses have reopened and millions have moved off furlough and returned to work. The reasons for suspending the earnings link just for 2022-23 therefore apply as much to pension credit as they do to the state pension.
The Government recognise that the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit is the safety net for pensioners on the lowest incomes. I accept that that is therefore different from the contributory state pension, which provides a foundation for private saving, notably through auto-enrolment. However, the measures the Government took last year, together with those in this Bill, will ensure that the safety net for pensioners on the lowest incomes more than keeps pace with inflation. Over the two years of the pandemic, it will have increased by more than the increase in prices. It was increased by 1.9% in April 2021, when the CPI for the relevant uprating review period was 0.5%, and will be increased by 3.1% from April 2022, in line with the relevant rate of CPI this year. We believe this strikes a fair balance over the two years between the interests of pensioners and those of younger taxpayers.
I should also point out that this amendment would undermine one of the key aims of the 2016 reforms that introduced the new state pension. From the outset, the full rate of the new state pension has been set above the basic means test, which is the single rate of standard minimum guarantee, in order to provide a clear foundation for private saving. Currently, the full rate of the new state pension is £2.50 a week higher than the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit. This amendment would lift the single rate of the standard minimum guarantee above the rate of the new state pension and so bring more pensioners into the scope of means testing. If the standard minimum guarantee was increased in line with earnings growth of 8.3%, the single rate would increase by £14.70 to £191.80 a week. That is £6.65 a week more than the full rate of the new state pension if that rate increases by 3.1% in line with the provisions of this Bill.
I know my noble friend Lady Altmann does not agree that we would need to increase the standard minimum guarantee by as much as 8.3%, but we have discussed the reasons why the Government do not consider there is a robust alternative measure of earnings that could be relied on instead. As we have made clear, the Bill is for one tax year only. After that, the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit would continue to increase at least in line with earnings from 2023-24.
On Amendment 4, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, which would uprate the benefits included in the Bill by April 2022 CPI figures, I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns over trends in price inflation and welcome the discussion we have had on the issue. I of course sympathise with the thinking behind this amendment. The Government would like to use the most up-to-date indices when it comes to the annual uprating process, but this is bound by a number of practical concerns which mean that the most up-to-date index we can use is the one for the year to September, which is published in October each year.
The Secretary of State’s uprating review needs to be completed by late November due to IT deadlines and the need to commence inputting the new rates into the department’s numerous computer systems. There are also interdependencies with HMRC and local authorities, which require the rates before Christmas. Additionally, there is a requirement to follow the correct legislative process. The new rates are included in the uprating order, which needs to be debated in Parliament before they come into force in the new tax year.
Finally, on average, September’s CPI is higher than in the following April half the time, and lower half the time. This has a long-term smoothing effect, provided the same index is used each year, as it is for benefits ordinarily linked to prices, such as attendance allowance and the additional state pension. The CPI for September 2020 was 0.5%, but in April 2021 it was 1.5% However, in each of the previous three years, the September CPI used for uprating was higher than the CPI figure for the following April. In these years, pensions saw a slightly higher increase than they would have done if it had been possible to wait and use the April CPI figure.
The Government’s intention with the Bill is to suspend the earnings link for one year but retain the price limb of the triple lock. This is to ensure that the purchasing power of state pensions is preserved, while protecting younger taxpayers from funding an increase that would otherwise be exaggerated by the statistical anomaly thrown up by the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I have two quick questions. I am not advocating smoothing, but the Minister’s argument against it was that there would be a compositional effect. From memory, the base effect was many times more than the compositional effect, in terms of the impact on earnings data. The composition effect was less than 1% and the base effect was 3% or 4%, so is that really an argument?
The second question is something I have always wondered. The argument she gave to noble Lords who asked about timing was that two of the reasons why it had to be decided now were that the computers must be programmed in November and that the order usually has to be put through in January. What would happen if the computers had been programmed and the order was rejected by Parliament?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I will have to come back to the noble Baroness on her latter point, as I do not know at the moment.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
On base and compositional effects, is not the compositional effect on which she was relying as a defence against smoothing very small? Does not the base effect account for most of the difference in earnings data?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
That is another technical point that, rather than give an incorrect answer, I will come back to the noble Baroness on.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for her detailed response and clear efforts to address the issues that have been raised, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this important group of amendments.
I am still struggling to understand the rationale for not retaining the earnings link. Noble Lords are being asked to accept that, because estimating the pandemic’s distorting impact on earnings is rather difficult, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Office for National Statistics, the OBR and the legions of statistical experts we have at our disposal could not come up with a figure that the Secretary of State could use to allow for such adjustments without being at risk of being considered irrational. I really struggle with that concept.
Nobody is suggesting that the Secretary of State knows an answer that everybody would agree to. However, in the face of rising pensioner poverty, rising inflation, the lowest state pension in the developed world and the problems we can foresee coming next year, with the poorest pensioners being unable to afford the basic costs of living, it is concerning that we are deciding to remove a critical part of their protection which was promised in our manifesto, and which is not unaffordable, on the premise that it is too difficult to adjust the numbers.
I accept that the figure of 3.8% in Amendment 1 was based on an ONS blog; it was the only figure available that was a remotely official statistic. However, Amendments 2 and 3 contain important provisions that would allow the Secretary of State to use all the resources at her disposal to come up with a number that adjusts average earnings correctly and fairly, in a way on which maybe not everyone would agree but that would at least retain the vital principle of the earnings protection that pensioners have always been promised and, in the case of pension credit, that the poorest pensioners have always relied upon.
I shall withdraw my amendment, but I hope we can have further discussions between now and Report and perhaps work out a way forward based on the important principles of social security policy that we have always stuck to in the past. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
“(3) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a review of the impact of this Act on pensioner poverty.(4) This review must be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and a Minister of the Crown must arrange to make a statement.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Government to carry out an assessment of the impact of the Government’s chosen policy option on levels of pensioner poverty.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I rise to move Amendment 5, in my name, and to speak to the other amendments in this group. I tabled Amendments 5, 6 and 7 for two reasons: to try to plug what seems to be a serious knowledge gap in this legislation, and to highlight the wider concern about the growing rates of pensioner poverty and the worsening cost-of-living crisis.
It seems evident that the Bill must have an effect on pensioner poverty, because it will not only give today’s pensioners a lower pension next year than they expected but it will affect the value of the state pension for them and for future generations of pensioners for ever, as it is the base from which future percentage increases will take place. As noble Lords have already said today, that is a low base, since the UK pension is comparatively low.
The last Labour Government were able to achieve big reductions in pensioner poverty, in large part by introducing pension credit. At Second Reading I asked the Minister what action the Government would be taking to increase the take-up of pension credit, since at that point the last figures that I had seen suggested that only six in 10 of those eligible were claiming it. In response, the Minister picked just one figure and talked about take-up by value, and only for the guaranteed minimum standard pension credit. She did not talk about the aspect that most people talk about: the proportion of people who could claim pension credit who are actually doing so—in other words, take-up by volume.
I am sure the Minister will appreciate that that matters a great deal. With some benefits, if you only get a small amount then some people might choose not to claim. But the thing about pension credit is that if you get it at all, it is a passport to other really important benefits, including council tax credit, help with health and energy costs, and of course the free TV licence for the over-75s. It therefore matters that everyone gets pension credit if they are entitled to it.
I think the latest figures show that take-up for pension credit is still only 63%. Will the Minister confirm that? If so, what are the Government doing to boost it, including the leaflets mentioned by my noble friend Lady Lister? There were lots of other ideas—what is happening about those?
Since 2012 pensioner poverty has started rising again. Official figures show that some 18% of pensioners were living in poverty last year. That amounts to around 2.1 million poor pensioners, with over 1 million of those living in severe poverty. Has the Minister seen the report in June by Independent Age which found that people aged 85 and over have the highest rate of poverty among pensioners, at 22%? There are big regional variations; London has by far the highest rate of pensioner poverty, at 25%, but there are worries about rising poverty in the north.
In September, Age UK published research which found that, since 2012-13, the number of women pensioners living in poverty has increased from 990,000 to 1.25 million—an extra 260,000 women living in poverty. This is especially remarkable given that, because the state pension age was going up at that time, the actual number of female pensioners fell by 800,000. So we have 800,000 fewer female pensioners and yet 260,000 more female pensioners living in poverty. Can the Government explain that and tell us what they are doing about it? Age UK also found that older people from black and Asian communities are around twice as likely to be living in poverty as white pensioners.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I am pleased to support this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I thank her for that incredibly good and detailed outline of what the problem is.
I want to speak briefly as the chair of the charity Feeding Britain, where I succeeded the wonderful Frank Field—the noble Lord, Lord Field of Birkenhead. We began three years ago to support the rollout of affordable food projects. We originally held the assumption that most of the people who would want it would be working-age groups, disabled people or families with kids, but that assumption proved to be wrong. We have 80 affordable food projects in our network. In many of them, between 30% and 40% of the members are pensioners on low incomes. They either could not or would not use a food bank. Pensioners find it extremely difficult to go to a food bank. I think that when you have paid your taxes and national insurance all your life, to find yourself at 85 having to ask someone whether they will give you a can of baked beans is both humiliating and almost impossible. Indeed, we have heard stories of many people who would really rather go without than have to endure that.
In Glasgow, where we have set up many affordable food projects, we have now set them up particularly in areas where there are lot of pensioners. People have really been supported by this. One said to us: “It’s been a godsend, really, because all the prices are going up—electricity, the cost of food and the lot.”
When I was a kid, my parents both did meals on wheels, and I used to go round with them once a week and deliver meals to people’s houses. It was kind of a joy; my parents really enjoyed it. When I chaired the London Food Board, I spent a lot of time seeing what we could do to bring meals on wheels back. The reality is that no councils have any money for this anymore. As always happens when it is about food, it is a budget that gets cut, or the costs go up and it becomes not many people, so it gets struck off the list of things that you could do. One thing we could do would be to start looking at a service like that.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, pointed out about energy, you have to pay a lot to be poor in this country. It is certainly true of food. If I go to a shop, I can buy a large size of washing powder or rice or whatever it happens to be. If you are scraping along on very little money, you pay a great deal more. We did a survey in Greenwich which pointed out that your average shop would cost you 30% to 40% more in your corner store than if you had been able to go to your local Aldi. You pay a price to be poor. That is really terrible, and it is why I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments raise important issues about the impact of the Bill on poverty. I simply want to raise a point about the measure of poverty that should be used.
At Second Reading, in her response to the debate the Minister referred to a fall in pensioner poverty since 2009-10 as measured by the so-called absolute poverty measure, and she did so again earlier this evening. In fact, it is not a measure of absolute poverty as such but is better described as an anchored measure which measures any change by adjusting the 2010-11 poverty line for inflation. In contrast, the House of Commons Library briefing, using the relative poverty measure, recorded an increase in pensioner poverty from an historic low of 13% in 2011-12 to 18% in 2019-20, as my noble friend Lady Sherlock said. With reference to Amendment 8, single female poverty is higher than the overall figure—a point already made.
However, the Minister was dismissive of the use of a relative measure, stating:
“The Government believe that absolute poverty is a better measure of living standards than relative poverty, which can provide counterintuitive results”.—[Official Report, 13/10/21; col. 1885.]
Criticisms of the relative poverty measure as potentially counterintuitive have tended to focus on when it is used for short-term, year-on-year comparisons, but, in this case, we are talking about a rise in relative poverty over a period of eight years, which surely should have triggered some alarm bells in the department.
Relevant here is a recent Work and Pensions Committee report. Although its focus was on measuring child poverty, what it has to say is relevant also to pensioner poverty. It states:
“The Secretary of State is of course right to say that a relative measure can, in the short term, produce counter-intuitive results—but it has great value for assessing long term trends. We are concerned to see Ministers focusing on a single measure, rather than drawing on the rich information offered by DWP’s own set of income-based measures, which combines relative, ‘absolute’ and broader material deprivation statistics … Ministers should reaffirm their commitment to measuring poverty through all four measures”.
Similarly, I have a Written Answer from the Minister’s predecessor, dated May 2018, which states:
“No one measure of poverty is able to fully capture the concept of a low standard of living in all economic circumstances.”
Yet increasingly, Ministers use the so-called absolute measure, as if it is the only appropriate measure. Will the Minister reaffirm that commitment as called for by the Work and Pensions Committee? After all, I remind her that, when he was leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron explained:
“We need to think of poverty in relative terms—the fact that some people lack those things that others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty.”
Can the Minister explain why that is no longer the case? What has changed, other than that the Government’s record on poverty looks worse using the relative poverty measure that Mr Cameron championed?
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 3. To quote from a publication by the Institute for Fiscal Studies,
“We’ll know we are on the way to levelling up when differences in health and life expectancy across the country start to drop. Sadly, that’s one measure of inequality that has clearly been moving in the wrong direction over the past decade.”
Associated with those growing inequalities is pensioner poverty, which, as we have heard, has risen from 13% to 18% and is likely to rise even further. For older pensioners, the rise is even higher. With the rising energy and food costs that we can all see coming down the track, there will be a lot of old people this winter with very little money, sitting in cold houses, fearing that they will not get any help when they fall ill. That will be the reality for many thousands of people in the coming winter months.
We know that there is a major problem generally of households on low incomes with rising debt who will not be able to weather the storm of the growing cost-of-living problems that we are beginning to see. Then again, looked at from a regional perspective, in the majority of regions in England pensioner couples have average weekly incomes below the pensioner couple average, and we are seeing this problem in particular regions: in the north-east, the north-west, east Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and indeed in London, which now has the highest relative level of pensioner poverty. As Imperial College research now shows us, life expectancy is falling in urban areas in these regions—in Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and other areas. Cuts to health and social spending will have contributed to that trend, and we have not yet experienced a winter with the backlog that the NHS is dealing with.
Pensioners with low incomes are more sensitive to indexation changes because they are more dependent for their income on those benefits. Yet we have seen no assessment of the impact of suspending the triple lock, or indeed what could be the implications of decisions the Government will take next year or the year after, given that through the Bill they have suspended both the triple lock and the legislative underpin of earnings. We know that projected levels of pensioner poverty will vary according to the uprating provisions applied to the state pension, given its dominance in pensioner income. If you play negatively with pensioner income, pensioner poverty will go up. That sensitivity to indexation will continue to increase, as fewer and fewer pensioners reach state pension age without the generous defined benefits or defined contribution pensions which, in the past, cushioned the fall in the state pension that occurred under successive Governments.
Pensioner poverty is not a legacy issue. State pension is and remains a dominant source of income for the majority of both current and future pensioners. Research by the Pensions Policy Institute—your Lordships can tell that I am a governor—reveals that the UK is currently on course for a quarter of people approaching retirement being unlikely to receive even a minimum income. Of the 11 million people in the UK between the age of 50 and state pension age, around 3 million will not receive a minimum income.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, very briefly, I have added my name to Amendments 5 and 6 and I support the thrust of these amendments. I urge my noble friend the Minister to look seriously at the merits of investigating the poverty levels that are rising among pensioners. Indeed, I urge her to accept some of these looking at the gender issues—so not just pensioner poverty but relative pensioner poverty between men and women—in her new role as Minister for Women, on which I congratulate her. I support these amendments and I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s comments.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I just want to add that we have a complete lack of information on these proposals. As a matter of law, when the regulations come, they have to be accompanied by a report from the Government Actuary. In effect, we are making the decision now—the regulations are just a carry-on of the Act—and it is really unfortunate that we do not have before us the information that Parliament has decided should be available to us when we deal with these regulations.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her amendments and for the information she has drawn to our attention. I share her concern at the lack of impact assessments of the proposed uplift on the most affected groups. The increasing pensioner poverty that we are all aware of and the poor take-up of pension credits, which are important as a passport to other benefits, are matters we are all extremely concerned about. I agree that pension increases are fast outstripped by rising costs, and I certainly fear a winter crisis, with increased energy prices and their effect on those who most need heat to keep their homes healthy and warm.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, about how poor pensioners do not want to claim food —they do not want free food, they would rather starve than do that—and I believe that that is certainly an element in the uptake of pension credit. Again, we all worry that we are going to see more and more food banks and people unable to feed themselves as costs rise. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, raised the whole issue of regional poverty and inequality. Certainly, when you look at the statistics across the regions, they are quite breath-taking. I believe we need much more information, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, particularly about regional inequality. I wonder why we do not have this information when the Government have such a strong levelling-up agenda. How will they address these issues without adequate information on which to base decisions?
My amendment in this group highlights the unfairness experienced by many women as result of the pension gender gap. I will point out the current situation. The average pension pot for a woman aged 65 is one-fifth of that of a 65 year-old man. Women receive £29,000 less state pension than men over 20 years and this deficit is set to continue, closing by only 3% by 2060. Many women are wholly dependent on the state pension and as a result of this situation, we should take a particular interest in conducting impact assessments on the uprating of pensions on poverty. I support the measures proposed in this group and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Drake, Lady Boycott, Lady Altmann and Lady Janke, for raising important issues through these amendments and I reassure the Committee that we are committed to ensuring economic security at every stage of life, including when one reaches retirement.
On Amendments 5 and 8, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Janke, on publishing a poverty impact assessment, the department collects and publishes a wide range of data on income and poverty which are released annually in the reports in the households below average income series. Noble Lords raised the issue of pension credit take-up. Time does not allow me to go into the detail, but I undertake to have a further pension credit update when we can have more time to discuss and answer the questions that noble Lords wish to have answered.
In the absence of actual data, the only way to provide an assessment in advance of those dates would be to forecast and model how many pensioners might have their income lifted above the various low-income levels under an earnings uprating versus an inflation uprating. Assumptions would need to be made about how each individual pensioner’s income would change in future under each scenario. This would require making assumptions about, for example, how each pensioner might change their behaviour around other sources of income, such as drawdown of income from investments or a change in earnings, when faced with different amounts of state pension, which is virtually impossible to do.
Those projected incomes would then need to be compared with projections of the various income thresholds, which are themselves extremely uncertain. For absolute poverty, the threshold is increased each year by inflation; and for relative poverty, the threshold is determined by changes in median income across the whole population. Given the volatility in the economy and labour market, this is impossible to do accurately. There is a very high risk that any analysis seeking to forecast the number of pensioners moving above or below these projected poverty thresholds would be misleading due to uncertainty about both the economy and pensioners’ behaviour in response to various levels of state pension.
I turn to Amendment 6 and the specific request of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for a review of the impact of the Bill on mixed-age couples, and point to some practical concerns. Mixed-age couples in receipt of universal credit are a very small group, and data sources are limited. It is therefore not possible to identify these couples and analyse changes in health inequalities and homelessness for this group.
Further, the Government believe it is important for both individuals and wider society that people below state pension age remain in the labour market and continue saving for their own retirement. That is why, where a member of a couple is below state pension age and the couple are on a low income, support is provided through universal credit rather than pension credit. Providing support where it is needed through universal credit ensures that the same incentives to work and save for retirement apply to the younger partner in a mixed-age couple as apply to other people of the same age. Where the younger partner is unable to work because of disability or caring requirements, they may qualify for additional amounts and will not be subject to any work-related conditionality.
This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children. In 2019-20, adults below state pension age in households where all adults were in work were six times less likely to be in absolute poverty, after housing costs, than adults in a household where nobody works.
As our economic recovery gathers pace and with vacancies at record levels, the focus of our expanded multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs is helping people who can work to move into and to progress in work wherever possible. However, recognising that some people continue to require extra support this winter, we have announced the new household support fund.
On Amendment 7, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, to publish an assessment of the impact of the Bill on those receiving the state pension, with reference to their ability to pay energy bills, energy prices are one of the factors built into the CPI measure, which is used in the assessment of annual uprating of benefits not covered by this Bill, such as personal independence payments and jobseeker’s allowance. In aggregate, where benefit rates are increased in line with CPI, the increases in those prices are reflected over time in the increases in benefit rates. The energy price cap will continue to protect millions of customers this winter, saving 15 million households up to £100 a year. Additionally, suppliers are prohibited from disconnecting customers of pensionable age between October and March, ensuring that pensioners have continuous supply during the coldest months.
I ask the noble Baroness, taking account of the points I have made, to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have signed my amendments. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Altmann, and my noble friend Lady Drake and others. I am most grateful to those who spoke.
My noble friend Lady Drake summed up the problem when she said: “There are going to be a lot of old people this winter with very little money, sitting in cold houses, worrying that they will not get the help they need.” I think there really will be.
Listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, I was very moved by the vision. I think that her parents must be terribly proud. They took her out to do meals on wheels when she was young and she in her turn is now doing such amazing work supporting people who cannot afford to eat. I really commend her for that—it was a wonderful image.
Like the noble Baroness I have been involved with many organisations such as churches and others that do food banks. I know how older people do not like to use food banks and how difficult it is. I think how shameful it is that we have come to the point where they have to, or indeed anyone has to, on the scale that we have in our country. We have somehow lost our way.
The worrying levels of pensioners on low income and those approaching low income should really concern us. My noble friend Lady Drake mentioned a figure from the PPI. If we are heading for a quarter of all people approaching retirement being unlikely to receive even the minimum income level, something has gone badly wrong. What has happened to the vision that was meant to lift people away from that situation? Can the Minister tell us what has gone wrong there?
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, in her amendment, mentioned women pensioners in particular. Those drivers of the gender pay gap are driving the gender pensions gap as well. If we do not get things right earlier on, we are not going to be able to put it right later. This means that it is not just a legacy problem. It has been clear from the comments and contributions from noble Lords tonight that this is not a problem just of older systems in days when, for example, caring was not recognised. This is happening now and is going to drive pensioner poverty into the future.
On the question of poverty measurements, I am so grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister who has literally written the book on poverty and is therefore in a very strong position to be able to take apart the Government’s arguments. It just does not work to say that relative poverty is some hopeless measure that no one uses when, frankly, it is used robustly by academics all over this country, Governments and international bodies. It has been used over very long periods for longitudinal studies. It is fine to use other measures as well. It is fine, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, has done in her work, to look at baskets of measures. However, simply to say that relative poverty does not matter and cannot be measured is not a credible stance if we are to have a serious conversation about social policy.
The point about trends was really well made. Even if the noble Baroness does not like measures year to year, in 1997, pensioner poverty in the UK was at 29%; in 2010 it was 14% and in 2012 it starts to rise. Last year it was 18%. There are huge trends there. Something is happening with pensioner poverty and the Government cannot simply turn a blind eye to it.
The Government argue that they cannot do an impact assessment and that they have data such as households below average income. That is nonsense. HBAI is simply a statement of the state of income across the nation. It is not a measure of the impact of any legislation. Whenever the Government do an impact assessment, of course they have to make assumptions about what will happen and how people will respond. It is called modelling. All I am asking is for them to do it on things they do not want to do it on, as well as the things they do want to do it on. That does not seem to me to be an unreasonable request.
To be honest, a lot of the people that we are talking about here are so close to the poverty line that I do not think it would be very hard to make assumptions about what was going to happen to their income, and how far they are going to draw down extensively on assets, as a result of measures the Government are taking.
The Minister says that we do not have time to discuss pension credit take-up tonight. This is the Committee stage of a Bill in which we are meant to do line-by-line analysis. We have been asking this for quite a long time and if we do not have time to do it tonight then, frankly, proceedings should carry on at another time when we do have time to do it. It should not be that we do not get to discuss things and to have questions answered because the timing, which was entirely in the Government’s hands, is such that the noble Baroness feels that we do not have time to discuss it tonight. Take-up of pensioner credit is fundamental to pensioner poverty. This is a group of amendments about pensioner poverty so I think it would have been helpful if she had anything else to say on that.
I am disappointed that the Minister is not willing to move on this. These are gentle, simple and reasonable amendments. If the Government will the ends of this, they should will the ability to assess the impact of their ends. I hope that the noble Baroness will revisit this idea and be more willing to accept it before we come back to these matters later in the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton for their support for this proposal. My motives are very simple—to address poverty among our senior citizens. I should like to see an 8.3% increase in the state pension, although 8.3% of little is still very little. It is not going to make an enormous difference to the Government’s finances—I shall deal with that issue in a moment.
Previously, Governments have broken the link between earnings and state pension, which has had disastrous intergenerational consequences. As has already been mentioned, in the 1980s, the Thatcher Administration broke the link between earnings and the state pension, and we never recovered from it. This is another example of where, once that link is broken, we will never really recover from it; the Minister so far has not said that in future the backlog will somehow be made up. Nothing has been said about that.
The current full state pension at the moment is £9,350 a year, and only four out of 10 retirees receive it. The average state pension is about £8,000 a year and, as has already been pointed out, is around 24% or 25% of the earnings. It is the lowest among industrialised nations, and by not increasing the state pension in line with average earnings we are going to condemn it to remain low.
According to the OBR, in one of the documents I came across, it said that by 2022-23 the UK is expected to allocate around 4.6% of its GDP to the state pension. That is considerably less than the European Union or OECD countries, and Germany already allocates about 10%. Why is it that the Government are content for such low allocation to the state pension? What happened to the billions that the Government took from 3.8 million women by raising their state pension age from 60 to 66? What happened to the billions that the Government said would be saved by coming out of the European Union? Why have those resources not been used to lift our senior citizens out of poverty?
Some 2.1 million pensioners receive a state pension of less than £100 a week, and most of these are women. Some gender issues have already been discussed. Currently, female pensioners receive on average 16% less state pension than men; the Government use the pretence of equality to raise the state pension age for women, but women still receive less.
A low pension inevitably means that there are consequences. For example, some 1.3 million senior citizens are undernourished. Every year, 25,000 or sometimes more senior citizens die from cold because they simply cannot afford to heat their homes or buy adequate food. As has been pointed out, this Bill has not been accompanied by an impact assessment from the Government to show the effects on the lives of our senior citizens.
Pensioner poverty has increased so, despite the triple lock, the proportion of elderly people living in severe poverty is five times as much as it was in 1986. Again, that is the largest increase among western European countries—bearing in mind that the UK is one of the richest countries in the world. That is really an indictment of the policies that have been pursued by successive Governments.
Despite the triple lock, 2.1 million pensioners live in poverty, 1.25 million of whom are women. The poverty rate is higher now that it was in 2012-13. Many simply struggle to survive. Those retirees who try to top up their meagre state pension with part-time work will soon be hit by the Johnson tax: a 1.25% hike in national insurance. At the same time, what do we actually observe? For those rich people who make vast fortunes from capital gains and dividends, or speculation on second homes, commodities markets and securities markets, no national insurance contributions are payable on unearned income. That money could definitely be used to alleviate poverty, but the Government have not indicated any inclination to do that.
The cost of honouring the earnings link to the state pension is probably around £4.7 billion. It is miniscule compared to the cost of bank bailouts, or the £895 billion in quantitative easing. It is certainly less than the £8.5 billion subsidy handed to train companies, which are promptly paying out very high dividends. It is certainly less than the subsidies given to the oil and gas companies. Retirees are not asking for vast sums of money. All they are asking for is something to enable them to keep they heads above water. The 3.1% increase in the state pension from next April is not really enough—it is actually a backward-looking measure. It only reflects the consumer price increases, not the RPI increase, which is always higher. In fact, it only reflects the consumer price increases during the last year and does not take into account the 12% hike in the energy cap or the expected food price rises, for example. The experts are already telling us that the rate of inflation will be 5% very soon. That means the value of the expected rise is already eroded: it has vanished. So, retirees will actually be even worse off.
A triple lock based upon the existing formula could have given an increase of around 8% to 8.3%, adding up to about £14 a week in the full new state pension, instead of £5.55 a week. That is a difference of about £8.50 a week. Is that really a king’s ransom? It is probably less than what many Ministers pay for a glass of wine with their lunch. That is all retirees are asking for. I will spell out the financial consequences in a moment.
Let us also remember that retirees pay council tax, VAT, various duties and, where appropriate, income tax. Their expenditure boosts local economies and is likely to have a greater multiplier effect on the local economy because they spend the money on essentials. The best legacy for future generations is a decent state pension now, because they would be even more reliant upon it. The final salary pension schemes have all but vanished for new members, so income from occupational pension schemes will be low. People will be forced to rely upon their state pensions. Workers’ ability to save for private pensions has been severely damaged. Workers’ share of GDP has declined, from 65.1% in 1976 to 49.4% now—the biggest decline in any Western country. People just do not have the ability to save extensively for a private pension.
As others have mentioned, around 14.5 million people live in or below poverty. Household debt is some £1.7 trillion. Young people just do not have the capacity to pay high housing costs and high food costs, repay student debt and then save adequately for their retirement. That, again, is a very serious issue.
The social divide in this country is stark. Some 18.4 million individuals have an income of less than the tax-free allowance; 42% do not earn enough to pay income tax; 6.2 million people, as the Minister told us last week, do not earn enough to pay national insurance contributions. Paradoxically, however, individuals who do not earn enough to pay income tax are somehow asked to pay national insurance, while millionaires from capital gains do not pay any. The poorest people are being damaged.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, may I make it clear that this is not an amendment? We are debating a straight question of whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill or not: in other words, whether it is accepted or not.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Sikka and in favour of retaining the existing legislative provisions by leaving out Clause 1 entirely. As the noble Baroness said, it is about whether Clause 1 should appear in the Bill at all. Clearly, to leave it out would vitiate the entire Bill but it would invite the House of Commons to think again, which is the primary role of this House. The intention now is to enable those of us who believe it would be reasonable and right to go for the full 8.3% increase that the Government have stated is the appropriate figure to debate it.
The triple lock has come in for some criticism. It does not enjoy universal support. I understand some of those criticisms and perhaps, in a perfect world, it should not be necessary. We would like to live in a world where pensioners would simply share in the same increases in living standards as those enjoyed by the working population. This is not where we are. For me, the triple lock serves a dual purpose. First, it is needed to protect pensioners’ living standards. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, it is a way of increasing the flat-rate benefits towards a more adequate level. I am glad to say that I do not have to expound at length on that point because the case has been made so clearly by my noble friend Lady Drake. It is an accelerator which will project the basic pension to a more adequate level.
What is clear is that it is not at an adequate level at present, which is why what is described as the “ratchet effect” of the triple lock is so important; of course, the same would be true of a double lock, based on prices and earnings, which is why we shall return in a moment to the important role of the 2.5% element. Introduced as a political fix at a time when inflation was somewhat higher than it has been for most of the last decade, it has turned out to be of real benefit to pensioners.
As was so clearly explained by my noble friend Lady Drake, the job of the triple lock is not just to protect pensioners in relation to earnings and prices; it is, over time, to achieve real increase in their incomes when measured against either of these indices. As I have said before, it is an inherent feature of the triple lock, not a bug. Whether you agree depends on whether you think the state basic pension or the new state pension are currently high enough. If you think they are, you might consider that we do not need the triple lock, but if you want to see them increase, as I do, the triple lock has a proven track record of gaining ground on that objective. The triple lock may not be pretty, but experience has shown us that it works. During periods when the triple lock—or, in the case in the long-distant past of the 1974-79 Labour Government, a double lock—has applied, we have seen a consistent incremental move of the state flat-rate pension towards a more adequate level.
The element of the triple lock that has attracted most criticism, not least from my noble friend Lady Lister, is the 2.5% minimum increase. It has been said that it is arbitrary and without any justification. Maybe, but so are many other figures in legislation. When we analyse the real increase that pensioners have benefited from since 2011 with the triple lock, almost half the improvement has been due to the 2.5% element. To me, that in itself justifies its inclusion. Does anyone here believe that the basic state pension should be 18% of earnings rather than 19%? It might not sound like much but, to the poorest pensioners, everything counts.
Perhaps we need a debate about what level of flat-rate state pension we need and what the target should be when we have a ratchet effect. I would favour a commission to address the issue, building on the work of the earlier Pensions Commission, which set out the present structure of pension provision in this country. The commission itself did not feel able to specify with any precision what the basic pension should be in earnings terms, but the structure it established depends as much on the level of the flat-rate element as it does on the pension produced by automatic enrolment. I am pleased, therefore, to see that more work is being done in this area, through initiatives such as those from the Living Wage Foundation and the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association, with its retirement living standards.
Particularly given the hour, now is not the time to have a full-scale debate on the conclusions of that work, although it would be valuable to do so when appropriate. What is clear from the work that has been undertaken is that 19% is not nearly enough; it is well short even of the 26% that was attained back in 1979. These benefits are not just inadequate; there is a long way to go before they can become adequate. Consequently, we definitely still need a triple lock and its ratchet effect, and I would be prepared to see something better and faster replace it. That brings us to the increases due in 2022, as determined by this Bill. I believe that we can and should stick to the triple lock, as provided in the legislation, which means the 8.3% increase. Taking the increases to be made in 2021, 2022 and 2023, this provides an ideal opportunity to achieve a significant increase in flat-rate pensions towards a more adequate level in the longer term, which can only be a good thing.
It will no doubt be pointed out that this would have to be paid for, with the figure of £5 billion per annum being quoted. My noble friend Lord Sikka has dealt with that but, for the purposes of today’s debate, I simply say that I support increases in general taxation on those with the broadest shoulders to meet this clear social need, with the obvious target of equalising what I still think of, in the old terminology, as unearned income, rather than earned income. I believe that this would best be done by the restoration of the Treasury’s supplement to the National Insurance Fund, for which there is already provision in legislation.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Davies of Brixton. Given the hour, I will be brief. I very much endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about this Clause 1 stand part debate seeking to ask the other place to think again, and indeed to ask your Lordships’ House to debate this.
I would be more radical than either noble Lord who preceded me. I believe that the state pension should be set at a level where no pensioner is living in poverty—that is looking at the relative poverty levels, as outlined and widely discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. That would mean abolishing the contributory principle. Our debate tonight has demonstrated how discriminatory and actively massively unfair that is—because, as worked through now, it largely acknowledges only contributions through paid work. We know that many people, particularly women, make huge contributions to our entire society and future through care, community work and other activities which are simply not recognised in our pension system. This is leaving huge numbers, particularly of women, in a state of living that our whole society should regard as not acceptable.
I agree again with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that the triple lock is far from perfect. We have talked about heating costs. Of course, another way in which we have very much failed our pensioners is the quality of the housing stock that they are living in. Reference has been made to the quality of council housing, but we also have a huge problem with more and more pensioners now living in private housing due to the huge privatisation of our housing stock through right to buy. Those people are living in extremely poor conditions and are placed in very difficult circumstances in that housing.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, that the cost of not going forward with ending the triple lock for this year—£4.7 billion—is very modest in the overall scheme of things. We have bailed out the banks. When Covid-19 hit, we bailed out many businesses. Surely we should look to bail out our pensioners.
I finish by noting that, when we talk about £14 a week, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. There is a relatively small number of people in our society for whom £14 a week is small change, but there are very large numbers of people and pensioners for whom it is literally a matter of life and death. I invite noble Lords to consider our excess winter deaths, many of which occur among pensioners.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I will be very brief. I thank my noble friend Lord Sikka for introducing this debate. We all share an underlying concern about the living conditions for poorer pensioners. I will not dwell on pensioner poverty; I made a perfectly long—arguably overlong—speech on the last group of amendments about this very subject.
Because the Bill has only two clauses and Clause 2 is the commencement clause, I suspect that, in coming back, the Minister will be tempted to focus on the fact that this may be regarded as a wrecking amendment because it would remove the entire contents of the Bill. We on this side accept that there is a difficulty in looking at and using the data for the earnings measure without adjustment, so that is not the position that we are in. I encourage her, when she responds, to answer and speak to the underlying concerns about pensioner poverty that have been expressed noble Lords, and perhaps give some assurance to the House about how the Government will tackle that, as well as looking at the immediate issue.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I support the triple lock and its effect of keeping the value of the state pension, which has been lost over very many years and has not yet recovered. I share the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that we accept that these are special circumstances. The Minister has assured us that this is just for one year, so we take her at her word and will judge her on future actions next year.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the whole Committee, that the Government take the issues of living conditions and the standards of pensioners seriously. As I have relayed in previous contributions to this debate, we have done an enormous amount to try to help, but I have no doubt that that will not be enough for some. It is a work in progress, and we will see where that goes.
This clause requires the Secretary of State to review the rates of the basic state pension, the new state pension up to the full rate, the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit, and survivors’ benefits in industrial death benefit, by reference to the general level of prices in Great Britain. Under this clause, if the relevant benefit rates have not kept pace with the increase in prices, then the Secretary of State is required to increase them at least in line with that increase or by 2.5%—whichever is the higher.
This is a two-clause Bill. If the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, successfully oppose Clause 1, the Bill will fall and, as a result, these pension rates will be increased by 8.3%, which is the average weekly earnings index for the year May to July 2021. This means that, if the Bill does not achieve Royal Assent in good time, there will be an increased cost to the Exchequer of between £4 billion and £5 billion.
Taking into account the points raised, I ask the noble Lords to withdraw their opposition to the question that Clause 1 stand part of the Bill.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all the participants in this debate, which has been very interesting. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for her comments, but the issues remain. Many of our senior citizens are condemned to poverty and, by breaking this link with earnings, we will be condemning more to poverty, not only the current generation but future generations too. Nevertheless, for the time being I would like to withdraw this amendment, but I reserve the right to bring it back.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)
My Lords, just to be clear, it is not an amendment.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, before my noble friend moves her amendment, it is my duty to draw the attention of the Committee to the advice I have received from the Legislation Office and ask the Committee to endorse it. It is rare for a Leader to advise the Committee in these circumstances. Since 1999, my predecessors have done so on only four occasions, and on all but one the House has endorsed the impartial advice given.
My noble friend’s amendment is not admissible under the rules governing what is relevant to a Bill. The Public Bill Office, therefore, properly and promptly advised me of that fact. Paragraph 8.56 of the Companion to the Standing Orders states that the Leader of the House
“draws the House’s attention to the advice when the amendment is called, and asks the House to endorse the advice of the Legislation Office … the admissibility of an amendment can ultimately be decided only by the House itself, there being no authority that can in advance rule an amendment out of order.”
To ensure that the advice is clear and available to all, I have placed the Clerk’s advice and my open letter to the party and group leaders about it in the Library of the House. If I may briefly assist the Committee, I will explain further why my noble friend’s amendment is not admissible before turning to the unusual decision the Committee is being asked to take.
The amendment is not within the scope of the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill. This is because the Bill covers one narrow topic and has only one purpose: the uprating for one year of the basic and new state pension, the standard minimum element of pension credit, and survivors’ benefits in industrial death benefit. Only amendments relating to the purpose of the Bill or touching on matters closely connected with it are permitted. My noble friend may point to the title of the Bill as being broad, but I am afraid that, in this case, that is not relevant. As the Clerk’s advice says, the scope of a Bill is defined by its purposes as contained in its clauses and schedules, not the title. Bills can have what might seem to be very wide titles but be narrow in scope. The advice from the Clerk is clear and unambiguous, and I hope my noble friend will not seek to challenge it and will not move her amendment today or bring it back at a later stage.
However, the fate of the amendment is ultimately in the hands of the House, as the Companion says, so, if I may, I will end with a wider point about how we work. So far this Session, 1,144 amendments have been considered by your Lordships’ House. The fact that every amendment is debated, and every point of view considered, enhances the quality of the legislation that makes its way on to the statute book. But this works only if we all respect the rules and conventions the House has set itself. We are a self-regulating House, and we rightly take pride in that, but that does not mean there are no rules. It means Members’ good sense and restraint must be relied upon to police those rules we set ourselves in our Companion and Standing Orders.
Many Members feel incredibly strongly about particular issues that are close to their hearts but work within the rules of the House to achieve the changes they passionately believe in, because they understand the damage to the House, its reputation and standing if they do not. So I very much hope noble Lords will carefully consider their stance on this amendment. As a House, we rely on the professional and impartial advice of our clerks; we rely on the judgment of Members to abide by the few rules we have; and we rely on the House as a whole to ensure that, in the last resort, the rules are enforced.
Amendment 9
Baroness Stroud
“The universal credit uplift
(1) Within the period of one month beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, Ministers of the Crown must make arrangements to move a motion for resolution as set out in subsection (2) to be debated, and voted on, by both Houses of Parliament.(2) The resolution is to decide whether it is desirable to reinstate the £20 uplift into Universal Credit as per the modification of the standard allowance of universal credit under the Social Security (Coronavirus) (Further Measures) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/371).”
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, I should like to open with one preliminary point, which is to say that, in moving this amendment, as I do, I intend no disrespect to the clerks, for whom I have the greatest of admirations. This morning, I wrote to them to tell them that I wanted to put on record how much I respect and honour the work they do, and that any action I would take today would in no way undermine that. In fact, I could not have got here without their support and advice. Moving an inadmissible amendment is not a straightforward process. Several weeks ago, I was not even aware there was such a thing as an inadmissible amendment. However, there is a serious, genuine difference of opinion which I believe should be exposed to the view of this self-regulating House.
Accordingly, I rise to move the amendment tabled in my name and the names of my noble friend Lord Freud, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Janke and Lady Boycott, whom I thank for their support. It is with a heavy heart that I have tabled this amendment to the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill. I do not take lightly the idea of disagreeing so fervently with my Conservative Government or of stretching parliamentary convention in an elastic way, as my noble friend Lady Evans, the Leader of the House, so delicately put it. But the removal of the £20 uplift is a grave misstep and risks undermining the levelling-up agenda, leaving behind society’s most vulnerable people and putting at risk the stability of many homes up and down the country as we enter an unpredictable winter. If this House stands for anything, it is to check and challenge the work of the Government, and this is all I am seeking to do here today.
So let us look carefully at the effect of this amendment and at what has been said about it. The amendment states:
“Within the period of one month beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, Ministers of the Crown must make arrangements to move a motion for resolution as set out in subsection (2) to be debated, and voted on, by both Houses of Parliament.”
The resolution is to decide whether it is desirable to reinstate the £20 uplift in universal credit, as per the modification of the standard allowance of universal credit under the Social Security (Coronavirus) (Further Measures) Regulations 2020. The amendment, if accepted in this place and then in the other place, would require the Government to bring forward a vote on the desirability of the reinstating of the uplift in universal credit.
Two concerns have been levelled at the amendment that I will take a moment to address. The first is on the basis of scope and the impact on admissibility, and the second on the basis that it asks the House to decide how the House of Commons should conduct its business. Let us look at these in turn.
It has been said that the amendment is inadmissible. Chapter 8 of the Companion to the Standing Orders and Guide to the Proceedings of the House of Lords states:
“The Legislation Office advises on whether an amendment is admissible and it is expected that this advice will be taken. If a member insists on tabling an amendment which the Legislation Office has advised is inadmissible, that Office writes to the Leader of the House, copying the advice to the other Leaders, the Chief Whips and the Convenor.”
That happened according to due process, and the clerks were good enough to show me exactly what both letters would look like. The Companion continues:
“The Leader of the House draws the House’s attention to the advice when the amendment is called, and asks the House to endorse the advice of the Legislation Office.”
That too duly happened. The reason for this is as stated by the Companion, that
“the admissibility of an amendment can ultimately be decided only by the House itself, there being no authority that can in advance rule an amendment out of order.”
The process through which an inadmissible amendment becomes an admissible amendment is through the decision of this House. We as Members of the House have to decide.
It will be no surprise to anyone who knows me well that this is not an issue on which I have taken action lightly. I am not a natural rebel. I have spent a lot of time looking at the previous occasion on which an inadmissible amendment became an admissible amendment, which was in 2013 when Lord Hart moved an amendment on the boundaries Bill. It is the reason why we still have 650 MPs.
I have looked carefully at the arguments that were made then. Speeches made by two ennobled former Speakers of the House of Commons helped me understand this more clearly. The first was by the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, who said this at the time when Lord Hart moved an inadmissible amendment that became admissible:
“If there was any success in the Speakership of the Commons during my period of office, much of it was due to the advice and support that I received from the clerks. I have to admit that there were a couple of occasions when I overruled that advice, one of which was against convention. But I did so because I thought that it was right to provide an opportunity for debate on a contentious issue which was of public interest and of concern. The roof did not fall in.
We have no such arbitrator with authority to make a decision in your Lordships’ House but we are often reminded that we are a self-regulating House. While, of course, we must examine the advice of the Public Bill Office and the clerk, there can be no authority that can in advance rule an amendment out of order. The bottom line is that the admissibility or otherwise of an amendment ultimately can be determined only by the House itself. When I spoke last year, I suggested that the Government allow this House to determine the issue for itself and I am delighted that we have the opportunity of so doing today.”—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 510.]
So, first, the sky did not fall in and, secondly, the admissibility or otherwise of an amendment can be determined ultimately only by the House itself. That is what I am seeking to do today.
The second speech was by Lord Martin of Springburn, who said:
“My Lords, I, too, received advice from the clerks of the House and I valued it. At the end of the day, although I did not ignore that advice, there were occasions when I said, ‘I will go in another direction’. In effect, I did not accept 100% of what the clerks had said.”—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 514.]
The amendment before noble Lords, which asks that the Commons thinks again about protections for some of our most vulnerable people, does exactly what this House should do: asks the Commons to think again. We have the authority to make that decision ourselves.
Lord Freud (Con)
My Lords, it is with the greatest possible reluctance that I have felt compelled to join my noble friend and former colleague Lady Stroud in putting down this amendment, which is considered inadmissible by the clerks of the House.
My noble friend Lady Stroud has discussed the issue of scope. I will focus purely on why the level of universal credit payments is so important and has been such a long-running sore that it is essential that it go through some sort of democratic process. In a word, this issue is important enough that the House may wish, on this occasion, to overturn its convention of keeping within scope. This amendment simply seeks a vote in Parliament on whether the £20 a week uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit, which lapsed this month, should be reinstated.
My argument is a simple one. After a decade of cuts initiated by the Chancellor in 2010, the standard allowance of universal credit is now simply too low to expect people to live on it. According to a Commons Library briefing in April last year, the combination of 1% increases and freezes over many years has reduced the real level of allowances by 9%. That is before a plethora of other measures: cuts to housing support, benefit caps, waiting days—thankfully, later reversed—and the two-child limit. The Chancellor targeted no less than £30 billion of annual cuts from the working-age welfare budget. Within the department we fought those cuts, but we were powerless to stop them. That is the history, and it left the level of universal credit so low that it was patently inadequate for the millions of people who flowed on to it as the pandemic struck last year. In the words of the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, we needed to “strengthen the safety net.”
The picture is worse than a simple look at the inflation-adjusted figures suggests. The standard allowance has slipped by significantly more relative to earnings over the last decade, and the relative earnings measure is a better reflection of how much the pressure on poverty has developed. We have been here before, when the Thatcher Government decided to uprate pensions by inflation rather than earnings—and look where that brought us.
What has changed that allows the strengthened safety net to be removed? Nothing has changed—in fact, the reverse. Inflation is taking off. It is already above 3%, with the Bank of England’s chief economist warning of 5% by early next year, and the goods on which the poorest people spend disproportionately—energy, food, transport—are in the firing line. My noble friend Lady Stroud has spelled out the impact on poverty of removing the £20 uplift, putting 840,000 people into poverty, and with inflation at these levels, the impact will undoubtedly be worse. This amendment is not about the removal of a temporary uplift. It is about putting universal credit on a realistic footing.
Restoring the £20 is not cheap. My noble friend the Minister told us at Second Reading that the department’s central estimate was that it would cost £6 billion per year. I do not believe that it would be so much, since 40% of the 5.9 million people receiving universal credit are working, and many of that 2.3 million will be moving further along the taper. Nevertheless, it is a substantial sum. If it is to be paid to the poorest there will have to be cuts elsewhere to afford it, which would bring with it some hard choices. However, I am not wedded to the blanket approach of the uplift, which was bizarrely targeted. It was worth 34% to singles under 25 and only 17% for couples over 25, for example. Adjusting various rates, and perhaps the taper itself, means that there is scope to maintain the benefits of the uplift for considerably less than £6 billion.
The point about universal credit is that it is seriously efficient at directing scarce funds to the poorest people—if applied by people who understand how it works. I felt genuinely sorry for my noble friend the Minister the other week when she had to defend the removal of the uplift by citing a wretched Treasury fig leaf of £500 million, to be distributed by local authorities. How are the councils meant to know who to give it to? That £500 million would be a good start to boost universal credit’s standard allowances. I read that a further £500 million is likely to be made available to support young families in tomorrow’s Budget; another bafflingly poorly targeted use of funds. I repeat that if the Chancellor wants to help the poorest, he will get the biggest bang for his buck by funnelling the funds through universal credit.
I spent 10 years of my life working to transform our welfare system. I am utterly convinced that if you want to make long-term sustainable savings, you must take a structural approach: get the taper to a level at which people are incentivised to work, for instance; help them to earn more by making skills training available; tie together the resources needed by those with multiple problems. You will not do it by making crude cuts, as George Osborne found. He cut the basic benefits and found that the levels of PIP soared. That was not a coincidence.
My concern is that this Government simply do not understand how universal credit works. If they did, they would nurture it, not trash it in the name of a past austerity inherited from a previous Chancellor; not take out £500 million and give it to local authorities to distribute; nor even provide the same crude cash boost of £20 both to couples and to singles in the pandemic. Through this amendment, we want to give MPs a chance to decide on the future of universal credit. It would give them the opportunity to show what is meant by “levelling up”. It is right that there should be a democratic process to decide something so momentous.
My noble friend Lady Stroud and I are not planning to push the amendment to a vote at this stage. We will wait to see whether the Chancellor has some measures up his sleeve tomorrow to protect universal credit recipients. If he has not, my noble friend and I will be returning to the issue on Report.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, it is always a privilege to speak in your Lordships’ House, even at 11 o’clock at night. I am a great admirer of my noble friend Lady Stroud, and I am even a great admirer of my noble friend Lord Freud. I should say for the Hansard writers that I am saying that with a smile—he knows that I have a great fondness for him. They are both hugely knowledgeable and great experts in policy in this area, and I know that they have given a huge amount of practical support to people in need in lots of different contexts. They are recognised for that, and rightly so. It therefore gives me no pleasure to disagree with them today, but I do, on both the substance and the practical application of their amendment.
I start, briefly, with the substance. As my noble friend Lord Freud just said, we do not know what the Chancellor will be announcing tomorrow. I know that we have seen quite a bit trailed over the past few days in the media, but we do not know the sum total of what he will announce to alleviate pressure on families faced with rising energy costs and increases in the cost of living. If he is able to do anything with regard to universal credit, I would much rather he changed the taper rate, so that working more hours is clearly advantageous when the temporary £20 uplift comes to an end. I do not support the temporary uplift becoming permanent for various reasons.
But that is irrelevant, because it is not relevant to this Bill. With the best will in the world, it is not a question for us to answer, at least not in this context. That brings me to the practice which my noble friends are applying in order to force this issue into play. My noble friend the Leader has already set out the constitutional and conventional reasons why this approach is outside our standard procedures, and I will not repeat them, but I very much endorse all that she said, and I certainly accept the advice of the clerks. I should add that I am not one of her predecessors who ever had to face the situation she is facing today, but I have been in the Chamber in the past when a similar situation occurred, and I have had my own encounters with this House on matters to do with social security and so on, so this is not an unfamiliar situation.
Having said all that, I want to add a couple of points which I urge my noble friends Lady Stroud and Lord Freud to consider between now and Report Even though I know that they are both hugely principled, and are pursuing their cause with great sincerity, not everyone looking at what is being attempted will see it in that way. I think my noble friends are suggesting that we break our rules because Mr Speaker did not break his own when this Bill was in the other place and he was considering amendments proposed by Members of the Commons.
I am not familiar with all the detail of the goings-on in the other place, but I am aware that this Mr Speaker made a commitment when he was elected that he would be impartial and uphold the rules and conventions of the Commons. This was welcomed by that House and the Government, because it came after a very turbulent period of rules and conventions being ignored by his predecessor as Mr Speaker and by many Members of that House.
Since then, not only does the other place have a new Speaker but there has been a general election, the result of which is many new and re-elected MPs who now have the greater confidence of their electorate. The Prime Minister and the Government overlook this fact and act too often as though they are still facing the same disruptive and obstructive House of Commons pre-2019. I urge him and his ministerial team to reconsider their approach when they are engaging with the House of Commons in particular.
Even though there has been all that change down the other end of the corridor since December 2019, the House of Lords is still the same. We have not faced the electorate; we have not changed. Irrespective of what the Government think about this House, or what some noble Lords think about the Government, we have a responsibility to maintain public confidence in Parliament. Some people outside Parliament might agree with my noble friends on what they are proposing in terms of the substance on universal credit; some of them might agree with me, but what would probably unite all of them is the view that the House of Lords has no place in dictating to the House of Commons—that they elected—what its MPs should do and when.
So let us see what the Chancellor has to say tomorrow, but whatever action he takes, I really hope that my noble friends, whom I am fond of as well as have huge respect for, will not return on Report with a similar amendment to this. Because however well-intentioned and noble their cause, we have no legitimacy engaging in this matter at this time and in this way.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
I will be very brief, given the hour. As I said, I am chair of Feeding Britain, and I would like to briefly report from the front line, so to speak, on the effect of the stopping of the £20. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, that this needs to be put before the other House so that there can be a vote on it.
Our experience at Feeding Britain has suggested that the £20 increase in universal credit was responsible for a drop in the number of people needing to use food banks this year—it was 17% lower than before the pandemic. Of course, we also had the school meals campaign by Marcus Rashford and various other people but, since then, in the three weeks since the increase was removed, our social supermarkets, which are affordable food projects, have started to show signs of distress.
Some of those who used to shop monthly for low-cost food, and for whom membership represented a nice insurance policy, are now there every week, if not more. Some who used to use a debit card are now using credit cards. Some of those who used to rely only on our option of low-cost food now also want help with gas and electricity. Some cannot even afford their membership fees, which are as little as £3. They are instead going without the food or having to use food banks. People are really clinging by their fingertips to avoid that nightmare scenario.
I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that we need skills and ways to help people try to avoid the traps that they are in, which is what our social supermarkets do. Being poor is not only an expensive thing to do in this country; it is also very hard work as you spend your life drifting from one office to another trying to find someone who can help you sort out your problems with rent, food, schools et cetera. I am very glad that this House is bringing this amendment forward, because if we do not do it, who will?
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, for tabling this amendment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Freud —I must be careful I do not get into a habit of agreeing with him—I will focus on the substance of the issue, although I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, that this is not about dictating to the House of Commons, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, I am disappointed that apparently no attempt was made to assess the impact of what constitutes an unprecedented overnight cut in universal credit claimants’ income, despite the Financial Times reporting that an official had told it that the impact would be “catastrophic” in terms of poverty, homelessness and, as we have already heard, food bank use.
The lack of a formal impact assessment has been criticised by the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, Olivier de Schutter. He told the Government that as a signatory of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, they must adequately justify what he defined as a retrogressive measure by carrying out such an assessment. Indeed, he warned that it was prima facie doubtful whether the removal of the £20 uplift is a measure that conforms to international human rights laws and standards. What was the Government’s reply to him?
Olivier de Schutter clearly did not see the original temporary nature of the uplift—repeatedly cited in justification—as a conclusive argument for withdrawing it now. The other main argument deployed by Ministers has been that the priority is to get people into reasonably paid work, as if that and maintaining the uplift are somehow alternatives between which we have to choose. Given that we know that hardship can undermine job-seeking efforts, what attention has been paid to the likely impact on job seeking of increasing hardship at the stroke of a computer key? What thought has been given to the impact on the significant minority who cannot be expected to seek work or work longer hours because of caring responsibilities or lack of fitness for work?
The Government have also tried to bolster their case by pointing to the £500 million household support fund referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Freud. But a discretionary fund of this kind is totally inappropriate for meeting the kind of regular needs that the UC standard allowance is supposed to meet. It offers no security or certitude to claimants in the way that a regular payment does. Not all local authorities are well placed to administer the money, especially if they are one of the significant minority which does not even run a welfare assistance scheme. I took part in a workshop last week where one participant said that her local authority had begged her food bank to administer a previous pot of money released by the Government to it because otherwise the local authority would have to return it for lack of administrative capacity.
A further sticking plaster is more money for family hubs, which could well find themselves picking up the pieces of families buckling under the strain of the loss of the £20. If, as rumoured, the Chancellor announces a cut in the taper rate tomorrow, again while welcome, it will do nothing to target the necessary help on those worst hit. Similarly, while the proposed increase in the national living wage is welcome, as both the IFS and the Resolution Foundation have made clear, it does not compensate for the loss of the uplift, not least because many of those earning the living wage are not in households in receipt of UC.
The very fact that the Chancellor was moved to introduce the uplift—which was welcome as far as it went—was tacit recognition, as we have heard, that UC rates are too low, a point made in the Commons by former Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb. Just how low is in part attributable to a decade of cuts and freezes, which took well over £30 billion a year out of the social security system, as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has said.
As Mr Crabb pointed out, the cut raises a more fundamental question about the adequacy of the benefits we expect our fellow members of society to live on—an issue also raised by two committees of this House. While the narrow scope of the Bill does not enable us to have the more fundamental debate about benefit adequacy that I had hoped for, the amendment at least opens up the possibility of a serious vote in both Houses on the desirability of reinstating the uplift—a question that cannot be divorced from the underlying question of the adequacy of UC to meet needs.
Such a vote is needed because, although presented as somehow inevitable, the decision to withdraw the uplift was a political choice. The fact that it was originally intended to be temporary is neither here nor there, as the UN rapporteur made clear. Temporary often becomes permanent—and so it should when the overwhelming evidence shows that, be it from the perspective of food insecurity, as we have heard, debt or general hardship, the UC standard allowance is simply, to quote Stephen Crabb,
“too low to provide anything like a decent, respectable level of income replacement”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/9/21; col. 1004.],
Although inevitably so far largely anecdotal, it is clear that claimants are extremely anxious as the money disappears out of their accounts; not all of them were even aware that it would do so. An increase in fear and anxiety is how a pastor in Burnley described it to the journalist John Harris. Therefore, I hope that this amendment will be deemed admissible by this House.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I find myself in a strange position tonight. I have made no secret of the fact that I believe it is a great error of judgment to end the uplift of universal credit or, at the very least, not to have brought it down by degrees. That said, I cannot agree with this method of trying to deal with the situation.
Perhaps I should explain that I spent many years in the House of Commons as a member of what was then called the Speaker’s panel of chairmen and as a Deputy Speaker there, as well as being a Deputy Speaker in this House, so I became very conscious of amendments and whether they were in or out of scope. It is important that those rules are observed, for the very good reason that, if you start to break them, anything can be added to any Bill and you can soon get into a real muddle. It does not always work in people’s favour, either.
I am very conscious of the fact that I believe that this amendment is outside the scope. We have certainly been advised so by the Legislation Office, but it was a conclusion that I came to on my own after many years’ experience of looking at amendments and seeing whether they were or were not admissible or out of scope. It is important to look at the Long Title of the Bill as the well as the short one; it is not a very long title, because it is not a very long Bill, but it makes provision
“relating to the up-rating of certain social security benefits”.
They are listed in this short Bill, and they do not cover universal credit.
For that reason, although I share many of the doubts and worries about universal credit—my noble friend Lord Freud made a most powerful case—my point is that this is not the way to deal with the situation. As we are a self-regulating House, if it comes to the point, I shall do my little bit of self-regulation and vote against any such amendment.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I am as keen to get home as anybody, and I was looking forward to leaving, but I would not have missed this for the world. It has been the most gripping sitting that we have had.
I have a question for the Leader of the House. I cannot add anything to the substance of the debate, and I very much agree with what has been said about universal credit, but I am concerned about what the noble Baroness said about what counts as being in scope. What was said appeared to discount the significance of the Long Title; we were told that we could amend only in terms of what was already in the Bill. Potentially, that seems extremely restrictive; in future, we could be told that something is not provided for in the Bill so we cannot introduce an amendment on that subject. In her role as speaking on behalf of the House, and not as a Minister, can I ask the Leader of the House whether it is the case that nothing has been said that is intended to restrict, now or in future, what amendments can be laid, and whether the Long Title has an important role in determining the scope of a Bill?
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, it is very late and I have not participated in the Bill before, so I shall be extremely brief. My interest is not so much in the matter we are debating; I understand that people feel very strongly about it, on both sides, but I have no particular dog in that fight. My intervention comes because I am chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of your Lordships’ House. As is well known, we produce a report every week where we try to provide a commentary on the instruments that are coming up through the process so that your Lordships have some guide—some thoughts, some suggestions—about areas that might usefully be probed as we undertake our primary role, which is of scrutiny and the ability to hold the Government to account.
I have read my noble friend the Leader’s letter with great care and I recognise and accept the seriousness of the points she makes and has spoken about this evening; that we are a self-regulating House and how this amendment, if I may summarise what she is saying, is pushing the envelope too far. I introduce to the House the concept of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think Newton’s third law of motion may explain some of the background to the issues that we are debating so strongly tonight.
The SLSC, along with many other Members of your Lordships’ House, is increasingly concerned about the use—some might say misuse or misapplication—of secondary legislation, which, as all Members of your Lordships’ House know, and the Government very conveniently find, has a very much lower level of scrutiny. So, in summary, while my noble friend may be pushing the envelope, I think the Government have been pushing the envelope in recent months and years a great deal. What do I mean? I shall give just two examples which I think are of particular relevance to our debate this evening.
Permanent changes to our laws, which probably should be introduced by primary legislation, are being rushed through in regulations, and sometimes being rushed through under the excuse that they are needed for the pandemic. Planning regulations have nothing to do with what we are discussing today but are something that may change our high streets, perhaps for ever. They have nothing to do with the pandemic, yet are now law because of regulations made under a pandemic regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, made a point about impact assessments. Regulations with sunset clauses have no impact assessments because they are going to last for less a year, and then—surprise, surprise—they are extended, they go over the year, but still no impact assessment is produced; or impact assessments are introduced long after the debate in your Lordships’ House, when regulations are in place, and are of no real value, therefore, in influencing the way the House decides.
Last week, we looked at the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021: these concern critical issues about road safety and no impact assessment has yet been provided. If debate and scrutiny are stifled, as they are by not providing this information, the Government must expect Members of your Lordships’ House to try to find ways to get round the point, and that is what brings us to the issue we are facing tonight. The system for scrutiny has not provided a way for a proper extent of looking at and considering issues which mean so much to people on both sides of the argument that we have been discussing for the last couple of hours.
I will not go on but will conclude by saying that while of course I understand my noble friend the Leader’s concerns and worries, I say to her gently that I think there is a view in your Lordships’ House, and outside in academia, within the Hansard Society and elsewhere, that the Government, the Executive, have made a grab for power at the expense of Parliament, the legislature, and that these actions have led to the equal and opposite reaction that we are debating tonight.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, has made an important contribution in your Lordships’ House, albeit at this late hour. This is a terrifically important debate; it is about our role as a House that scrutinises and about the democratic deficit the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, referred to earlier. I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, and indeed the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for coming to the Cross-Bench Peers meeting last week and setting out the arguments about scope, but also about the Bill in general.
I think there has been, across the House, outside and inside the Chamber tonight, a really important discussion about our role as parliamentarians, and what our job is in these kinds of circumstances. Ultimately, despite my incredible affection, as she knows, for the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes—I am sorry we disagree on this occasion; I have enormous respect for her, and we have spent much of our lives in both of these Houses defending democratic values—I do not think the argument is about whether or not the amendment that has been tabled tonight is in scope. It is about the position and rights of this House to reach a decision on this issue. I agree with the noble Baroness that, looking at the Title of the Bill, she is right to come to the conclusion that she has, but taking the argument that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, had put, that was advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, in her remarks tonight, it demonstrates that in some circumstances we can reach a different conclusion.
Those circumstances, as the Leader of the House has told us, ought to be extraordinarily rare. Therefore, I do not say that I came to a short, sharp decision on this issue. Indeed, my mind is still open and I have been listening carefully. I recognise it takes some courage to persist in the face of procedural questions of custom and practice, especially in a House such as this. The noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, has given decades of commitment, along with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, to these issues. They have done this with extraordinary conviction, knowledge, courtesy and passion.
I will say a word about precedent and this issue of scope. I have also occasionally found myself in disagreement with the clerks and have, on the whole, of course, accepted their decisions. There are three questions, though, that might tilt the balance for me, and which I think apply in this case.
The first is, of course, the position of the elected House. Until I stood down from the House of Commons, I had the privilege of serving there, following my election as long ago as 1979. Within my recollection, there were a number of occasions where, on all sides, we were relieved when Members of your Lordships’ House sent back an amendment that gave us the opportunity to think again. Indeed, as recently as in the last 12 months, your Lordships persisted with an amendment to the Trade Bill on the question of genocide. At the end of a protracted process of ping-pong, an accommodation of sorts was reached between both Houses. Several senior Conservative Members, including a former party leader, expressed their thanks to your Lordships that we had given them, in another place, a chance to think seriously about an issue that had not been debated at any stage of that Bill’s progress in the House of Commons.
Secondly, what would tip me in favour of the noble Baroness’s amendment today is the support that she has received from an illustrious former Minister who dealt with these matters: the noble Lord, Lord Freud. The noble Lord will remember that I harried him when he was a Minister on an issue that went to ping-pong. It was about mesothelioma, which for personal reasons I know he felt deeply about. He defended the Government’s position, as he was right to do. We went to ping-pong and ultimately an accommodation was reached, and it went further than that: the noble Lord then introduced an entire Bill on mesothelioma. It is part of his extraordinary legacy from his time as a Minister. He is a man I enormously admire. I note too that six former DWP Secretaries of State since 2010 have said that the £20 uplift investment should remain.
Thirdly, there is the little issue of manifestos. Commitments made in government manifestos are very much in scope when we come to consider legislation. The Government’s current policy regarding uprating is entirely at variance with that commitment. It is not a trivial issue; it is something on which our colleagues in the elected House have the right to deliberate. This amendment would give the opportunity to do that in the House of Commons.
What of the substantive argument about the universal credit £20 uplift? Sir William Beveridge, who was a Member of both Houses, said it was our duty to provide a safety net—a phrase that was used by the noble Baroness earlier on—against the “giant evils”. Today, there are cuts and sears in that safety net that we must repair.
Finally, at Second Reading, the noble Baroness set out her formidable objections to the removal of the £20 uplift, but also her serious concerns about the democratic deficit. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, talked about public confidence and thought that if we took this decision it might erode public confidence. I think it will have precisely the opposite effect, and this is not something I argue for lightly. I certainly think we need to give it a great deal more thought.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I remember being in the Chamber just under five years ago when your Lordships’ House was united in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Freud on the occasion of his final speech as Minister for Welfare Reform. Hansard cols. 1697 to 1720 of 21 December 2016 paid testament to the esteem in which my noble friend is held. I join other noble Lords in thanking him and my noble friend Lady Stroud for their courage and tenacity both in their previous, pivotal positions in driving welfare reform and also for tabling what I regard as a crucial amendment, which we are considering this evening. So the question that I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would answer is: if we listened to my noble friend Lord Freud when he was a Minister, why should we not listen to him today? What has changed?
I shall briefly address this from the perspective of a disabled person. Disabled people have been disproportionately hit by the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest change since has been the recent significant and growing increase in the cost of living, to which other noble Lords have alluded. For those disabled people in particular who cannot work, the calamitous impact of the removal of the universal credit uplift, just as their need for support is growing, could hardly have been worse timed. For them, the impact of Covid—for which the uplift was introduced—not only endures but has increased considerably. It is completely fatuous to pretend otherwise.
Of course, I do not blame the Government for increases in the cost of living. It is not the Government’s fault that heating bills have risen by 12% and are expected to continue rising as we head into winter. Nor is it their fault that petrol now costs £1.43 per litre—an all-time high—and that prices at the pump are also predicted to increase further. But that does not mean that the Government can deny their responsibility to mitigate the real hardship faced by those disabled people who are unable to work and need the universal credit uplift now more than ever.
As a Conservative, I of course support efforts to bring the deficit under control but, as a disabled person, I suggest that that Conservative principle needs to go hand in hand with pragmatism. In conclusion, only MPs can fully appreciate the implications of ignoring the universal credit uplift crisis, for the simple reason that it is their severely disabled constituents and their families who are being hardest hit. They deserve the opportunity to vote to protect their most vulnerable constituents. As we have heard, this amendment would simply give them the chance to choose whether they want to take that opportunity. I urge the Government to think again and thereby make this amendment unnecessary. That is in the Government’s gift.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, for bringing this amendment to the House, together with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and other noble Lords. They have done it in entirely the appropriate way, in recognition that there is a Budget tomorrow and other opportunities to take this whole debate forward. I have been very struck by the arguments on both sides and how well they were balanced and expressed. But I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the rules may not be quite as clear cut as they appear to be, that people will bend, expand or do something with the envelope as they see fit, and that this area needs much more discussion. I particularly agree with him on the planning laws, for example.
I want to make one substantive point which I do not think has been made yet, about the effect of this cut on health. I spent a lot of time recently in some of the poorer communities in the country working on health. In doing so, I have recognised, as we all have, the fragility of some people’s lives and the balances they need to strike to make things work. This may well knock many people on into poverty, as the noble Baroness has said. It will have an impact on physical and mental health and on other public services, and it will be damaging in the long term for society, not just for the people involved.
We have already heard one great paradox: how costly it is to be poor, and how you pay more. There is another great paradox, which is that quite a lot of cost-saving measures end up costing other budgets rather more.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise to make three brief points. I wish first to join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, who has shown real bravery and great leadership this evening in moving these amendments from the Government Benches, and to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for doing likewise. I commend the others who have supported them.
My second point is constitutional and builds on what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said. Noble Lords may know from history that there has been a real shift in attitudes towards innovation. In the Middle Ages, innovation was a slur, a way of attacking people, whereas in the modern world we think of it as being a wonderful thing. The Government like to celebrate innovations. We have seen lots of innovations in our constitution from the Government, but they do not seem to like what they see as other people’s innovations— even though the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, clearly set out a number of precedents to show that what she and others are doing here is not an innovation at all.
I want to go back a considerable number of hours to the Environment Bill. Noble Lords who have covered both Bills may have seen the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, a Cross-Bencher and hereditary Peer, lead a very cross-party charge, to the point where the Government eventually reversed their position—crucially, after there had been a huge public outcry about water treatment and water companies dumping sewage into our rivers and oceans.
This is a weird situation arising from our dysfunctional constitution and centuries of historical accident; but it was the House of Lords that enabled the people to speak and express their views in a way that eventually changed the minds of MPs. Were your Lordships’ House to go forward from this point and enable these debates, I have no doubt that the people of this country, the voters, would speak loudly and clearly through social media, letters and phone calls to their MPs about their very strong views on the £20 universal credit uplift. Your Lordships’ House could have the opportunity to make that happen. That, I would argue, would be intensely democratic.
My third point is very brief. The Minister, sitting beside the Leader of the House, knows that the circumstances of universal credit, its inadequacy, low wages, insecure employment and zero-hours contracts have given me many opportunities to plague her by talking about a universal basic income. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and many others have made hugely powerful points about the dreadful human impacts of the cut to universal credit, but I ask your Lordships to consider whether you believe in the human right to life. The right to life implies access to food, shelter, heating in winter and the basics of security, and that is what this amendment is about. We are talking about basic universal human rights, and that surely has to be a matter for your Lordships’ House.
Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)
My Lords, I have not spoken in this House for close on two years—18 months at least—through Covid. I was not intending to speak today because of the Environment Bill coming through and the things that I personally disagree with that were in it, which none of us has covered.
I have listened to my noble friends on this side in bringing forward this amendment. I understand the argument that this is the wrong place to bring through a technical argument that is in the wrong place, but, surely, we have all said that taking money away from our poorest people at this point in time and in where our communities are going is the wrong thing to do. We all know that the £20 uplift was a temporary arrangement to get our poorest people through Covid. As a country, we have not got through Covid; we are in the worst part of Covid’s impacts on our community. So I am hopeful that tomorrow the Chancellor, because he cares about our people in our country, will bring in some measures that alleviate the worst impacts of Covid on our poorest people.
But we cannot overturn all of those rules and regulations that all of you clever people understand about how this place is supposed to work. We cannot break the rules to introduce an amendment that cannot be bolted on, or else we will turn every piece of legislation into a Christmas tree. I will be the worst person in this House for doing this. Every time that you bring something through that I do not like the look of, I will put another bauble on it. That is what we are risking tonight.
I am pleased that my noble friends, who passionately care about this issue, have said that they will not press this to a Division. We must be ready to give a voice to the people outside of this Chamber, if the Government do not understand the seriousness of that return to a previous set of benefits. I will not call it a cut because it is not one; it was a temporary bringing in of alleviation for a problem. The problem has not gone away, and we must try to convince the Government that they need to slowly reduce that alleviation or, at least, re-evaluate what universal credit is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be about making sure that everyone has a decent standard of living and that, if they can work, they go to work and work harder to get more money: “If you can’t work, don’t go to work; we will look after you. But if you don’t want to go to work, we won’t look after you.” That surely has to be part of that conversation. The benefit bill should be for those who need us most. They are our friends, neighbours and families; we should look after them.
I do not see that 11.45 pm is the right time to speak much longer, even though it is the first time that I have spoken for a long time. I am sorry.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I too will be brief. We have heard from other Members of this House on the impact of the cut to the £20 uplift in universal credit, and the effect it has on people’s lives, particularly children and, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin raised, the disabled. We know that this is causing major misery and despair to many people in this country, among them the most vulnerable.
I too respect the rule of law; the rules of engagement are important. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and the noble Lord, Lord Porter, have said, if you want to be effective, the rules are important. However, when I first came into this House—I am not a very long-standing Member—there was an occasion when the House took a stand on tax credits. We have no powers, as we know, but we took a powerful stand. Certainly, it upset the then Government, and those tax credit cuts did not go ahead. What I learned from that is that, while I have great respect for the rules of this House, its procedures and its conventions, sometimes there are exceptional circumstances which sometimes demand exceptional action. That is what I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and her supporters are taking forward at the moment.
I too hope that the Chancellor will put something in his Statement tomorrow—we will, of course, wait to hear it—but I pay tribute to the courage of Members of this House who have put their money where their mouth is. They have put themselves on the line. They believe it is so important to ask the other place to think again that they are prepared to risk a lot in order to do so. We in this House should back them.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, for introducing Amendment 9 and speaking so passionately on its content. We tried everything to get an amendment on universal credit into scope, so I am not surprised that, despite all her ingenuity and application, the noble Baroness was unable to get anything past the clerks. I have some sympathy for the efforts that must have gone into that; the nearest I could get was Amendment 6 in my name on mixed-age couples—“close but no cigar” is, I think, the technical term for it.
I understand that these issues are complex and sensitive. I have learned a lot today, in fact, about what happens in practice. Having listened to both the Leader and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, I now understand that, in effect, the House will decide the admissibility of an amendment only at the point at which it decides whether or not to accept or vote for it. So basically, we will not find out tonight at all. Given that, I will take the opportunity to talk yet again about universal credit; I have been banging on about it for quite a long time. I will do so briefly.
I have been talking about this £20 for a boringly long time. I cannot tell noble Lords how happy I am to have such an illustrious array of support coming in behind the issue—what a delight that is. It has been very interesting to listen to some of the contributions, which I passionately agree with. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for pointing out the impact of this cut on health, to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for pointing out the impact on food, people’s poverty, and the quality of their lifestyles, and to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for pointing out the impact on disabled people.
I still believe that it is not just bad but one of the most shocking decisions to remove £20 a week from universal credit at the point at which we are dealing with the effects of a pandemic which, as the noble Lord, Lord Porter, pointed out, has decimated communities, and is still having that effect. People have lost jobs and hours. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. To proceed at this point with what the Economist called
“the biggest single cut to social security since the foundation of the modern welfare state”,
frankly, beggars belief.
I warn the Minister that, the next time she tries to defend this cut by pointing to the £500 million discretionary fund, I am going to get up and quote the noble Lord, Lord Freud, at her. I may even look at a combination of the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and my noble friend Lady Lister—if I am honest, not an alliance I have seen a lot of in the past, but I shall be quoting them at her together. Frankly, at that point, she should just put up her hands and give up; if the two of them are agreed, she may be on to a loser.
The other defence that will be used—indeed, it is already starting to be—is about what is happening with the rise in the national living wage. Obviously, it is good that the Government have accepted the Low Pay Commission recommendation and that the minimum national living wage will rise, but this simply does not make up for the universal credit cut, for three basic reasons.
First, there are well over 5 million adults on universal credit, but only 2 million people get the national living wage and many of those do not get universal credit. Secondly, it is not enough. The Resolution Foundation has done the sums and a full-time worker on universal credit who gets the national living wage would see their pre-tax pay rise by just over £1,000 as a result of this increase. However, their take-home pay would go up by only £265 because of the UC taper, because they pay more tax and will be paying more national insurance come April. Losing £1,040 and gaining £265 is not a win. That is in cash terms. In fact, most of that increase will have to go to cover the cost of inflation in any case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, may be right and the Chancellor may be doing something in the Budget. None of us knows what is going to happen. Maybe he will knock a couple of percentage points off the taper rate. I really hope he cuts the taper rate but that will not be enough to make up for the damage that this cut has wrought.
The third point is that improvements in the living wage and the taper rate help only those in work. Just 38% of adults in families on universal credit are employed. What happens to the rest? What about the sick and disabled people who are not able to work? What about those with caring responsibilities? How are they meant to feed their kids and heat their home? What happens to them? Let us not forget the hit to local economies when families who have to spend every penny they get suddenly have £1,000 less to spend a year in local shops and businesses because it has been taken away from them.
That is enough for one day. We have had a very interesting debate. I shall read Hansard with care. Perhaps the Chancellor will take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin. Perhaps the best favour he could do for the Leader of the House and the Minister is to take this problem away from them by acting tomorrow. We look forward to seeing that. I hope the Minister can give us some hints.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, we will have to wait until the Chancellor gets up to speak to find out what he has to say in his Statement. I thank my noble friends Lady Stroud and Lord Freud, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Janke and Lady Boycott, for their amendment. My noble friends Lady Stroud and Lord Freud were, of course, prominent architects of universal credit and noble Lords will, I am sure, join me in appreciating their depth of knowledge and strength of feeling on the issue. I know from all that has been said that others in this House share many of their concerns. I will not take time to repeat them now.
I must inform your Lordships that this amendment, if passed, would challenge the broader constitutional balance between the two Houses of Parliament. I am sure it is not the intention of noble Lords to open such a Pandora’s box, but I would be failing in my duty to your Lordships’ House if I did not clearly spell out the unintended effects.
Since the other place has already approved the Bill, I urge your Lordships not to risk its effects being negated by ping-pong between the Houses that takes us beyond the hard deadline for reprogramming the relevant DWP IT systems. This amendment deals with matters of public expenditure which are the province of the elected Chamber. It also effectively asks this House to decide how that Chamber should conduct its business, what it should debate, what it should choose to vote on and when that should be done—in this case, within one month of Royal Assent.
Taking into account all the constitutional points I have raised, I invite my noble friend to withdraw her amendment and, if she feels unable to do so, I strongly urge noble Lords not to vote in its favour.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions this evening, particularly at this late hour. Who would have thought that such a gentle amendment on an issue so close the public’s heart could have generated quite so much debate?
I have listened carefully to the words of the Leader of the House and I commit myself to keep listening. It has been really helpful to have everybody’s feedback tonight. It is, however, as we all know, the eve of the Budget and I am still hopeful that inside No. 11 there may be ears to hear what we are saying tonight. It would cause me great sadness to divide the House on an issue on which we should all be so firmly united—the protection of the poorest in our society—and to do so under such contentious circumstances.
I will step back and beg leave to withdraw this amendment. But the care of the most vulnerable in our society is the rightful concern of this House. For if we stand for anything, it is to check and challenge the work of the Government, and that is all I am seeking to do today. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.