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Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
I have been absolutely crystal clear that the amount of sewage discharged by water companies into our rivers is unacceptable. We have our Environment Bill and our strategic policy statement which, for the very first time by any Government, directs the regulator to ensure that water companies tackle sewage discharges, so we are right on it. We have strengthened the Environment Bill to get a new duty on water companies to progressively reduce discharges. Last week, we voted through six pages of measures to stop raw sewage going into our watercourses.
Tonia Antoniazzi
Despite bizarre assurances that the Government have been working on their U-turn for weeks, it was the public outcry about sewage being pumped into waterways that forced a change of mind by the Government. In Gower, the number of people enjoying the sea and swimming in Caswell bay and Langland bay has increased, as many Members know, especially during covid. What work is the Minister doing to work with devolved Governments to ensure that the whole United Kingdom is protected for people to swim and enjoy?
Rebecca Pow
Yes, it is a beautiful part of the world. We have to remember that water issues are devolved, so water companies are working in their own ways, but it is absolutely right that they need to work together across our borders. We are at pains to make that clear. Indeed, there were measures in the Environment Bill to highlight the fact that partnership working is so important. All the measures in the Bill will make a significant difference to any of this pollution going into the river. I remind her that a fifth of the pollution is from sewage, but four fifths is from agricultural pollution and waste treatment works. We are also working on very strong measures on this issue, not only through the Environment Bill, but through the farming rules for water.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister and Secretary of State for meeting me and concerned colleagues earlier this week on this issue. Only a few days ago, we had a discharge into the Walney channel. For the avoidance of doubt, can the Minister please lay out the fact that the amendment we are putting forward to the Environment Bill will drive down discharges such as this and increase penalties and liabilities on water companies that are acting irresponsibly?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for coming to the meeting earlier this week to explain what is a very complicated picture. It has to be tackled from so many angles, which is why I mentioned agriculture just now—it is not just one source. We have the measures in the Bill and the six pages of measures we added to improve reporting, monitoring, duties and governance to check on the actions that water companies are taking. Those are in the Bill, but this overarching new duty to direct water companies to progressively reduce sewage will make the real difference. It puts into law what we have already directed Ofwat, the regulator, to do.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Days from COP26, I must tell the Minister that the episode with raw sewage has not done Britain’s reputation going into that conference any good. The Government whipping their own MPs to vote against an amendment to end the routine discharge of raw sewage does nothing to build confidence and has rightly sparked a public outcry. Raw sewage is being routinely discharged today, right now and every single day throughout COP26. When the Minister talks about progressive reductions, can she say how much raw sewage will be progressively reduced each and every year? Importantly, when will this disgusting practice come to an end?
Rebecca Pow
I want to make it clear that a lot of what we have heard in the social media storm has been whipped up, and there are a great many untruths flying around. We all spoke last week, after all the tributes to dear Sir David Amess, about a better form of government that is more respectful. Actually, I would like us to pick that up, because a lot of people have not seen it over this issue. The amendment, as it was worded by the Duke of Edinburgh—[Interruption.] Sorry, I will correct that right now. The amendment of the Duke of Wellington, with whom I have had many meetings, would have legally bound Ministers to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged from overflows, eliminating them. That would have involved the complete separation of the sewerage system. We have data, which I believe will be published today, that shows that that could cost between £300 billion and £600 billion. We had to be mindful of that. The hon. Gentleman asks when these things will start happening. They are happening already. Some £3 billion is already being spent by the water companies to stop sewage going into our rivers. The measures in the Bill will further add to that.
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the Minister that I recognise her passion, but we are 10 minutes in and we are on question 1. We are not going to get very far. If she can speed up her answers, it will help me. We now to come to a question from Kate Osborne, who is not here, so I expect the Minister to reply on that basis, then I will go to Ian Byrne.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
The food strategy will be published early next year. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set out how we can create the food system that we want. It will identify ways to make our food healthier, more sustainable and, I hope, more accessible.
Ian Byrne
In April, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report on “Covid-19 and the issues of security in food supply” said that the Government should consult on a legal right to food and address that in their White Paper responding to the national food strategy, which was published in July. In the light of the horrific rise of food poverty in all our communities, with kids going hungry, as highlighted on Monday night in a harrowing “Dispatches” programme, will the Minister meet me to discuss the upcoming White Paper and the right to food?
Victoria Prentis
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman, as I have many times to discuss the important issue of food poverty. I take the opportunity to commend him for his work with Fans Supporting Foodbanks, which is a great initiative. I thank all those involved.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
When people think of great British cheese, they think of Stilton, which was invented in my constituency. In the national food strategy, there are concerns that we will be forced to change that amazing national recipe to reduce the salt content. Will the Minister meet me to discuss that vital issue and my campaign to open a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs office in the rural capital of food, Melton Mowbray?
Victoria Prentis
I believe I am meeting my hon. Friend to discuss stilton and other important cheeses this afternoon.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The national food strategy is a weighty tome, but Henry Dimbleby, who the Government commissioned to write it, is not a happy man. Last week, following the New Zealand trade deal, he told the Soil Association conference that,
“the Government has clearly rejected my advice.”
He also said:
“There is no point in creating a food and farming system here that looks after animals, sequesters carbon, and supports biodiversity, if overseas products on our shelves don’t do the same.”
I suspect that virtually everyone in the Chamber agrees with that—the Opposition certainly do. Can the Minister tell us her view and the Government’s view?
Victoria Prentis
The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that my view and the Government’s view are entirely aligned. Henry Dimbleby’s report was a useful step in the development of the Government’s food strategy and we are grateful to him for the enormous amount of work that he put into it. As I said earlier, we will respond as a Government probably in the middle of January, which will be six months after the report was published. That is what we always said the timescale would be. There is a lot of work to do and it is a really important piece of work. It is genuinely a once-in-a-generation chance to try to put our food strategy on the right track for the future. I cannot give Members any spoilers now.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
We know that air pollution is a particular threat to vulnerable groups. We continue to drive forward the ambitious actions in the clean air strategy, such as phasing out the sale of house coal for domestic burning. The Environment Bill also makes a clear commitment to set targets for fine particulate matter, which is the pollutant of most concern for human health. We are working across Government, including with the Department of Health and Social Care, which has overall responsibility for respiratory diseases, to address actions on air pollution.
Kate Osamor
Research in 2014 and 2016 by King’s College London and Imperial College London recorded 1,000 hospital admissions a year among those with pre-existing respiratory conditions. In 2018, King’s College London found that as many as 36,000 people a year die early due to air pollution. When will the Government stop tinkering around the edges and finally introduce legally binding limits to abide by the World Health Organisation’s stricter clean air standards?
Jo Churchill
We need to get those targets right. In the Environment Bill, which should be back in this place shortly, we have committed to setting a target, but it is important that we get the evidence right to set the right targets. Those targets will be based on evidence. We are currently reviewing the air quality strategy. We will be looking at a revised strategy in 2023. The PM2 target is on a population basis. We also need the population exposure targets so that in areas such as hers, where we know that there are hotter spots, we can work directly with local authorities—we all own this challenge—to get the right targeted measure in the right areas. The overall target is important, but so are those targeted, individual approaches.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
As you know, Mr Speaker, in Newcastle-under-Lyme we suffer with poor air quality from the odorous emissions of Walleys Quarry, which have had a serious impact on respiratory disease. That includes the case of the five-year-old boy, Mathew Richards, who won his judicial review against the Environment Agency. Does the Minister share my concern that the Environment Agency has frustrated attempts by investigators to access the public register? Does she agree that it must be open to having the register inspected by those trying to get to the bottom of how this scandalous situation has been allowed to develop?
Jo Churchill
My hon. Friend and I have already had several discussions on this matter. I hope to have a further meeting with him next week and to visit the site shortly. As part of permitting the regular inspection process, the Environment Agency considers the existing concentration of relevant pollutants in the area surrounding such challenges and, if air quality levels are exceeded because of those impacts, a lower limit can be set by a local authority. We should try to be transparent, but, in these complex matters, we must try to take on board the needs of constituents while driving the right conclusions to sort out this difficult problem.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
City of York’s Lib Dem/Green council—Oh, the irony of it—is instituting six new car parks in our city centre. As a result, there will be a further threat to people’s lives, particularly with regard to respiratory conditions, given the already challenged air quality. What discussions is the Minister having with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that councils do not put new car parks in their planning?
Jo Churchill
There are many local initiatives going on. The nitrogen dioxide plan, which I spoke about earlier, is the key to driving down emissions, and we are working with the Department for Transport on that. People using their cars less in the city centre and the promotion of cycling and walking in a beautiful city such as York would obviously enhance the city for all its tourists. I am sure that the city of York, the tourist board and indeed everybody would be pleased to see that.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
Environmental sustainability is fundamental to our new approach. Our new schemes will pay for regenerative farming practices, improvements to animal health and welfare, reductions in carbon emissions, cleaner water, and habitat renewal.
Andrew Selous
I recently visited Henry Hunt and other young Bedfordshire farmers who are already doing amazing work to significantly improve their soils. What more can we do to encourage other farmers to follow their example as brilliantly shown in the documentary “Kiss the Ground” and ensure that, when environmental land management payments start, there is not a gap with the basic payments scheme ending?
Victoria Prentis
My hon. Friend has already told me about his great meeting with Henry Hunt—one of his farmers—recently. I accept that the change from area-based payments to public money for public goods is challenging for farmers. The new system is being brought in gradually over seven years, but I reassure him that there is much in the new system for soil health, including one of the first eight standards, which has already been published. The soil health action plan and the Environment Bill will help, too.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Many of my constituency farmers have already diversified and have been successful in that. Has consideration been given to funding diversification projects such as milk and eggs vending machines to enable farmers to boost their incomes so that they can farm the land and pay the bills?
Victoria Prentis
It is slightly difficult to answer that question directly because this is a devolved issue. But, yes, grants are available for new pieces of technology that will help farmers with both diversification and making their businesses more sustainable.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
In Harlow we have a serious problem with horses being tethered on the roadside and cruelly treated. Will my hon. Friend introduce restrictions or ban this barbaric practice once and for all?
Victoria Prentis
The tethering of horses is a serious issue about which I have spoken to my right hon. Friend many times in the past. I suggest we meet to discuss if there is more we can do to end unnecessary horse tethering. Occasionally this can be an appropriate practice.
Mr Speaker
I just say to Members that if they are bobbing to their feet then they should keep bobbing as otherwise I will think they have changed their mind about wishing to speak. Knowing who is standing and who is not helps me all the way through.
We now come to a more interesting matter: I call Neale Hanvey to ask Question 6. He is not here. If Members are not going to be present, they must let the Chair know. May I suggest once again that the Minister answers the question even though the Member is not here, although he was due to be?
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Our vanguard Environment Bill demonstrates how much we are doing on that—more than any other country. This will be groundbreaking legislation and as we build back greener from the pandemic it will transform how we protect our environment and will better protect our resources—our air, our water and, of course, our soil.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
The Minister will be aware of the policy on biodiversity net gain, which is due to come in in the next couple of years. I and many other Members have been pressing to accelerate the introduction of this wonderful policy. Can the Minister give any update on the Department’s thoughts on whether we can bring forward implementation of biodiversity net gain?
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his work on this, because it is going to be a very important part of how we increase our protections and protect more nature. We have the target to protect and halt the decline of species abundance by 2030. Local authorities will play a key part in delivering that through their planning services and it is important that we work with them to give them the time to get this under way.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
The UK is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world and the decline is not slowing. The Government have made a deliberate decision not to announce any concrete targets to reverse it until October next year, long after COP26, and are instead focusing on cutting the costs of internal flights rather than cutting rail fares. Does the Minister think this undermines the Government’s credibility at the conference this weekend?
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Of course I want it, especially when it is from that particular Member; he is always at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions and I thank him for that.
The Government are providing £20 million through the Department for Transport’s mode shift freight grant schemes in 2021-22 to support rail and water freight services on routes where they deliver environment benefits over road haulage but are more expensive to operate. Responsibility for the operational matters and management of the inland waterways rests with the relevant navigation authority and Ministers have no role in that.
Michael Fabricant
I thank the Minister very much for her reply, and for her kind comments about me, which I thought were rather nice.
The all-party group on waterways, which I have the honour of chairing, has identified that about 1,500 miles of our 5,000 miles of navigable waterways are suitable for freight. In addition to the measures the Minister has just outlined, has her Department given any thought to reintroducing the freight facility grants for wharfs and handling facilities?
Rebecca Pow
I am genuinely interested in my hon. Friend’s work. This area comes under Department for Transport responsibilities; it does not have any plans as such to reinstate the freight facilities grant in England, but the Government are of course very interested in the shift to getting freight transported in other ways. The fund I mentioned earlier has mostly gone to rail because the case has to be made for whether it is better to do it by water, so I recommend that my hon. Friend gets in there and makes that case, remembering of course the other great benefits of waterways, especially through cities, for health and wellbeing.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
Recent discussions with the US have led to several positive outcomes for the UK. We have resolved the Airbus-Boeing dispute, leading to the suspension of the 25% tariff on Scotch whisky; for the first time in two decades, British beef is on US plates; and most recently, my officials spoke to their US counterparts, who confirmed their intention to enable the import of British lamb following the Prime Minister’s discussions on that with President Biden.
Stephen Flynn
That is an incredibly important point. Of course, when the Prime Minister left the White House, he declared to Scottish and UK businesses that they would indeed once again be able to export their lamb to the United States of America, but we have seen from leaked memos from the Secretary of State’s own Department that that was not necessarily the case. Perhaps he can shine a little more detail on that. When will Scottish producers be able to export their lamb to the United States?
George Eustice
I cannot put a timescale on precisely when that will happen, but as I said, the Prime Minister had very positive discussions on this very issue with President Biden, and my officials have been continuing that discussion with US officials, who have confirmed their intention to enable the import of British lamb to the United States.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
I and my constituents in the beautiful island constituency of Ynys Môn are rightly passionate about the environment and keeping our waters free from sewage and agricultural pollution. Can Ministers reassure my Ynys Môn constituents that they will work with the Welsh Government to ensure that the waters of Anglesey will be enjoyed by generations to come?
Mr Speaker
Order. Unfortunately, that is not relevant. Let me explain: supplementary questions have to be linked to the substantive question that is asked. If you had put in something about the wonderful lamb that comes out of Ynys Môn, I could have allowed it. You have to make sure that there is a link to the question that is asked—I think the Whips have got some jobs on their hands.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I regularly speak to Cabinet colleagues about the current state of the labour market in the food and drink sector. Working across Government, we have extended the seasonal workers pilot this year to 30,000 visas and introduced additional temporary visa routes for poultry workers, pig butchers and heavy goods vehicle drivers in the food sector.
Gerald Jones
Delays and shortages, whether of lorry drivers or butchers, are causing huge concern and anxiety to business owners and consumers alike. Dayle Evans, a landlord and business owner in my constituency, was unable to reopen his pub’s kitchen for eight weeks due to difficulties sourcing produce. As we approach the Christmas season, which is the busiest for hospitality, and given the issues of last Christmas, what further action can the Government take to ensure that the shortages are resolved before that busy period is upon us?
George Eustice
My Department has regular dialogue with all the supermarkets and the major food manufacturers. They had some anxiety around their ability to deliver for Christmas about a month ago. That is why we acted expeditiously to introduce those temporary visa schemes. I can say that confidence in the industry is now higher, and it is gearing its logistics chains to make sure that we have food on the shelves. It is an improving situation.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
The powerful new measures in our world-leading Environment Bill, alongside substantial funding and incentives to protect and restore nature, represent a step change in our ambition. Our commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 while setting a historic legally binding target to halt the decline in species abundance underlines our intent on all this. Internationally, we are playing a leading role in developing an ambitious new global biodiversity framework under the convention on biological diversity, making nature a top priority for our COP26 presidency.
Claire Coutinho
Today is the memorial for Peter Ainsworth, my predecessor in East Surrey, who was Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee and on the board of the Environment Agency. I am sure that the Minister, like me, would like to pay tribute to all his work in this area.
Ahead of the Surrey-wide virtual COP summit tonight, will the Minister update the House on the work that has been conducted on the possibility of a new “wild belt” designation, which would protect biodiversity across the country?
Rebecca Pow
We, too, obviously pay tribute to all the great work that Peter Ainsworth did, particularly in this area.
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and wish her every success with her virtual Surrey-wide COP26 climate summit. Many other colleagues are doing similar, really great events. DEFRA is working very closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on how future planning reforms could make a really big difference to our environmental outcomes. Protections, including those in particular areas—urban areas and such—will all come under that microscope. The Government will publish their response to the planning White Paper in due course.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The marine environment can play a huge role in climate mitigation, with blue carbon held in native oyster reefs, kelp forests, seagrass, salt marshes and so on. What are the Government doing to scale up the rewilding of our seas for biodiversity and blue carbon, an issue on which we could show global leadership at COP26 and at the convention next year?
Rebecca Pow
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that really important point. Everything we are doing on protections relates to both land and sea, with the protection of 30% of the land and 30% of the sea. We are gathering more data on blue carbon. We do not have quite enough data yet to factor it into all our calculations, but we mean to do so. She is absolutely right that our kelp beds and salt marshes can make a great contribution, and a great deal of work is being done on that. Indeed, many of our flood resilience squads are linking in with such restoration projects.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
Next week, the UK will host COP26 in Glasgow. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our planet. Both the COP President-designate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), and the Prime Minister have set out the areas where we hope to make progress. My noble Friend Lord Goldsmith and I have held many meetings with countries on the agenda the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been leading on, specifically in relation to forests and nature-based solutions to climate change. We will be seeking progress on that agenda in the weeks ahead.
Stephen Farry
The current focus in addressing the sanitary and phytosanitary issues in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol now seems to be on a bespoke, specific arrangement for Northern Ireland. I and many others believe that, overall, a UK-EU veterinary agreement would be the best way forward for not only Northern Ireland but the entire UK. Is that objective still the position of the UK Government?
George Eustice
The position of the UK Government was set out very clearly and comprehensively in the Command Paper we published earlier this summer. We also have specialised committees working with EU and UK officials to resolve some of the technical and veterinary issues. We are clear, however, that we want goods to be able to travel from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without unnecessary barriers in the way.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
My hon. Friend is such a great champion for the Isle of Wight. He never ceases to collar me in the corridor to talk about it. He is right that it is an amazing biosphere. He will know that Natural England has started to develop an England-wide assessment to identify further landscape conservation enhancement needs, looking at potential areas of outstanding natural beauty and so on. I urge him to keep that dialogue open.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The fishing dispute with France is very troubling, and the facts need to be established. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the Marine Management Organisation has issued an external waters licence to the Scottish scalloper currently detained in Le Havre, as its name does not appear on the MMO website? Is that an oversight?
George Eustice
My officials are investigating the circumstances around the vessel that has been detained in France. It is too early to be able to identify precisely what happened, but I have seen reports that it was on a list originally and then appeared not to be on a list. I have asked our officials to investigate urgently.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Rebecca Pow
We are providing £15 million for peatland restoration through our nature for climate fund. A lot of that money has already started to be dispensed to projects. We announced £16 million for projects between Cornwall and Northumberland. It is competitive and one has to put a good case, but if my right hon. Friend wants to consider making applications for Lindow Moss it would be well worth looking at.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I will return to the fishing dispute in my urgent question that you have kindly granted, Mr Speaker.
There are significant concerns that any introduction of gene editing to the Scottish food chain could be a huge nail in the coffin for sales to the EU, with the divergence of standards leading to further loss of the European market and the risk of Scotland’s reputation for high-quality food and drink production being tainted by association. What recent impact assessment has been conducted on changing trading standards in Scotland and the ability to trade with the EU in future?
George Eustice
The approach that we take is that decisions on whether to cultivate gene-edited crops or, indeed, genetically modified crops would be for the devolved Administrations, but in line with the provisions of the internal market, there would be access for goods. That mirrors what exists at the moment in the European Union. As the hon. Lady will know, the vast majority of animal feed sold in the EU is genetically modified.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Increased exports are the path to prosperity for our food and drink sector and the route back to profitability for many of our farmers. With that in mind, what is the Minister’s assessment of the bounce back package for agriculture, food and drink that was announced last year?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
The bounce back package provided effective and targeted support to exporters. We will continue to strengthen our export capability by launching the “Open Doors” campaign, creating an export council and increasing the number of superb agrifood counsellors.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
George Eustice
The truth is that the impacts of covid have had an impact on fish prices over the last 18 months. They have gone from a historic high down to quite low levels; they have now recovered. It is also the case that some North sea stocks, notably cod, have been in a difficult place over the last couple of years, so fisheries administrations have taken the right and necessary decision to reduce some of those quotas.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
One of the Secretary of State’s responsibilities is the provision of an adequate supply of domestically produced fruit and vegetables. Much of this year’s harvest has been lost as a result of a lack of labour. Contrary to popular belief, there is not a queue of domestic labour waiting to harvest apples and tomatoes. Having lost this year’s harvest, what will my right hon. Friend do to ensure that there is adequate labour supply for next year?
Victoria Prentis
I visited the Kent agricultural showground last week for the very impressive national fruit show, and I was able to talk to many growers about the very tight labour market that we are suffering from at the moment. As my right hon. Friend knows, we have a seasonal workers pilot with 30,000 visas. Growers can also continue to recruit workers under the EU settlement scheme. For the longer term, we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to encourage the recruitment of more UK workers and undertaking a review of how automation will help with this issue.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Every weekend, people are out fishing, rowing, kayaking and paddleboarding, enjoying the rivers and canals in Nottingham. They are horrified to learn that there have been hundreds of thousands of sewage discharges into England’s waterways and that, under this Government, the Environment Agency has suffered huge cuts to funding for monitoring water quality and prosecuting polluters. What resources will the Secretary of State’s Department commit to addressing the dirty water crisis?
George Eustice
We have doubled the size of the catchment sensitive farming scheme, which supports farmers to reduce pollution on their farms, and we have increased resources to the Environment Agency and put additional inspectors on this task.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
With adverse weather and flooding again affecting Cumbria and other areas in the north, will the Secretary of State join me in thanking everyone on the ground from the Environment Agency, local government, emergency services and volunteers? Can he reassure my constituents in Penrith and The Border that the Environment Agency will continue to have the funding and support that it needs to help, protect and support communities vulnerable to flooding?
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend is right. There has been an amber warning in his area and we are keeping a very close eye on it. All the systems are in place through the Environment Agency; I hope he will agree that it gives a really professional service. We thank all its staff, and all the people in the area, for what they are doing. Please will he ensure that his constituents are all involved in the alert systems and have all the warnings available? It is really important to bring communities on board with us.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I will take two more questions if they are really quick; if they are not, I will stop you.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Recently, the children of Stocksfield Avenue Primary School wrote to me to express their dismay at the plastic pollution in the rivers, the seas and their environment. That follows similar appeals from the children of Mountfield Primary School, Hilton school—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. That was not quick enough. We have got the question—I call the Minister.
George Eustice
I, too, am regularly contacted by schools in my constituency raising concerns around plastics. We have banned certain single-use plastics, we have introduced levies on carrier bags, and our extended producer responsibility scheme will reduce plastics further.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Team Stroud is setting up the all-party parliamentary group for wetlands with WWT Slimbridge. Will the Minister join me in supporting the investment in nature and the importance of blue carbon habitat creation?
Rebecca Pow
I am so pleased to hear about the project; I absolutely support it and would love to visit. Wetlands are so important, on so many grounds. The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust does superb work: carbon capture, flood storage, biodiversity, nature—it does it all.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before we come to the next group of questions, I point out that in the absence of the spokesperson for the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) will answer on the Committee’s behalf. I am grateful to her for doing so. I emphasise to the House that she will be answering on behalf of the Speaker’s Committee, rather than undertaking her Front-Bench responsibilities.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
Churches up and down the country have been co-ordinating gifts of cash, clothing, toys, prams and other items to Afghan refugees. Church members have taken Afghan families to buy shoes and other items and have offered them houses and flats.
Rachael Maskell
I thank the hon. Member for his answer. However, the biggest issue that we need to address is the provision of housing. Clearly the Church of England has a significant estate; I am grateful for the discussions that we are having in York about how we can use excess estate to support Afghan refugees. Will he ensure that across the Church of England, the estate is maximised so that we can home as many Afghan refugees as possible?
Andrew Selous
I can tell the hon. Lady that lowest income communities funding from the Church Commissioners helps dioceses to support parishes such as St Mary’s, Scarborough, that have been at the forefront of our effort to help Afghan refugees. I can also tell her that in the diocese of Chelmsford, five vacant vicarages have been allocated to refugee households, including to Afghan refugees.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Andrew Selous
In 2020, despite the pandemic, 591 people were recommended for training for ordained ministry—the highest figure for 13 years. Ordinations to stipendiary ministry have increased by 43% since 2013, reflecting our commitment to the long-term resourcing of the Church of England.
Scott Benton
What assurances can my hon. Friend provide the House that the Church of England remains fully committed to parish ministry? I have seen how important it has been during the pandemic at a range of churches in Blackpool, such as Holy Cross.
Andrew Selous
I am delighted to learn of the good work of Holy Cross and other churches in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I can reassure him, because the Archbishop of York said in July that
“the means whereby we will serve and reach our nation…is a parish system revitalised for mission.”
Over the past year and a half, we have seen the very best of the parish system, finding creative ways to proclaim the unchanging love of Jesus in meeting the needs of those suffering in the pandemic, in quite extraordinary ways.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that response. Has consideration been given to offering bursaries to cover not simply the cost of fees but the cost of living for older ordinands with families who want to go into the ministry but have family obligations that need funding?
Andrew Selous
I will certainly take that suggestion back to the Church Commissioners, and we will look at it seriously. I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a serious interest in these matters, and we will get back to him.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood)
The commission’s independent evaluation of the Government’s pilots, held in 2018 and 2019, found no evidence that turnout was significantly affected by the trialled introduction of an ID requirement at polling stations. However, it was not able to draw definitive conclusions, particularly on the likely impact at a national poll with higher levels of turnout. The commission has recommended that any ID requirement should be secure, accessible and realistically deliverable. The detail of the Government’s proposals for a free, locally issued voter ID card will be key to ensuring accessibility.
Martyn Day
Inclusion Scotland believes that one in 10 disabled people do not have the required voter ID. What steps should the Government take to ensure that a million disabled people maintain their franchise and their ability to vote in coming elections?
Cat Smith
The proportion of people without ID is higher among certain demographic groups, including those with disabilities. Research published by the Cabinet Office in May 2021 found that 96% of the public held some form of photo ID that respondents thought was recognisable, including ID that had expired. The commission has provided independent advice to parliamentarians on how the measures in the Elections Bill would affect the accessibility of the electoral process, and it will continue to highlight changes in the electoral system that could support increased participation—for example, better use of existing public data to modernise the electoral registration system.
Richard Thomson
Given the scant evidence of electoral fraud by members of the public trying to cast votes to which they are not entitled, do the commissioners share my concern that attempting to introduce voter ID is an attempt to solve a problem which, in reality, simply does not exist?
Cat Smith
The commission has made no detailed assessment of the number of fraudulent votes that could be prevented as a result of the Government’s proposed policy to introduce a voter ID requirement. While levels of reported electoral fraud in the UK are consistently low, they do vary, and there is no reliable methodology for forecasting instances of electoral fraud. The commission has highlighted the lack of an ID requirement as a vulnerability in polling stations across Great Britain, and public opinion research shows that this is an issue that concerns voters.
Deidre Brock
The Elections Bill not only requires Scottish voters to show ID at UK general elections, but gives the Westminster Government powers to set the Electoral Commission’s strategy and policy statement. Given that the Scottish Parliament also pays towards the commission, is this not another case of a grubby Westminster power grab and an attack on our devolution settlement?
Cat Smith
The Elections Bill covers the whole of the UK, but some provisions would apply differently to elections in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The commission’s view is that as drafted, the proposals for a strategy and policy statement are not consistent with its role as an independent regulator. The scope and power is significantly broader than is the case with similar mechanisms in place for other regulators, such as Ofcom, Ofgem and Ofwat, which do not include giving guidance about specific matters.
The existence of an independent regulator is fundamental to maintaining confidence in our electoral system. It is vital that there is no actual or perceived Government involvement in the commission’s operational functions or decision making.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
I should like to start by commending my hon. Friend for the consistent way in which he sticks up for his cathedral in Lichfield. Other Members could follow his example, if I may say so. In 2019, England’s 42 Anglican cathedrals estimated that they required £140 million for repairs and maintenance over the next five years. The Church Commissioners are providing from the cathedral sustainability fund £20 million between 2020 and 2022, which is double the original planned figure.
Michael Fabricant
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments and for his answer. Lichfield cathedral costs around £2 million a year to run. In good years, it is able to set aside a few hundred thousand pounds each year to try to repair the damage being done to an 800-year-old building by the usual environmental impacts. It is not making the £2 million, because we are still recovering from covid, so is there any chance of the recovery fund continuing?
Andrew Selous
The Church is very grateful to the Government for the culture recovery fund allocation for cathedrals of £29.4 million, of which £264,000 has been allocated to Lichfield cathedral. I would like to commend Gloucester cathedral’s Beacon of Hope appeal, which has raised more than £1 million. There has been a £3.1 million investment in craft training between the Cathedrals Workshop Fellowship and the Hamish Ogston Foundation, and cathedral gins have been launched at Blackburn, Portsmouth, Ripon and Bristol cathedrals in order to raise further funds. These are all examples that other cathedrals could follow.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
We have recently appointed a dedicated apprenticeships and early career manager in our in-house resourcing team to focus on building, developing and improving the current apprenticeships scheme. An example of work already under way is the development of our apprenticeships strategy. We are looking at various potential streams of apprentices, including school leavers, targeted external new starters and the upskilling or reskilling of existing staff. We have set a target of 100 apprentices across a variety of disciplines, and we are working to build awareness among existing staff of the career development opportunities available to them.
Robert Halfon
It is very welcome news that 100 apprentices are being employed across the House of Commons. What is my hon. Friend doing to ensure that we employ apprentices from disadvantaged backgrounds, so that they have a chance to climb the House of Commons ladder of opportunity?
Sir Charles Walker
My right hon. Friend is respected across the House for the work he has done on behalf of apprenticeships, so I shall say to him that he is going to join me in a meeting with the apprenticeship and early careers manager at the earliest opportunity, so that we can drive forward this House’s shared agenda to get more people from disadvantaged backgrounds working in this place and enjoying this place.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I apologise to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), because I have made a mistake. Having called the hon. Member for Lichfield to ask his question, I did not then give the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire the opportunity to answer it. I do apologise. Perhaps the hon. Member for Lichfield could remind us of the gist of his question.
Michael Fabricant
A double showing! This is marvellous, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thought I had already asked my question, but anyway. I was asking whether the recovery fund might be continued, but I think that my hon. Friend answered the question.
Andrew Selous
As you have invited me to answer, Madam Deputy Speaker, I can say that the Church of England will absolutely carry on pressing the Government to continue with that funding, because it has been so important.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Danny Kruger is not here. I call John Lamont.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Archbishop of Canterbury will be attending COP26 with Anglican Communion colleagues. Last month, he joined Pope Francis and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to pray that world leaders, individuals and businesses will take the right
John Lamont
The Church has tremendous influence both here and across the world. How is the Church of England encouraging its members to support successful outcomes from COP26?
Andrew Selous
Churches are signing up to be eco-churches in increasing numbers, and 38 of our 42 dioceses have signed up to be eco-dioceses. In addition, the Church of England started the transition pathway initiative, whose membership now comprises funds of $40 trillion. The transition pathway initiative has partnered with the Grantham research institute at the London School of Economics to track 10,000 companies to make sure they are on a timely path to net zero.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Andrew Selous
In 2020 the amount of parish share received by dioceses was 7% below 2019 levels, and in the year to date it is running at 10% less than in the same period of 2019. Parish income has also been badly affected by the loss of hall letting and other events income.
Dr Hudson
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure he agrees that churches across the land have done an amazing job throughout the pandemic in terms of pastoral care, community support and delivering services virtually and now physically again. It is important that they have a secure financial future. Can he give the House an assessment of the progress and impact of the electronic giving system being piloted in Cumbria by the diocese of Carlisle?
Andrew Selous
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. St Patrick’s church in Patterdale and Lanercost priory are among the 110 churches in the Carlisle diocese that have been given contactless units, not all of which require connectivity to take donations. Since June this year, £30,000 has been given through these units, which is 30% more than we budgeted for. The average contactless donation is almost three times more than the average cash donation, and the average online donation is 10 times more. Where Cumbria leads, the Church of England should follow.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
It is noticeable that several Members on the Order Paper are not present in the Chamber. We have therefore answered—
Andrew Selous
I note that at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions Mr Speaker allowed Ministers to answer questions from Members who were not here. As the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) may be of interest to other colleagues, who may wish to come in on the subject, would you be gracious enough to allow me to answer it briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I would be delighted if he answered that question.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Andrew Selous
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is an important question, and I am grateful to get the answer on the record.
The Church of England is not a single institution, so it does not have a single payroll budget. In 2019, £255 million was spent on stipends and pension contributions for ordained ministers in parishes and a further £124 million was spent on clergy housing and working costs, £65 million was spent on staff in dioceses and £30 million was spent on staff in the National Church Institutions.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I have now allowed the hon. Gentleman to answer an unanswered question and to give two answers to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). This is extraordinary and it will not happen again. I do not want to set a precedent, but I am grateful to the Second Church Estates Commissioner for all his thorough answers, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), too.
Petition
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents and many mining communities throughout the country on the need for an inquiry into policing at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984. In the five years since 31 October 2016, when the Home Secretary decided not to order an inquiry, the Government have not responded to any of the new evidence that has been presented.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Easington,
Declares that the UK government has not properly investigated the behaviour of police at the Orgreave Coking Plant on 18th June 1984; further that in the five years since the Home Secretary decided not to order an inquiry, on 31st October 2016, the Government has not responded to any new events and evidence; further that key events and evidence that came to light during that time include the 2020 decision of the Scottish Parliament to grant a collective pardon to miners’ convicted in Scotland during the 1984/85 strike, the 2018 independent approach by the Bishop of Sheffield that there be an independent panel set up (similar to the Hillsborough Independent Panel) to commence scrutiny and consideration of the events of 18th June 1984, the further release of Home Office papers relating to the strike in the last five years and finally the disclosure by the National Police Chiefs’ Counsel of the existence and location of Association of Chief Police Officers files relating to Orgreave and the miners’ strike that are embargoed until 2066; further that Tory MPs representing ex-mining communities have failed to publicly state their support for an inquiry; and further that the recent Daily Mirror article exposing Amber Rudd’s conversation about not holding an inquiry into Orgreave because it would “tarnish Thatcher’s memory” was very disappointing.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to consider the concerns of the petitioners and review its decision not to order an independent inquiry into policing at the Orgreave Coking Plant on 18 June 1984 and to consider afresh the legal submission presented to the Home Secretary by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign in 2015.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002695]
UK-French Trading Dispute
(3 years, 1 month 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
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
(Urgent Question): Brexit-induced exporting changes have resulted in an escalating trading dispute with France that, if not resolved, may result in British boats being banned from French ports and Scottish salmon removed from French menus. France may go further and cut—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Lady has only to ask the basic urgent question; I will come back to her for a supplementary question after the Secretary of State has answered.
Deidre Brock
Excuse me, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is my first urgent question.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make a statement on how the UK will work with French officials to mitigate a trading dispute.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
The UK’s and the Crown dependencies’ approach throughout this year has been to implement the new access requirements of the trade and co-operation agreement in good faith and in a reasonable and evidence-based way, recognising some of the sensitivities and the importance of the arrangements for both parties. Since 31 December last year, the UK has issued licences to fish in our exclusive economic zone to 1,673 EU vessels, including 736 French vessels. One hundred and twenty-one vessels have been licensed to fish in the UK six-to-12-nautical-mile zone, of which 103 are French, and 18 of those vessels are under 12 metres. The UK has licensed 98% of the EU vessels that applied for access.
Constructive discussions continue with the Commission on a methodology for allowing vessels to be replaced; once that is finalised, more vessels will be licensed. Over the past two weeks, the Government have issued four further licences, after the Commission was able to provide new and additional evidence. We remain committed and willing to consider new information. Following the receipt of more information over the past couple of weeks, we have been able to issue more licences. As I have said repeatedly to the French and to the European Commission, our door remains ever open.
In that context, it was disappointing to see the comments from France yesterday. We believe they are disappointing, disproportionate and not what we would expect from a close ally and partner. The measures that are being threatened do not appear to be compatible with the trade and co-operation agreement or wider international law and, if they are carried through, will be met with an appropriate and calibrated response.
Yesterday, I spoke to Commissioner Sinkevičius regarding the comments that French officials had made. The UK stands by its commitments in the trade and co-operation agreement and, as I have said, has already granted 98% of licence applications from EU vessels to fish in our waters. All our decisions have been fully in line with that commitment. We support Jersey and Guernsey’s handling of the fisheries licensing decisions and have remained in close contact with them throughout. Their approach has also been entirely in line with the provisions of the trade and co-operation agreement.
Finally, I am aware of reports of enforcement activity being undertaken by the French authorities in respect of two vessels and we are looking into those matters urgently.
Deidre Brock
I apologise again, Madam Deputy Speaker, for my over-enthusiastic start.
Brexit-induced exporting changes have, as we have heard, resulted in an escalating trading dispute with France that, if not resolved, may result in British boats being banned from French ports and Scottish salmon being removed from French menus. France may go further and cut electricity supplies to the Channel Islands and delay French customs checks on goods arriving from the UK, thereby further disrupting our economy.
I have to say that there is a considerable difference between the number of licences that the Secretary of State just mentioned and the number that the French claim have been issued. French officials claim that the process for obtaining a licence to fish in UK waters is too slow and laborious, while Lord Frost has said that these are only teething issues. France says that, under the Brexit agreement, 175 French fishing vessels have the right to fish between six and 12 nautical miles from the British coast, but that the UK has delivered only 100 licences. Paris also says that only 105 licences to fish off Jersey have been delivered, when French trawlermen have a right to 216.
Today, as we have heard, French authorities are to announce a sanction regime that will come into effect on 2 November. This follows news this morning of a Scottish trawler detained for fishing without a licence in French waters, according to France’s Sea Minister, Annick Girardin, who announced this overnight. Can the Secretary of State confirm what consular assistance the Government have been offering to the British fishing vessel crew currently arrested and detained by the French authorities? What support is his Department giving to the vessel and its owners?
In response to a topical question from the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the Minister mentioned that the UK Government could not confirm whether an external waters licence was issued by the Marine Management Organisation. Why does it not appear on the list? It is too early to know what has happened. It appears that it may have been on the list. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had 12 hours to get to the bottom of this. We have a skipper of a Scottish scalloping vessel due in court in Le Havre this morning. It is simply not good enough that the Secretary of State does not have answers to those questions.
What assurances can the Secretary of State give the House that appropriate documents were in place for the vessel that has now been seized, such as whether the vessel was issued with a licence to fish in French waters by the MMO? If so, when? If other UK vessels encounter French authorities, what is his advice? What is the permitted time that French authorities are allowed to take to inspect seafood goods arriving from the UK via HGV? What advice would he offer to seafood exporters who are concerned about more stringent and additional checks the French are permitted to make? They have stated that they will, from 2 November, take longer to clear HGVs, while still keeping to permitted inspection rules, which could create significant delays.
George Eustice
It is important to note that, although the hon. Lady refers to this being a trade dispute over trading arrangements, what is actually happening is that the French are threatening to take a particular approach to trade, but linked to, as they see it, issues that they have over the issuing of fishing licences. I am afraid that we completely reject that caricature. The hon. Lady says that France has claimed that this has been too slow. That is not true. Indeed, the vast majority of those 1,700 or so vessels that we have already licensed received their licence on 31 December. The only vessels that did not have a licence immediately were those that struggled to marshal the data to support their application, but as soon as data has been provided, those vessels have been granted their access. As I said earlier, many of those vessels are indeed French vessels.
The hon. Lady mentioned the issue of the two vessels that have been initially detained. We understand that one of them may still be detained. She raised the issue about whether a licence had been issued. What I have been able to establish so far is that, in respect of that vessel, it was on the list that was provided by the MMO initially to the European Union. The European Union therefore did grant a licence. We are seeing some reports that, for some reason, it was subsequently withdrawn from the list. It is unclear at the moment why that might have been.
The hon. Lady asked why I have not been able to establish this morning in the course of events why that has not been the case. I can say that the relevant data for this is held by Marine Scotland. I have been asking my officials to get to the bottom of this issue. We have been told that Marine Scotland hopes to get back to us within the next hour or so. My officials will work very constructively with the Scottish Government and with their agencies, such as Marine Scotland, to understand what happened in the case of this particular vessel.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Given the escalation and “more forceful” language—I think that those are the words used—coming not from the French fishing industry, which we are kind of used to by now, but from the French Government, can my right hon. Friend confirm that the licensing process currently under dispute is entirely in line not just with the UK Fisheries Act 2020, but with the trade and co-operation agreement itself, which was signed by all sides? Can he also commit that this Government will not grant any further concession beyond that which is already granted to the French and other EU countries through the trade and co-operation agreement?
George Eustice
First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on his new role as our fisheries envoy in the Government? I can think of no one better to be a champion for the interests of fishing. He raises a very important point, which is that everything we have done is entirely consistent with what was agreed in the trade and co-operation agreement. The reason that some vessels inevitably will not receive the licence that they might have had previously is that the trade and co-operation agreement is different from both the Granville Bay agreement that we had in respect of Jersey, and, of course, the previous provisions of the common fisheries policy, in that access is now determined by a reference period. There will be some vessels that might have had the right to access but that nevertheless never used that access during the reference period, and which will therefore—under the terms of the agreement, which all sides understood—no longer be entitled to access.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The threats and actions from France are completely wrong and unacceptable. There is a real need to ensure that everyone involved uses language to de-escalate the situation in order not to risk the lives of either British or French fishers in any clashes at sea, and to ensure that there is uninterrupted trade between the United Kingdom and France. It is really important to set that out.
It seems to me that the situation is a result of the Government, at some point along the way, losing control of some of the negotiations and positions that keep our fishers safe. Will the Secretary of State set out whether the crew are okay and what support is being given to them? Will he also set out clearly that we expect our British fishing boats to be able to fish legally, sustainably and uninterruptedly in French waters, as French boats can expect to fish legally, uninterruptedly and sustainably in British waters, as per the agreement that has been set out?
There is a real concern that the botched Brexit deal will lead to more clashes between UK and European fishers. Will the Secretary of State set out what steps he is taking to ensure that there are no further clashes and there is no risk of escalation? What steps is he taking to support our industry to ensure that this important trading period, in which UK seafood exports provide a huge part of the annual income for fishing businesses, is uninterrupted, because there is a risk that the situation could erode the confidence of European suppliers in buying from British companies?
May I further ask the Secretary of State whether—after having investigated whether the licence for this boat, having been granted by UK authorities, was subsequently removed from an MMO or Marine Scotland register—he will come back to the House to report on what has happened and what lessons can be learned to ensure that this does not happen again? I ask him sincerely to use his offices in Government to ensure that there are no voices that seek to escalate and churn up distrust between ourselves and our colleagues in Europe, because in the risk of escalation is the risk of lives being put at risk at sea, and we must ensure that everyone who goes to sea to catch fish is safe.
George Eustice
I welcome the tone with which the hon. Gentleman has approached the issue. He is absolutely right that it is important that we remain calm and try to de-escalate the situation. The UK Government, and the authorities in Jersey and Guernsey, have implemented the provisions of the trade and co-operation agreement. We have licensed many vessels. In the case of Jersey, for instance, although it has 65 of its own vessels in its waters, it will have granted access to its waters to well over 100 EU vessels; it has not been unreasonable.
The hon. Gentleman asks about the crew. This morning, I asked my officials to check on that point. We do not think that there are any issues with the crew. The vessel was asked to go into port in the usual way, as part of a routine inspection, so we do not think that there are any issues of that sort to be concerned about. He is also right that UK vessels, with their licence to fish in EU waters, should be allowed to do so uninterrupted. The UK will continue to implement and enforce things in good faith in our exclusive economic zone as well. We are not going to get into any sort of retaliatory tit for tat on this kind of thing. It is important that everybody remains calm.
On what the French have said they will do regarding borders, obviously France, as an EU member state, is bound by the official control regime. There will be a role for the European Commission to ensure that France does not break EU law in any approach that it takes. That is why our principal port of call is talking to the European Commission, which negotiates on behalf of France on these matters. We will also, of course, speak to French Ministers and officials.
Finally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s caricature—that is, that the situation has happened because we have lost control of a negotiation. The reason that we have these tensions is that what we secured in the trade and co-operation agreement means that there will be some EU vessels that previously had access that will not enjoy access in future. That is obviously causing a bit of tension; we do understand. Even though those vessels probably never accessed our waters and never took up the right that they had, it is an option that they would like to retain, but, put simply, that is not what the trade and co-operation agreement provided for. So it is by adhering, calmly but resolutely, to the terms that were agreed in the trade and co-operation agreement that we have some of these tensions.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I do find it extraordinary that the SNP seems to be racing to take the side of the French rather than standing up for British interests. The boat that has been detained is a Scottish-owned boat that operates out of Shoreham—the largest port for scallops, which is what this boat was involved with, in the country. It is a very important trade through the port of Shoreham that has always been done within the rules. My fishermen are more concerned about the infringement into our waters of French fishing boats that appeared not to be following the rules. Can the Secretary of State assure us that he will do everything he can to make sure that the fishing boat from Shoreham is properly looked after, and to make sure that there is proper enforcement action against infringements by French fishermen and women that are happening in our waters?
George Eustice
If fishermen in my hon. Friend’s constituency have some specific points around specific vessels that they would like to feed into me, I would be more than happy to refer that on to the MMO, which leads for enforcement of vessels in our waters. We have significantly increased our enforcement capacity with additional vessels and some aerial surveillance in order to be able to enforce activities in our waters properly. As I said, if there are particular instances that he is aware of, I would be happy to follow them up.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
As the shadow Secretary of State said, the next few weeks will be absolutely critical for fish exporters in this country. If the French do what they are threatening—which is only, as I understand it, what is allowed by the trade and co-operation agreement—then they risk damaging the confidence and the reliability of supply from this country. The Secretary of State has given the number of licences that he has issued. He should also be aware that a number of those are for super-trawlers over 100 metres and fly-shooters, that he has given away access to non-quota species without limit, and that this is on top of a TCA that allowed access to the six to 12-mile limits, which is not what was promised. When he has given away so much already, why is he risking this over such a small number of small boats that we must always have known would struggle to get the data to justify the creation of track records?
George Eustice
I think what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, in a nutshell, is, “Shouldn’t we just roll over and accept these vessels even though they don’t qualify?” The position of the Government is that there were very clearly agreed terms in the trade and co-operation agreement. Any vessel that qualified has been granted access, and that includes many vessels—close to 1,700—in our exclusive economic zone. I do not agree that we should take an approach that says, “We should just let in these people for an easy life.” The reality is that these vessels did not have a track record in our waters. This is not just about data. We have been open to considering data. We have looked at the VALPENA chart data that has come from the European Commission. Because the French were struggling at one point to provide the data, the UK Government went into the commercial market and bought AIS—automatic identification system—data for some of the French vessels so that we could understand their applications better. The data is available, in many cases. We have sought to be as helpful as we can to assist the EU in providing that data, but if it is unable to do so, there comes a point when we must assume that it probably did not have access during the reference period.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his actions. I urge him to hold fast and ensure that we and the French obey the rule of law. If the French Government—they are clearly doing this under Monsieur Macron’s need to get re-elected and to attack us as part of that—keep threatening us and, frankly, abusing their power, I do not understand why we cannot be gently encouraging our exporters to use non-French ports and to move our supply lines potentially to people who will not play politics with the economies of the European Union and the United Kingdom.
George Eustice
Obviously if the French did carry through that threat, individual businesses would make decisions about how best to get their goods to market. The important thing is that we very much hope they will not. We do not think it is consistent with the trade and co-operation agreement. It probably is not consistent with the official control regime under EU law. The official control regime exists to manage risks—it is a risk-based regime—and it is not there to be used for retaliation, as it is being described.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Is it not really time to get rid of Lord Frost? [Interruption.] He obviously has a lot of friends. Presumably that is why he is there. He continues to damage the relationship with Ireland, our nearest neighbours. The Falkland Islanders have still not had agreement about their tariffs, because of a lack of agreement with the Spanish. Now, this long-running and long-brewing dispute with the French continues. The Secretary of State talks about constructive discussions, but clearly with Lord Frost at the helm continuing to destroy these relationships, that is not possible.
George Eustice
What the hon. Lady says is an absolute nonsense. I work closely with Lord Frost, who is a very able negotiator and stands up for the interests of our country in these discussions. I can assure her that he has very good relations with the negotiators that he deals with from the European Union.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I commend to the House an excellent history book called “1000 Years of Annoying the French”? This is nothing new; this has been going on for hundreds of years, if not 1,000 years. My right hon. Friend has mentioned the role of the European Union, which always claims that it is an organisation based on rules. What conversations has he had with the Commission or Commissioners regarding this dispute?
George Eustice
I spoke to Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius yesterday to discuss this issue and the general licensing issue. I asked him whether what was being suggested was consistent with EU law under the official control regime and the trade and co-operation agreement. I expressed our view that we felt it was not consistent with either. At that point, obviously, he had not had the chance to discuss the matter with the French, but he undertook to do so.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I hope that in your recent visit to Lancashire for the G7 Speakers’ conference, Madam Deputy Speaker, you got to enjoy our Morecambe Bay potted shrimps and Fleetwood fish. Indeed, much of the UK fishing industry is made up of small-scale fishers and fish processors. Can I ask the Secretary of State whether the mechanisms proposed in the EU trade and co-operation agreement to resolve these kinds of disputes are being used to resolve this dispute?
George Eustice
The answer at the moment is that we are applying what was agreed, so there do not need to be further technical groups. We have very close relations with the European Commission. At official level, we are sharing all our methodology with them. For the vessels that we have not so far been able to grant a licence to, we have shown precisely the data that we have—or do not have—that means that is the case. We continue to work closely with the European Commission to identify vessels that might qualify.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
One of the threats that we have heard from the French this week has been about the electricity supply to the people of Jersey. I am glad that the Secretary of State is speaking to the European Union. Will he confirm that he will make clear that threatening the electricity supply in this kind of dispute is wholly outside the terms of the TCA and wholly unacceptable from a close and trusted ally?
George Eustice
The UK Government will stand squarely behind Jersey on this matter. As I said, we have worked closely with it on the methodology for issuing licences. We believe that Jersey has been entirely consistent with the trade and co-operation agreement, and it has been reasonable throughout. As I said earlier, the threats that France has made are disappointing, disproportionate and not what we would expect from an ally, and we also believe that they are not compatible with the trade and co-operation agreement.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the Secretary of State for his fortitude and his strong, firm stance. What steps will he take to ensure that British fleets can fish in British waters without being concerned that they may stray marginally into French waters and be detained, while watching copious numbers of the French fleet fish at will in British waters with no similar harsh justice?
George Eustice
Under the terms of the trade and co-operation agreement, I think that is unlikely. Vessels can enter one another’s exclusive economic zone and licences have been issued for that. Most of the remaining issues pertain to the six to 12-mile zone in English waters only, not Scottish waters. In my experience, vessels mostly know where they are, as they have pretty accurate chartplotter data.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I wish the Secretary of State and his officials well as they grapple with a fast-evolving and complicated situation. Does he agree that the mask slipped for the Scottish national party today? When it comes to a choice between working with us to stand up for the interests and rights of Scottish fishermen and scoring cheap political points, they choose cheap political points and pointing the finger every time.
George Eustice
All I can say is that the UK Government stand squarely behind the Scottish fishing industry and always have done. That is why we supported its wish to leave the common fisheries policy. We will always continue to support Scottish fishing interests.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is clearly an extremely worrying time for the UK fishing fleet, especially small fishers who cannot afford a disruption in trade. What are the Government doing to encourage people to buy home-grown seafood and to support fishers trying to sell directly to consumers?
George Eustice
During the pandemic, there was a fall in the price of many fish species as restaurants and the catering trade closed. With things reopening again, the price of fish has bounded back and is in a strong position. During the pandemic, we ran a number of schemes in conjunction with Seafish to promote the greater consumption of fish at home.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
The non-enforcement of total allowable catches for non-quota species in UK waters this year has not only undermined our inshore fleet but may have sent a signal that the UK will not enforce rules designed to promote sustainable fishing and our domestic industry. That might have played a contributory role in the lead-up to these incidents. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that those TACs will be enforced in the coming year?
George Eustice
I do not think that there is a connection between the approach taken on non-quota stocks, for which there was specific provision in the trade and co-operation agreement, and the specific issue about certain vessels that do not qualify for access to our waters. On my hon. Friend’s other point, we will be discussing that again with the European Commission at the next annual UK-EU bilateral negotiations. It remains our position that some limits must be set on non-quota stock species. We will seek to progress that next year.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The chairman of the Regional Maritime Fisheries Committee in northern France has indicated that his members could block UK products being exported through the Calais port and channel tunnel. We have seen how strained our supply chains are already, so what discussions has the Secretary of State had with his Cabinet colleagues about the potential impact of that move? What steps will be taken to mitigate that?
George Eustice
That situation arose yesterday but has been brewing probably for the last fortnight. I have had regular discussions with some of my Cabinet colleagues on the matter, notably Lord Frost because of his position in the wider negotiations. I point out, however, as I said earlier, that 736 French vessels have been licensed to fish in our waters. We have behaved very reasonably on the issue throughout.
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
May I reassure the Secretary of State that Conservative Members have absolute confidence in Lord Frost? I welcome his reassurance that we have acted at all times within the TCA. Having met the Jersey Government and seen at first hand the GPS data, I echo their pleas for the French Government and the Commission to publish publicly anything that they disagree with. Given that France gave up sovereignty in this policy area to the European Commission, will the Secretary of State reassure us that the Commission will not support any breaking of the law or the TCA from France unilaterally?
George Eustice
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As France is an EU member state, it is for the European Commission to speak for France on such matters. That is why our first port of call in the discussions is the European Commission, which has the legal vires to represent France on fisheries matters. As we all know, the European Union takes its laws very seriously, so I hope that it will ensure that its member states abide by them.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the predictably disproportionate and unreasonable behaviour of the French authorities is inexorably linked to President Macron facing difficult elections next year, that we should expect matters to get worse before they get better, and that history shows us that this House and our great nation’s interests are best served by standing up to the threats of little Napoleons clinging on to power?
George Eustice
I note what my hon. Friend says. I am a bit more optimistic. In this job, we always have to hope that things will get better, and do so now, rather than get worse before they get better.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It may be fair or unfair, but for the last 50 years—probably more—fishing communities around the UK have lacked confidence that successive Governments would be robust enough in defending their interests. While I understand that my right hon. Friend does not want to escalate the present situation, will he give an assurance that we will be extremely robust in defending the interests of fishing communities around the UK?
George Eustice
My hon. Friend raises an important point. However, it is also important to point out that, over the last 50 years, no UK Government have had the legal right to defend their interests in fisheries properly, since the common fisheries policy meant that the policy area was ceded to the European Union. The UK Government believe passionately in our fishing industry, which is one of the great opportunities that we have from leaving the European Union, and that is why we will support our fishermen during this difficult time.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
As the Secretary of State said, the situation is extremely disappointing, but if I were to describe my constituents’ response when I talk to them about it with an emoji, it would be the rolling eyes one because, sadly, we expect nothing else from French politicians. It is extremely concerning in Grimsby not only for the trawlers but for our fish processors who export. We must ensure that we are balanced in what we do and, as colleagues have said, robust. Will he assure me that he will say to the EU and France that we will not be bullied and that it is about time that they started working with us as allies, not enemies?
George Eustice
We have been clear with the European Commission that we are abiding by the terms of the trade and co-operation agreement, and we expect it to do the same.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Further to my right hon. Friend’s comments on the threat to cut electricity to Jersey, will he reassure people throughout the Channel Islands, who are understandably somewhat concerned, that the UK will stand solidly with the Crown dependencies in the face of any intimidation from France, whether on fishing or any other topic?
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The British people do not take kindly to provocation and intensely dislike threats from other nations. If the French are so keen on impounding boats, perhaps they could focus on the real issue: the hundreds of migrants illegally crossing the channel day in, day out on small dinghies. Does my right hon. Friend agree that France’s threats are disproportionate and not at all what we would expect from a close ally and partner?
George Eustice
I agree that it is disproportionate and not what we would expect of a close ally, as I said in my opening remarks; I am glad my hon. Friend was listening.
Business of the House
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 1 November will include:
Monday 1 November—Continuation of the Budget debate.
Tuesday 2 November—Conclusion of the Budget debate.
Wednesday 3 November—Motion relating to the third report of Session 2021-22 from the Committee on Standards, followed by Second Reading of the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the membership of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Thursday 4 November—General debate on a proposal for an inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the NATO-led mission to Afghanistan, followed by a general debate on the use of medical cannabis for the alleviation of health conditions. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 5 November—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 8 November will include:
Monday 8 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Environment Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, followed by an Opposition day (7th allotted day—second part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Tuesday 9 November—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
At the conclusion of business on Tuesday 9 November, the House will rise for the November recess and return on Monday 15 November.
If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to correct a figure I gave last week that was out of date, for which I apologise. I said to the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who is in her place, that 650,000 fewer children were living in workless households than in 2010; the latest figure, from 29 September, which I apologise for having missed, is 580,000. I am glad the hon. Lady is in her place and I have therefore had the opportunity to correct the information I gave her.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for giving the forthcoming business. On behalf of the many staff as well as colleagues who have asked to be able to plan for next year, will the Leader of the House please next week give the recess dates for 2022?
I am relieved that the motion on the report from the Standards Committee that was published this week into the conduct of a Member is in the business statement. If any Members have not yet read it, I urge them to keep an open mind and to read it before the motion is debated.
It was good to see that yesterday almost all the Cabinet took the Health Secretary’s advice to wear masks, but I note that the Leader of the House did not; he still appears to think that a “convivial, fraternal spirit” will protect him from covid. Meanwhile, in the real world covid rates are still high, and apparently largely unhindered by the £37 billion that the Government spent on their Test and Trace programme. According to the Public Accounts Committee report published yesterday, this was “muddled” and “overstated” and the expense “eye watering”. It failed on its main objective to prevent lockdowns and get normality back, and just 14% of 691 million tests have been registered. So much for world-beating. Will the Leader of the House ask the Health Secretary, not a junior Minister, to come here and explain why the Government are wasting our constituents’ money with crony contracts filling mates’ pockets?
Yesterday, we had what I can only describe as the remainder of the Budget, given that we had had five days of Treasury announcements—we cannot really call them leaks—in the press. The Chancellor seems to have forgotten that the Government’s 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.”
I know the Leader of the House has a very strong commitment to the primacy of Parliament, so will he—once again, I am afraid—please remind his colleagues that Parliament, not the press, is the place for policy announcements?
While I am on the subject of the ministerial code, Lord Geidt was appointed in April as the independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, but six months later we still do not have an updated code, which we were expecting. Will the Leader of the House please confirm when that will be published?
We are days—hours now, really—away from what should and could be the most important environmental summit in history. As host nation in Glasgow, we have an incredible, one-time chance to change the course of history. To make the summit a success, the Government need to lead by example. They should be demonstrating ambition for a more hopeful future, a clean environment, warm homes, good jobs and protection for nature. Politicians from around the world are watching this Government’s deeds and words and calibrating their ambitions accordingly, but unfortunately it seems that the Government are treating COP26 as nothing more than a photo opportunity.
Just last week, politicians from around the world will have seen the uninspiring sight of this Government voting for feeble legal limits on air pollution and less regulation for bee-killing pesticides, and just yesterday the Chancellor announced that he was slashing air passenger duty to incentivise short-haul domestic flights. That is embarrassing as we go into COP26. We should be projecting an open, optimistic, global vision to the world, yet the Government—working with the SNP Scottish Government, I am afraid to say—seem to be supporting new oilfields in the North sea. Will the Leader of the House ask the Business Secretary to come to the House and explain why the Government are saying that we must move beyond fossil fuels but meanwhile opening the new Cambo oilfield?
Finally, on COP26, I make this urgent plea, via the Leader of the House, to the Prime Minister and other world leaders in Glasgow: please, get this right. We cannot waste this opportunity to save our climate and save our planet.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The recess dates will be announced in the normal way, subject to the progress of Government business, but I am well aware that it is convenient for Members and staff to know as soon as possible.
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s approval of the standards debate. I, too, encourage Members to read the report; I think that is always essential. It is quite a long report, but the weekend is looming and that will be an opportunity to read it.
As regards masks, I remind the hon. Lady about the Daily Mirror party at the socialists’ conference, which I have heard more about since last week. Not only was it a maskless-fest, where alcoholic beverages, which will probably be cheaper in the future thanks to the marvellous Budget yesterday, were imbibed, but Mr Speaker, I hear there was dancing—maskless dancing. Now, can you think? We are not doing that in here, are we, Mr Speaker? No dancing, I am glad to say, on the Floor of the House of Commons.
However, I would say that the Government guidance is absolutely clear: masks are not compulsory in workplaces, and masks are not compulsory when we are with people whom we regularly meet. It is a matter of personal choice. I would also, if I may, give a reassurance to the hon. Lady that there is the lateral flow test, which she was rather disobliging about. Having taken one—having taken more than one over the weeks and months that have gone past—I can assure her that I am negative and therefore I am not going to be spewing covid around the Chamber, because I have taken a negative lateral flow test. I do have a concern, obviously, as all of us do, to limit the spread of this disease. I think that that is just as safe a procedure to take.
As regards the contracts, it was of the utmost importance that things were rolled out swiftly. They were not given to mates; indeed, even Labour supporters, or companies associated with Labour supporters, got contracts. It had to be done quickly. Every criticism that is made of Test and Trace should be applied equally to the vaccine process; we see that the success of the vaccine process was dependent upon exactly the same processes, to do things quickly—to make decisions fast, to award contracts urgently—to ensure that we had a response to the crisis. That is what the Government did, it is what any wise Government would have done, and it is fortunate that the do-nothing socialists—the Captain Hindsights of socialism—were not in charge during the course of the pandemic.
The hon. Lady raises an important point, as you have Mr Speaker and as has the Chairman of Ways and Means, about information not being given to this House first. The “Ministerial Code” is absolutely clear that important announcements must be made to the House first. We have a right to expect that, as representatives of our constituents, and that is why we here: to hold the Government to account. There is sometimes a debate about what is important and occasionally, Mr Speaker, you and I have not taken the same view on importance. However, I can assure the House that after every business questions I write to every Secretary of State and other Cabinet Members on the issues that have been raised, so the point the hon. Lady makes will be raised with the Chancellor, as, I believe, Mr Speaker, it has been raised by you. It is a fundamental constitutional right that this House should be told things first, although I would note that there was lots in the Budget yesterday, including the most important announcement of the cut in the withdrawal rate from 63p in the pound to 55p in the pound, which had not been whispered abroad before it was announced here.
The hon. Lady finished on the question of COP26. I set out once again what the Government’s targets are, which I think the hon. Lady will find agreement with: to secure global net zero by the middle of the century and keep 1.5°C, or 2.7°F, within reach; adapt to protect communities and natural habitats; mobilise finance, whereby developed countries must make good on their promise to mobilise at least $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020; work together to finalise the Paris rulebook; and accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis through collaboration between Governments, businesses and civil society.
The Government’s vision is one based on improving people’s standards of living. That is what the Budget was about yesterday and it is what the green policy is about. It is not about cave dwelling. It is not hairshirt greenery. We are not becoming Adullamites. What we are in favour of is having higher standards of living based on the new technologies. All sorts of exciting things are happening, including with hydrogen, which will make that possible. There is not, I think, a market for going back to the stone age—some hon. Members may think I have never really emerged from the stone age—but we want to ensure that the standard of living of our constituents improves.
The hon. Lady rightly mentions air pollution. One of the great scandals of recent decades is that we promoted diesel in this country. The Labour Government, then in charge, promoted diesel, which led to tens of thousands of early deaths because of particulates. That was done on the encouragement of the European Union in support of German car manufacturers. It is one of the great scandals that has been put right by this Government. We have seen air quality improve since 2010.
As regards air passenger duty, it has gone up on the longest, greatest emitting flights, but of course we should be free to travel around our own United Kingdom, our own country. That is a perfectly right thing to do. We have to remember that the target for net zero is by 2050. We are going to need to use fossil fuels in the interim and it is fanciful to think otherwise. If we are going to use them, we want them to be economic. We need to ensure our constituents have a rising standard of living.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Yesterday, the Chancellor announced £300 million of support for children in the first 1,001 days of their lives. May we have a debate on the meaning of that phrase, bearing in mind that the excellent report by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), which informed the Chancellor’s decision, refers to the first 1,001 days as being from conception to aged two?
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I begin by thanking my hon. Friend for the tremendous work she has done since her election in 2010 to support the family and all life from the point of conception through to the point of natural death? She is heroic in what she has done. The first 1,001 days is a very important staging post. The work of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire has brought that to people’s attention. She has campaigned for and succeeded in making the funding available. In terms of a debate, I am going to slightly cop out and point to the Budget debate that is carrying on later today, which will be a great opportunity to raise the issue further.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The Leader of the House should be thoroughly embarrassed about his ridiculous comments from business questions last week, when he suggested that Tory MPs are protected from covid because they have
“a more convivial, fraternal spirit”.——[Official Report, 21 October 2021; Vol. 701, c. 945.]
It is so convivial that several of them are now off having caught covid, along with the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Whip of the Scottish National party.
Tory MPs are not immune. Staff and visitors are now obliged to wear face masks but MPs are not in a “Do as we say” edict. But progress has been made and my campaign to get them to mask up is beginning to bear fruit. More of them are actually starting to care about colleagues and members of staff by wearing a face mask, and I welcome that, but I note that the Leader of the House’s fizzog remains unadorned from this modest, disease-stopping piece of cloth. He has a perfectly good Union Jack face covering; for goodness’ sake, man, put it on! Be the Leader of the House, not the libertarian of the House.
I want to support you, Mr Speaker, in your campaign to make sure that important announcements are made in this House first. The pre-announcing of the Budget was an absolute disgrace, designed to soften up the press and the public. I like the idea of Ministers being forced to resign if they break the trust of Parliament. I suggested bringing them to the Bar of the House last week, but let us maybe have a debate and see what we could do. We could have a prize for the most creative and inventive sanction that could be applied to Ministers that break the trust of the House.
Lastly, COP comes to Scotland next week and our beautiful country will be on show to the world. Scotland leads the UK in renewables and climate change legislation and we will be a good host of the summit. The world will also see a nation ready to take its own place in the world. The Leader of the House knows that debate is coming soon. He knows it is coming. Let us get on with it.
Mr Rees-Mogg
One does like to think sometimes of what dinner must be like in the household of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), because everything is “a disgrace”, it is “an outrage”, it is “shocking”. The sound and fury that enthuses him whenever he gets to the Chamber allows no time for nuance, for things being degrees of acceptableness or not being favourable. It is always this absolute outrage, which fortunately, I answered entirely in my answer to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the shadow Leader of the House.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Following the recent conviction of the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) and the strong possibility of a by-election in the seat, the rumours are swirling in the fair county of Leicestershire that the previous incumbent may seek a return to this place. Given that he received a six-month ban from the House of Commons in 2019 following the cocaine and rent boys scandal, which he avoided by standing down, will the Leader of the House give a statement to the House where, hopefully, he will confirm that if Mr Vaz were to return to this place, he would have to serve his punishment outstanding in full?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will confirm the precise opposite. The House agreed to a six-month suspension for Mr Vaz on 31 October 2019, but Parliament was then dissolved on 6 November for a general election. A suspension cannot carry across into a new Parliament, so that ended Mr Vaz’s suspension. The recall petition process was also terminated by the election, as provided for under section 13 of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. But this is right, because we are here by virtue of our electorate, and the electorate is free to send here whomsoever they choose. I know my hon. Friend will not be happy with that answer, but I remind him about John Wilkes and the Middlesex election. It has not always been the case that this House has acted wisely in whom it has sought to expel, but the electors have had a right to send that person back. Although this may be a difficult case and although this may be disagreeable to my hon. Friend, these constitutional principles are fundamentally important and should not be changed for individual cases.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for the reference to a debate on 4 November about Afghanistan, but is he aware of reports that journalists in Afghanistan who have previously worked for the BBC are now subject to grave risks? A number of examples have been highlighted by the National Union of Journalists. One such example, Abdul Malik Asem, survived an attack after armed men opened fire on him at his sister’s home just a few days ago, injuring his 20-year-old nephew, who is seriously ill in hospital. Can we therefore have a debate in Government time to discuss what actions can be taken urgently to ensure that such journalists can be safely evacuated?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government are doing what we can to help refugees from Afghanistan. I recently visited the RAF base at Brize Norton, whose staff have worked incredibly hard around the clock to evacuate people. People who are now able to get out of Afghanistan into other countries do have a route through. In the first year, the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will welcome to the UK up to 5,000 vulnerable Afghans who have been forced to flee their country, with up to a total of 20,000 over a five-year period. The scheme will provide protection for vulnerable people and those identified as at risk, including women and girls and members of minority groups. The Government are doing what we can; there is a programme, and there is funding behind it.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Ystradgynlais Community Welfare Ground Association is working hard to raise £100,000 to secure a 50-year lease on the playing fields in Ystradgynlais, so that the rugby club and other community groups can continue to use the facility and grassroots Welsh rugby can continue to thrive. I will be submitting a bid to the UK Government’s community ownership fund and will urge Powys County Council to step in as well.
With Wales set to start its Autumn Internationals campaign on Saturday, will the Leader of the House, who I know has Welsh connections, wish Wales good luck against New Zealand? Will he consider granting time for a debate on how we can secure the future of Ystradgynlais Community Welfare Ground Association’s playing fields?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am delighted to wish Wales luck against New Zealand. I am looking forward to an heroic victory of our fellow countrymen that will inspire many across the country.
I also wish my hon. Friend every success in her campaign for funding for her rugby club, which I know is an important community facility. There are opportunities to apply for money, and she is very good at working out which ones to pursue. I cannot commit Her Majesty’s Treasury, but I encourage my hon. Friend to keep on pushing. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, in your benignity, you might grant an Adjournment debate so that the issue may be discussed further.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In recent weeks, Bath and North East Somerset have had some of the highest covid rates in England, as the Leader of the House, my constituency neighbour, will know. Despite No. 10’s claims to the contrary, experts have linked the rise in cases to the month-long error at the Immensa lab in Wolverhampton, which caused false negative test results. It has now been reported that the lab is still processing and profiting from travel PCR tests.
This is nothing short of a scandal. We need a statement from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to explain why the Government are using these private companies to profit from testing our communities, when they operate with virtually no oversight and their failures could mean an increase in deaths.
Mr Rees-Mogg
There was obviously a failure in a testing centre; that is a serious matter, and it is something that the Department of Health and Social Care acted on. Buying in services is a perfectly normal and sensible thing for the health service to do, and has allowed the enormous amount of testing that has taken place. Right hon. and hon. Members may remember my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), the then Health Secretary, saying that we needed to get to 100,000 tests a day. We can now do far more than that—the availability is enormous. It is important, of course, that they be right, but where something went wrong, the Department of Health and Social Care has intervened.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Last week, I raised the plight of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. I thank my right hon. Friend for raising the matter with the Foreign Secretary.
This week, I refer to the notorious hate preacher Mizanur Rahman Azhari. Unbelievably, having been banned in Bangladesh and having fled for his safety, he has been invited to address the London Islamic conference this Sunday at the Royal Regency. I understand that he is in Qatar right now, attempting to gain entry to the UK. Alternatively, he may be invited to stream online to people in this country his message of hatred against Jews and Hindus. Will the Leader of the House take action with the Home Secretary to make sure that that is not allowed to happen? Can we have a debate in Government time on what we can do to prevent these hate preachers from misinforming the vast majority of Muslims in this country, who are actually peaceful people?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has raised a very important point. It is crucial that the law is enforced. Stirring up hatred is, in certain circumstances, an offence for which people can be prosecuted, and it is right that that should happen. We do not want to allow into this country people who will stir up hatred. I will not comment on the individual case, because it is not for me to do so, but as a general rule we want to ensure that there is a sensible tone of debate and discussion, and that those who stir up hatred are fully deterred. I will pass on my hon. Friend’s comments to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Last night many young women in Nottingham were having a “girls’ night in” as part of the national protest against the epidemic of male violence that they face in bars and nightclubs. In particular, there are extremely worrying reports of spiking by injection. The issue was raised with the Leader of the House last week, and with the Prime Minister yesterday. Is it not time that we had a statement from the Home Secretary about what she is now doing to ensure that young women can live their lives without fear?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady is right to raise this, because it is an issue of the greatest concern. Everyone should be able to go out and go about their lawful business feeling safe, and the fact that young women do not feel safe is a blot on the safety that we expect in this nation.
I assure the hon. Lady that these matters are taken extremely seriously by the Home Office and by the Home Secretary, who has asked the police for an update. The police are now conducting inquiries. Criminal offences must be investigated, and offenders must be charged and prosecuted. People who spike women’s drinks should find themselves facing the full force of the law, women going out for drinks should feel safe, and bars have a strong responsibility to ensure the safety of their own premises.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
As everyone in the House will know, next week is Parliament Week, and I am very pleased and excited to be talking to my local Guides and Scouts and to pupils at Strand Primary Academy in Strand Street and Littlecoates Primary Academy. Great Grimsby sent two burgesses to the new model Parliament in 1295. Would the Leader of the House like to talk a little bit to young people in Great Grimsby, and across the UK, about the importance of our Parliament and our democracy?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I was not at the Parliament in 1295, I am sorry to say. I clearly missed a treat.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that she is doing in Great Grimsby to highlight Parliament during Parliament week, which follows Hallowe’en. I do not know whether we should read anything into that; perhaps people will be tucking into pumpkin soup made from the leftover pumpkins.
It is so important that we engage everyone with Parliament and the work that we do. One thing that should always concern us, as hon. and right hon. Members, is who does not come to see us, and who does not know that they can seek redress of grievance through their Member of Parliament. Most of the time when something has gone wrong and we take it up on behalf of a constituent, it can be put right. We want to ensure that more people know that, and we want to encourage, for instance, the brilliant pupils in my hon. Friend’s constituency to stand for Parliament so that they can go forth and become involved in the democratic process.
I shall certainly be active during Parliament Week, but although it is no competition, Mr Speaker, I have a feeling that you will be even more active than me.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Some important amendments have been tabled to the Elections Bill, which is due to come back to us on Report. They include new clause 1, which would give the House the chance to decide on lowering the voting age to 16. Will the Leader of the House revisit the programme motion to ensure that there is proper, protected time rather a risk of the debate being squeezed and finishing at the moment of interruption? I think it important for the Bill, given its constitutional significance, to be given a full airing on the Floor of the House.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman has said. I think that one of our main tasks here—indeed, our main main task—is the scrutiny of legislation. Unfortunately, the House does not always seem to agree with me. I was slightly surprised that the Second Reading of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill fell slightly short, even though it had lost time because of the earlier debate on the remaining stages of the Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill.
It ends up being a balance, depending on what Members want—how many urgent questions they ask for earlier in the day, for instance, and what statements are called. This goes back to the issue of making announcements to the Chamber first. We must strike a balance between the legislative business carried out by the House and the other important matters that are brought to it. So I am not unsympathetic, but I think that this is one of those things that are simply a question of balance, and for the House to decide for itself.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Can we have a debate on which is the true workers’ party of the United Kingdom, given the Budget yesterday with the huge increase in the living wage of 6.6%, the reduction in the taper rate that in essence gives a tax cut to millions of lower earners, the fuel duty freeze and the 42% increase in the skills budget? Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is the party on this side of the House that represents the workers of the United Kingdom?
Mr Rees-Mogg
For once, I am going to have to disappoint my right hon. Friend. We could not possibly have a debate on that, because there is nothing to debate. This is clearly the party that supports the workers and that has taken steps to improve their living standards, whereas all that the Opposition do is support the trade unions and the union barons. Labour is the party of the barons; we are the party of the workers. My right hon. Friend’s campaigns over the years to save motorists billions of pounds through a freeze in fuel duty have put more money into people’s pockets year in, year out and continue to do so. People may say that it has cost the Treasury money, but actually it has helped the economy to grow, boom and flourish and has allowed us our motoring freedom. I commend my right hon. Friend for what he does, and yes, we are the workers’ party. There is nothing to debate.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Following on from the Leader of the House’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), is he aware that many Afghanis who supported our armed forces and who have fled to the UK under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and other schemes are facing long waits for biometric residency permits? Family members of my constituents are finding themselves stuck in bridging hotels for months because local authorities are unable to see whether they have any funding to house them. Please can we press Ministers on this, because those people have suffered enough already?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am more than willing to take up individual cases, as I have done, of people who do not seem to be getting the answers that they should get. That is one of the roles of this House. There is a big programme, as I mentioned to the hon. Member for Easington earlier, and that will continue. It is also important to ensure that the right information is gathered and the right processes are followed, but if the hon. Lady would like to point out any particular cases to my office, I will take them up with the Home Office for her.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Earlier this week, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici), I met representatives of UK Fisheries. They expressed a number of concerns regarding the work of the Marine Management Organisation, the amount of red tape they have to deal with and the ongoing trade negotiations with Greenland and other nations. Could my right hon. Friend arrange for a debate on the work of the Marine Management Organisation and on the wider interests of the fishing industry?
Mr Rees-Mogg
There has already been an urgent question on fishing, and it ranged quite widely. This is a matter of concern to the Government, and we are keen to support the fishing industry. This tempts me to say that this is obviously the right “plaice” for such a debate because we are the “sole” of democratic engagement in this House—[Interruption.] Somebody got it, slowly but surely! Although I cannot promise a debate in Government time, I think that raising the issue in a Backbench Business debate would command widespread support.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Two community councils in my constituency, Cambuslang and Halfway, have created the Cambuslang COP26 campaign. It encourages pupils from local schools to pick up 26 bags of litter for 26 days in the run-up to COP26. It has been a great initiative, and it tackles one of my biggest bugbears: litter. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating them and schedule a debate in Government time to celebrate these community-led initiatives and their positive impact?
Mr Rees-Mogg
What a brilliant thing for the schools in the hon. Lady’s constituency to be doing. Yes, I congratulate them wholeheartedly. To pick up 26 bags of litter is a real effort, and to do it on 26 days is a consistent effort. It is clearly not just been done for a quick photo opportunity; it is being done as a real effort to beautify a beautiful country. I wish them well on that, and I hope that other schools will follow in their footsteps.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Although bonfire night is fast approaching, many of my constituents are plagued by fireworks being let off at all hours of the night throughout the calendar year. I have even had it reiterated to me that fireworks are often used as a signal for drugs being dropped. May we have an urgent debate in Government time to discuss the licensing provisions on the sale of fireworks and to have a frank discussion on how local enforcement can clamp down on this antisocial behaviour?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Unfortunately I find myself in a degree of disagreement with my hon. Friend. I think fireworks are a little bit of harmless fun. People enjoy them, and we should not take every enjoyment out of people’s lives with endless licensing and regulation. Conservatives are meant to be cautious about excessive regulation and giving power to bureaucracies. I am afraid I am unsympathetic to his request.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
Can we have a debate on the Government’s environmental illiteracy and the impact on people in Bristol South and indeed Somerset? This morning people can buy a flight from Bristol to Edinburgh for £29.99, but the train journey is £97.20. Individuals in Bristol South are making their contribution towards COP26, but the Government are not making theirs. Reducing air passenger duty and the delays to the Portishead line mean the Government are not helping, and that is something we need to debate.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I will continue my disagreeable line, as I disagree with the hon. Lady, too. I sometimes find myself in a surprising degree of agreement with her on local matters but, no, this Government want to keep the cost of living down. We want people to enjoy travelling around our great country. If it is £29.99 to fly from Bristol to Edinburgh or Glasgow, that is great for our constituents, and I hope they enjoy their trip.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
May I suggest that resilience is an issue for the Leader of the House to consider? We have considerable resilience issues in this country, as we have seen with personal protective equipment and vaccines. We are now seeing it with energy supply, and we see it all the time with flooding and coastal defence issues on the Isle of Wight. Although it is not a specific departmental responsibility, resilience is a key overall responsibility of the Government. I will be talking to the Backbench Business Committee about a resilience debate but, given the work being done by the Government on resilience, will the Leader of the House also keep an eye on it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
This is a very important point. The civil contingencies secretariat in the Cabinet Office makes preparations for the unexpected. The difficulty is that the unexpected we expect sometimes turns out not to be the unexpected that eventually happens, and therefore the planning does not always directly answer the difficulty that arises. The more one thinks about it, the more one debates it and the more one works out what the risks are, the better prepared one is likely to be.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
This weekend will mark 140,000 people dying from covid. Every public health measure taken helps save lives. As a result, it is crucial that face masks are worn, social distancing is maintained and high hygiene standards are met, in addition to testing. Will the Leader of the House talk to his director of public health to learn more about public health measures so that he can model them? Can we also have an urgent statement on Monday so that we can discuss the tragedy that is still unfurling?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Nobody denies the great tragedy of 140,000 deaths from covid and the sadness for every single one of those families and for the friends of those who have died. There is a plan B, which includes going back to masks, but we also have to get back to normal. That is what the vaccines and lateral flow tests have allowed us to do. We have to ensure that life returns to normal and that we carry on with our business.
We also have to deal with the other consequences of the various lockdowns: the mental health issues, the disruption to children’s health and the economic consequences. Lower economic growth has health consequences, too, as is well known and well established. Plan B is there if things get worse during the winter, but we should stick to plan A. That is the right thing to do. Normalisation is where we want to get to.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
We all know that the production of single-use plastics produces a variety of toxic emissions that pollute our environment. To combat this, Rowena Academy in my constituency has stopped using single-use plastics. I hope schools across the country will follow that move. Following the “Panorama” episode on the 100 billion plastic bottle problem, and with COP26 just around the corner, does the Leader of the House believe that we should follow the lead set by Rowena Academy and stop using single-use plastics in the Chamber?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important issue and congratulate Rowena Academy on the work it is doing. His specific request is a matter for the House authorities, but it is important to limit single-use plastics. I have never been a great one for plastic coffee cups; I think a nice china cup, preferably with a saucer underneath it, is infinitely preferable, and I encourage other right hon. and hon. Members to think the same. Thinking of Hallowe’en, we should all say to our children that when they go round trick or treating, they should use a paper bag, rather than a plastic bag, to collect their Haribos—although I sometimes think that the quantities and the generosity of neighbours are such that they will need hessian mail sacks to carry the booty away.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Across my constituency in North Ayrshire and Arran, and indeed throughout Scotland, many householders are living in dread of bonfire night, as it means fireworks causing widespread disruption and distress to communities, the elderly and pets. While the use of fireworks is a devolved matter, control of the regulation of the sale of fireworks is reserved to the UK Government. The Leader of the House indicated earlier today that he is opposed to tighter regulation of fireworks; will he make a statement setting out why he believes the Scottish Parliament is apparently unfit to regulate the sale of fireworks in Scotland, so we can properly deal with the safety hazards and antisocial misuse of fireworks in Scotland at source, by restricting their sale?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I say to the hon. Lady: don’t be such a killjoy. It is fun having bonfire night. We will be having fireworks in West Harptree; we will even have a Guy put on a bonfire and it will go up in flame. It will be fun for the children and even for the adults, who may sip a glass of mulled cider while watching this going on. We do not want to be a Parliament of the kind that Oliver Cromwell would have enjoyed, cracking down on every possible bit of fun that people have, so no, let us keep on enjoying our fireworks and have a jolly time on 5 November. Madam Deputy Speaker:
“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.”
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
As a Member new to the House, I did not know Sir David Amess for as long as others, but when we worked together on the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety and rescue, I got to experience the warmth and kindness that others have talked about. After his tragic killing, I saw that he used to hold an annual tea party for 100-year-olds in his constituency; I am going to try to do the same, as my way of honouring his kindness to me. Will the Leader of the House, and perhaps the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), meet me to discuss how we could support Members throughout the country to do the same to honour Sir David?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That would be a very fine tribute to our late hon. Friend, and I thank my hon. Friend for his tribute to Sir David. I would very much enjoy having a meeting with my hon. Friend, because that would be a good thing to do. It is beneficial to involve the elderly in society more, and to have a tea party for centenarians who have probably done so much for their country is a noble cause.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Leader of the House consider providing time for a debate on the terrible situation facing refugees fleeing Afghanistan? The resettlement scheme must be opened as soon as possible, with the relevant mechanisms in place to ensure that religious or belief minorities who live in fear of their lives after the Taliban takeover receive adequate assistance, support and priority in the scheme, and Government aid for other countries to assist with the influx of refugees from Afghanistan should be given when our Government are certain that such assistance will reach those who are at risk.
Mr Rees-Mogg
As so often, the hon. Gentleman raises an issue of concern across the House, which fits in with concerns expressed by several other Members. I have already mentioned the fact that the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will welcome more than 20,000 people over a five-year period. The scheme will provide protection for vulnerable people. The Home Office will announce further details, including eligibility criteria, in due course. I will of course take the matter up with the Home Secretary after this session. The amount of humanitarian aid is being doubled to £286 million this year, plus £30 million of life-saving aid for Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to support new and existing refugees and host communities, as part of the Government’s effort to support regional stability. Things are being done, then, but I understand that there is a feeling that they should be done more urgently.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
This weekend, we will be unveiling a plaque to commemorate Cuthbert Taylor, a boxer from Merthyr Tydfil, who was a victim of the British Boxing Board of Control’s colour bar rule, which prevented boxers from competing for professional titles because of the colour of their skin. This blatantly racist, discriminatory and shameful policy prevented many people from achieving their potential and, unbelievably, the British Boxing Board of Control has yet to apologise. Will the Leader of the House encourage the British Boxing Board of Control to apologise and finally expunge this racist stain from British boxing, and will he find Government time to debate this historical wrong?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I find myself in complete agreement with the hon. Gentleman. It is not something that I was aware of. I was not aware of Cuthbert Taylor, but that he should have been banned for his colour at any point in our history is simply monstrous, and any organisation that was involved with that ought to try to right a wrong. As it is a very specific issue, it is very suitable for an Adjournment debate, but as it is a very serious issue I hope it will be an Adjournment debate in the Chamber.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The prize for perseverance and patience goes to Olivia Blake.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Parents and carers up and down the country will be really worried about what climate catastrophe will mean for young people. Ahead of COP26, will the Leader of the House join me in celebrating the great work of Voices for Action, a group of mums and children from Hallam Primary School who have recorded a song to celebrate COP26 and to highlight the issues that worry mums?
Mr Rees-Mogg
What a pleasure it is to congratulate Voices for Action and mothers and children getting together to develop a song. I do not know the song. I think it was St Winifred’s school choir that sang, “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma”, and we know the power that song can have, particularly when it involves small children. May I suggest that the hon. Lady intervenes on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who, because of his responsibilities, knows a great deal more than I do about environmental matters, and who may be able to give her more information?
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Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
I will begin, if I may, by congratulating the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, as it is the first time that we have faced each other across the Dispatch Box since the birth of his new baby. Many congratulations to him. If he needs some representation to make sure that he gets his paternity leave, I am available to help.
I will begin this debate on a point of consensus. We have a Government who have been in power for 11 years. They have been 11 years of low growth, stagnant wages and falling living standards. I am old enough to remember when this characterisation of our economy was seen as controversial, but at his party conference, the Prime Minister said:
“We have had…10 years of flatlining wages”.
The question at the heart of this debate is whether the Government truly recognise the error of their ways. Does the Budget help to tackle the deep inequalities we face, including the immediate cost of living crisis? Does it support our businesses so that they can deliver the good jobs and decent wages that we need? And does it create the long-term partnership between the public and private sectors to create the jobs of the future, in particular in zero carbon? I am afraid that the answer on all three counts is no.
Let me start with the immediate cost of living crisis facing so many families. Less than 24 hours since the Budget was delivered, it is unravelling because of the chasm between the claims of Ministers and the reality faced by working people. Listening to the Chancellor yesterday, it was clear that he is living on a totally different planet. He told us that he would deliver an age of optimism, but when we take off the Instagram filter, all he offers is an age of stagnation: low wages, low growth, high taxes—more lost Tory years. These are the facts that the Chancellor did not tell us yesterday, but they have emerged this morning.
This morning, the Resolution Foundation said:
“Real wages are set to fall again next year”.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies tells us that, over the next year, a median earner will find their take-home pay falling by £180 a year in real terms. Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, says that the outlook for living standards is
“awful… High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade.”
In fact, the IFS estimates that, on the numbers published yesterday, real wages in 2026 will still be lower than they were in 2008. For all the boasts of the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and others, all that the British people are facing under their Government is squeezed wages and living standards, as far as the eye can see.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that, on top of the trend of low wages, it is doubly hurtful that working families will be faced with increasing electricity and gas bills, with no relief on that, rising food prices, and potentially a difficult Christmas, with possible supply shortages and a lack of supply of Christmas presents?
Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend is completely right and I will come to that point in a moment. The Government will no doubt have all kinds of excuses, but this is a sin of commission, not just omission, in the sense that the Government are actually doing things to make the problem worse.
The problem is that the Chancellor could not bring himself to admit any of this yesterday. Here is the issue: it is not just that he did not say any of this, but it is like the Government actually believe their own rhetoric, and the Budget is the result. Yesterday we saw raid upon raid on the living standards of working people: council tax hikes, hidden in the Budget document—not announced by the Chancellor; a stealth raid on the self-employed worth £1.7 billion over the coming five years—not announced by the Chancellor; and of course the national insurance hike on ordinary families confirmed.
Maybe I am a bit old fashioned in this respect, but let us remember that this is a direct breach of the promise that every Conservative Member made to their constituents at the general election. What did they call it in their manifesto? Alongside a picture of the Prime Minister—drawing on his long and unblemished record of truth telling and candour—it said:
“My Guarantee… We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance.”
I look forward to them all explaining at the next general election why they have broken that promise. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) is nodding. Perhaps he would like to explain why they have broken their promise.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I have been goaded into intervening by the right hon. Gentleman, who asks a very direct question. I think the honesty will be that we will say that we wanted to protect the public finances, and that post covid, given the choice of either borrowing more money or asking those with the broadest shoulders to bear the burden to cover those costs, we decided that we should do the latter.
Edward Miliband
It is certainly not those with the broadest shoulders who are being affected, and I thought the reason that the Government raised taxes was for social care. It is yet another guarantee from the Prime Minister that is not worth the paper that it is written on.
The IFS tells us this morning that taxes will be £3,000 more per household than when the Prime Minister came to power. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said in her excellent speech yesterday, this is about the choices that the Government are making. Also buried in the Red Book is that the Chancellor saw fit to cut taxes on the banks by more than £1 billion because he was so worried about the burden they were facing, just like last year when he made the choice to cut stamp duty for second home owners because he was so worried about them. He was obviously less concerned about the burden of higher energy prices facing millions of British people, because he refused to cut VAT on fuel as he should have done.
In a way, the most shameful part of the Budget is the Chancellor’s refusal to reverse his £1,000 cut to universal credit, which hit 6 million families. For all the smoke and mirrors, this morning we know the truth about universal credit. According to the Resolution Foundation, three quarters of families on universal credit will be worse off, even after the changes to the taper. It says that the taper changes
“will be overshadowed by last month’s £6 billion cut to entitlement: three-quarters of families on UC will lose more from the £20 cut than they gain from the Budget changes. Even if we also take into account the…National Living Wage, the poorest fifth of households will still be an average of £280 a year worse off overall.”
The fact that Conservative Members were wildly cheering a policy yesterday that sees millions of working families far worse off shows, I am afraid, that they do not get it either.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
When I wander down Stockton High Street, I see the signs of poverty everywhere. I see young people with no hope on their faces and no hope of getting a job. I see people who probably have to shop in the charity shops because it is pretty obvious that they have not been able to buy any new clothes for a while. I see families going discount store to discount store to buy one item because it happens to be a couple of pence cheaper than it is elsewhere. Did my right hon. Friend see anything in the Budget to correct that?
Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend puts it incredibly well. That is why the boosterism of the Chancellor saying that it is an age of optimism will ring so hollow for so many people in our country.
You cannot build a new economy when you are hitting working families with a triple whammy of higher national insurance, higher prices and cuts to universal credit. That is more of the same. It is the Conservative economic model—year upon year upon year of stagnation for the British people.
Let me next come to the question of support for business in the Budget—the direct responsibility of the Business Secretary. Our businesses have been heroic during the covid crisis, closing their doors when asked and stepping up when they needed to. But while the economy may have reopened, the crisis is not over for so many of them. They face debts incurred during covid. They face the costs of the supply chain crisis. The Office for Budget Responsibility is very interesting on that, because of course there is a global dimension to it but there is definitely a British dimension too. They face the failure to plan for the changes arising as a result of Brexit—the OBR is very informative on this—and they face the energy price crisis.
Against this backdrop, I say gently to the Business Secretary that, as he will know, many of our businesses feel that the Government are engaged in finger pointing rather than finding solutions, with haulage firms told it is all their fault, when they warned the Government for months about the impending HGV crisis; those in the manufacturing industry—briefed against, not, to be fair, by him but by the Treasury—told that they are running their businesses badly because energy costs are soaring; and exporters tearing their hair out about the red tape of the trade agreement with the EU but told they just need to get their act together. What businesses want most of all, as he will know, is not to have a war with the Government but for their voice to be heard.
To be fair to the Business Secretary, a few weeks ago he did try to act to hear the voice of those facing the most acute short-term challenge—energy-intensive industries facing the energy price crisis. He knows that this is no ordinary situation. Our industries are facing not just the normal differential of price with our competitors but differentials far, far higher. I have met the Steel Council; he has met the Steel Council. He knows how tough it is. We know that he knows how tough it is because, to be fair, he told us two weeks ago how bad things were and said that he was talking to the Treasury. The Treasury was not very polite in return. He is chuckling from a sedentary position; I am on his side on this one. The next day, having obviously decided that he did not like being briefed against, he announced—I had my dealings with the Treasury when I was in government but I do not remember ever quite doing this—that he had made a formal request to the Treasury for support for energy-intensive industries. He was taking a stand.
That was on Monday 12 October, more than two weeks ago. On that day, a source told the BBC, rather encouragingly, that
“everyone in government understands the importance of this situation. We need to solve this quickly.”
It might have been the Prime Minister, who was on holiday at the time, or somebody else. That created a real expectation that this Budget would take action on this pressing issue that the Business Secretary has been publicly championing. So where is the help for our glass industry, our steel industry, our chemicals industry and our ceramics industry? These are some of the most important jobs in our country, valued in communities across all regions and nations of the UK. Does this not speak volumes about the Treasury’s—and, I am afraid, the Government’s—wanton disregard for some of the most foundational industries in our country?
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
It is also important that the House remembers that 3 million people have still been completely excluded and forgotten by this Government since March last year. There was nothing for them in yesterday’s Budget. They have been neglected yet again.
Edward Miliband
That is a very important point. The championing of ExcludedUK is a very important issue, and my hon. Friend is right to point it out.
This is about choices. Amazon gets help from the super-deduction, but our energy intensives are left out in the cold. I hope that in his reply, the Business Secretary will tell us where things stand for the energy-intensive industries, because they have been in touch with me saying, “What is going on? What is happening?” There is just complete silence from the Chancellor.
Let me talk about our high street businesses, because they face higher national insurance and business rates. I welcome some of the short-term measures in yesterday’s Budget, but it is not unfair to say that fundamental reform has been ducked yet again. The CBI said this in its Budget response yesterday:
“But the hard truth is that wholesale reform to unlock investment was rejected today. The Government missed the opportunity to truly reform a business rates system that diminishes Britain’s high streets and factories.”
I was quite mystified yesterday, because the Chancellor attacked the idea of fundamental reform of business rates, a system with a genuinely level playing field between traditional high streets and internet businesses. Four successive Tory manifestos have promised precisely that reform: 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019.
When the Business Secretary was a humble Back Bencher—I think he was writing “Britannia Unchained” at this point—he was pamphleteering. I am not against pamphleteering; I have done some of it myself. He was a Back Bencher with his ideas, and he said we need
“a system that is fair for both traditional and internet companies.”
He is now the Business Secretary. Why does he not deliver it? He knows, because he talks to the business community a lot, that this is a massive issue for our high street businesses. They rightly say, “Look at the burden on us and look at the burden on tech businesses. Look at the unfairness.” That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West is so right to champion this issue.
The longer-term issue we face is how to create the growing economy that we need. Not for the first time, the Government talk a good game. We have the branding of the Budget. We know that the Chancellor is incredibly keen on branding, and his own personal branding more than anything. The Government are a bit of a sideline. It is more Rishi branding than Government branding, I think it is fair to say. There are some knowing looks from Members on the Government Benches. The Rishi branding of the Budget is the “plan for growth”. I have to say that a plan for growth that has growth of 1.3% at the end of the Parliament is not much of a plan. Growth will be just 1.7% when the economy returns to trend. That is woeful by historical standards. It is the biggest challenge we face as a country. This is an important point, because when people wonder how the Government manage to combine the highest taxes for 60 years and public services that are creaking, the terrible growth performance of our economy is a significant part of the answer.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Did the right hon. Gentleman, like me, also miss any announcement that points to the transformation to the green economy and green jobs?
Edward Miliband
The hon. Lady is completely right about that. She anticipates my next point brilliantly; it is a useful segue. If we want to understand why growth is so anaemic, she is right that we need look no further than the Chancellor’s failure to seize the opportunities for green growth. This is an important point: the prudent and responsible economic call—I suspect the Business Secretary agrees—for economic growth is to invest at scale in the transition to a zero-carbon economy. Let us be honest, it is now a completely open secret that the problem is that the Chancellor is not a believer, and it showed yesterday. As we prepare to host the most important international summit ever on climate change, as delegates gather from all around the world, and as the eyes are on Britain, what did he unveil as his flagship measure yesterday? To cut air passenger duty for domestic flights. You literally could not make it up. People want good and affordable rail services, but the plan for rail seems to have been postponed again, and instead there will be 400,000 more domestic flights as a result of that decision. Once again, that shows that the Treasury is not signed up to the agenda.
I am such a nerd that I was reading the OBR report last night and there is an interesting and illuminating bit on, I think, page 176—Members can check—which says, in OBR language:
“the…costs involved in getting the rest of the way”—
to net zero—
“remain significant and their apportionment between businesses, households, and government…remains largely unclear. This leaves the costs associated with the transition to net zero as a major source of longer-term fiscal risk.”
Let me underline that point for the House. The July 2021 OBR report, which for the nerds among us is brilliant, and which I strongly recommend to Members as bedtime reading—Madam Deputy Speaker is laughing at me, or perhaps with me—warned of the danger of not acting on the climate and of debt climbing to eye-watering levels as a result. When my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West said yesterday that debt would rise to 300%, I noticed a Conservative Member at the back look at his hon. Friend and say, “Oh that can’t be right,” but that is what it says. The interesting thing about that report is that it warns not just about the danger of not acting, but about the danger of delay. It says that delaying action on the climate by a decade will double the cost of the transition as we lock in high-carbon choices.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that the Budget had so little for the potentially huge industry for the UK of offshore floating wind energy? He talks about delay. If we delay, we will lose out to other countries in that race, and they will not show any mercy on that front.
Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have been successful in offshore wind generation, and it is right to acknowledge that. The ground was laid by the last Labour Government, but I will leave that to one side. We have been successful at generating the wind energy, but not the jobs. He is completely right that we have not delivered for many people when it comes to jobs.
As I was saying, not acting increases the cost, so the prudent responsible choice is to invest. I will mention some key sectors, because again, there has been a deafening silence. I come back to the steel industry, which is such a litmus test. It needs about £6 billion of investment to get to net zero by 2035. The view is shared on both sides of the House that it needs to get to net zero and that it is a foundational industry that we need and that is incredibly important to communities across the country. There are 20 demonstration projects around Europe but none here at the moment. It requires a partnership of the public and private sectors and needs both sides to invest. There is a crucial role for the Government in that.
We have set out a commitment of up to £3 billion over a decade to create that partnership with the steel industry so it can make the transition and we can keep those good jobs with good wages that are vital to many communities. It is a test of us as a House of Commons.
The Government talk about a £250 million clean steel fund, but even that has still not been delivered. I hope that it is still Government policy, but it seems to be in the balance and might have been got rid of. That is not good enough. The Treasury has to understand that unless we invest in steel, automotive and hydrogen, we will fall behind in the global race, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
You are clearly talking about the tension between the costs of going too late or too soon in terms of efficiencies. Do you agree that you might have more credibility—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please refer to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) as the right hon. Gentleman, not “you”? When someone says “you” in this House, they mean the Chair. We have to start getting that right; it is unprofessional not to.
Dr Mullan
My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he would have more credibility on the issue if he had not backed Labour’s 2030 net zero target, which even his own unions did not support? He has no credibility on that point.
Edward Miliband
That is definitely the Whips Office’s talking point. The reality is—[Interruption.] I will tell them: our last manifesto said that
“the substantial majority of our emissions reductions”
should happen by 2030, and that is absolutely right. We should be going faster and we should not be delaying. The interesting point is that delay is wrong not just for the climate, but economically. That is the brilliant platform on which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West, the green shadow Chancellor, is standing. We will fall behind if we do not act, and I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the Business Secretary knows it.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
On the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about credibility, I have sat on two north-east Labour councils, Darlington Borough Council and Durham County Council. When the Conservatives were in charge in Darlington, Labour wanted the target to be 2030. When Labour was in charge in Durham, it wanted the target to be 2050. Is there consistency in Labour party policy or not?
Edward Miliband
It is completely consistent, yes.
Let me turn from industry to retrofit and insulation. Of all the things that were missing from the Budget and that I thought the Treasury would have been persuaded about, the one that is as close as we can get to a fiscal, economic, climate no-brainer is a proper 10-year retrofit and insulation plan. If we invest, we cut bills and carbon emissions, make ourselves less exposed to the international gas market, and create tens of thousands of jobs. I do not get why it has not happened. All we get are piecemeal schemes and no proper plan. I will not even go into the fiasco of the green homes grant—emissions from buildings are higher than they were in 2015.
Alex Cunningham
My right hon. Friend will recollect our discussions about the tremendous success of the warm zones project at the turn of the century. We went door to door, day in, day out, to install thousands of measures that saved consumers a tremendous amount as well as reducing emissions. Does he agree that we need that systematic approach if we are going to crack the problem?
Edward Miliband
I completely agree. I actually take a crumb of comfort from the Business Secretary, when he defends the sorry saga of the green homes grant, pointing to some of the money given to local authorities and what they did. That is what we need at scale—locally led, house by house, street by street. We are miles behind other countries.
On green investment, a philosophical difference is emerging. I worry that the Government will increasingly leave individuals and industries on their own to face the costs. I do not think that is true of the whole of Government, but the Treasury remains a fundamental block to the green investment that we need. There was a whole saga about its net zero review and the fact that it emphasises short-term costs rather than long-term gains. Frankly, that is a big problem for our country.
Edward Miliband
I will make some progress and finish.
Labour would deliver a climate investment pledge of £28 billion extra every year for the rest of the decade. That is an investment in bringing down energy bills; delivering affordable public transport and cleaner air; and backing British industries with a real plan for jobs and wages. That is what real action on the climate emergency and industrial strategy looks like.
Given the cost of living crisis, the immediate issues facing business, and the need for longer-term investment, this is not the Budget we require. It does not make choices to help working people; it hits working people. It cuts taxes for the banks but raises taxes for workers. It deserts key British industries and it fails to invest, as we need to, in the green transition. If the big challenge of the future is how we build an economic model that rights the wrongs of the past, this Government cannot be the answer and nor was this Budget.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)
It is great to see you in the Chair again, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) for his congratulations on my becoming a father for the first time at the youthful age of—well, I will not say what my age is. I am pleased that that has happened.
I am also pleased to see the right hon. Member, in his usual way, give a comprehensive speech that lasted for nearly half an hour. The downside was that I had heard it all before. I was particularly gratified to see him at Prime Minister’s questions. It was great: a trip down memory lane. I remember being a humble Back Bencher, as he put it, when he did that same thing at PMQs. There was that same litany of doom and gloom, and it will prove no more effectual in 2021 than it did in 2015, when many of my hon. Friends were returned with enhanced majorities.
The Budget was an extremely successful occasion. It demonstrated clearly that there is continuing support for the economy. It demonstrated the immense, unusual and unprecedented interventions in the economy because of the dangers we faced from the global pandemic. The right hon. Member will remember that only a year ago people were prophesising that we would have record unemployment or early-1980s levels of unemployment. What happened? Because of the Chancellor’s interventions, well-crafted policy and the plan for growth, there was no employment disaster. Unemployment is very low by historical standards. The economy is growing faster than it has done for decades, and none other than the OECD says that the UK will be the fastest growing country among the G20 next year.
Catherine West
May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the happy news in his family? How many businesses does he think will go out of business this autumn because they owe the Government money from covid loans, cannot pay their energy costs and are worried about the weight that the increase in wages from the national minimum wage and national insurance contributions will put on their 12-month forecasts?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I thank the hon. Lady for her congratulations. However, I am surprised that she should express concern about the increase in the national living wage. I never thought I would live to see a Labour MP denigrate and decry that. We want to see a higher-wage, higher-productivity-based economy, and we are working hard to ensure that.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Kwasi Kwarteng
Let me make some progress. To intervene so soon after an intervention is unusual. I will come back to the hon. Member.
During the pandemic, people and businesses have demonstrated remarkable levels of resilience. I fully agree with the right hon. Member for Doncaster North when he says that business has been heroic and people have been heroic. I am also immensely proud of the work done by the British Business Bank, for which my Department is responsible. Its schemes supported people and our economy to the tune of £80 billion, with Government-backed finance for 1.7 million businesses. That comes to the point made by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West). When it comes to the fundamentals of the economy, the Government are securing our economy and getting Britain back to work.
Contrary to all the prophecies of doom and gloom that recently came from Opposition Members, the Office for Budget Responsibility now expects our recovery to be quicker and the economy to return to its pre-covid level at the turn of this coming year. As the OECD and the International Monetary Fund show, there is considerable expectation that the UK will rebound strongly. In that context, our task turns to ensuring that our people and our businesses have ability and opportunity. They will not simply look back and complain about the situation that we have come through. They are positive and forward-looking. They believe in their country—unlike many Opposition Members, dare I say. We will achieve a strong rebound not by splashing cash indiscriminately as a number of Labour Chancellors did, dare I say, but by spending taxpayers’ money wisely to foster an environment that encourages innovation and growth.
I turn to the net zero agenda. I fully appreciate that many years ago the right hon. Member for Doncaster North was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change—I do not think I was in the House at that time—and I know that he shares the view that net zero is absolutely one of the most important strategic objectives of any Government.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
If the climate emergency really is the most important thing for the Government, why did the Budget not mention it once?
Kwasi Kwarteng
It did mention a huge amount of investment in the net zero agenda. The hon. Member should know by heart the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, and that was 100% backed by yesterday’s Budget.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Will the Chancellor say in his speech at COP next week that, in his Budget, he made high-carbon domestic flights cheaper?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I gently suggest that the hon. Member looks at the work of the Jet Zero Council, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I have been pushing. We want the UK to be the head of very low carbon emission flying. I am very enthusiastic about that. We will be leaders in that technology, and I do not think it makes sense simply to penalise and turn our backs on aviation. We should be trying to enhance aviation and decarbonise it, and that is exactly what we intend to do.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Kwasi Kwarteng
I have to make progress. I know that hon. Members are springing up and down because they wish to make interventions, but I am sure they will be making speeches later in the debate.
We on the Government Benches understand what has sadly eluded the grasp of Opposition Members: we must create competition. We must back business and incentivise innovation in a free-market economy, not go back to a state-run, Soviet-style command economy.
The Labour party manifesto has been mentioned. I remember reading it. Like the right hon. Member for Doncaster North, I am somewhat of an insomniac—more so now, I dare say—so sometimes I have to read lots of these things. It said that we should get to net zero by 2030. As my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) observed, even the unions that Labour is supposed to represent and that bankrolled it, rejected that proposal as completely unrealistic and destructive to our economy. That manifesto said not only that we should get to net zero by 2030, which is completely unrealistic, but that the state would own 51% of offshore wind farms. Imagine that. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that, as Chancellor, he would nationalise 51% of offshore wind. I remember speaking to the industry, and it said, “Why on earth would we want to own 49% of what the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington owns 51%?” It was a completely absurd and unrealistic policy. On the green agenda and the net zero agenda, the Government have far more to offer the country than a souped-up, half-heated, Soviet-style approach to solving what is a fundamentally difficult problem.
For one year—so far—businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors will get a 50% discount on business rates. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor decided that the business rates system should be more responsive and agile, with more frequent revaluations taking place every three years. That is a good, positive step that will give much more flexibility to the system.
I am also delighted to reflect on how the Budget told a great story about innovation. Innovation is a huge driver of productivity and progress, and unleashing innovation is a fundamental duty for my Department and for me as Secretary of State. We have launched Help to Grow, which will drive small and medium-sized enterprise productivity. We have also started a new co-investment venture capital fund that will be used to drive innovation and provide scale-up capital for businesses in need of that. The Budget confirms the eligibility criteria for our new scale-up visa, which all businesses I speak to, and small businesses in particular, say they need help in pursuing. We will unlock greater private sector innovation. We are reforming research and development tax reliefs to support modern research methods and to focus our minds specifically on the problem and challenge of innovation. Increasing R&D investment to £22 billion will confirm the UK as a science and technology superpower. We must make sure our small businesses, which after all are the heart of the British economy, have the support they need, which is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor strengthened the British Business Bank in yesterday’s Budget, increasing its regional financing programmes to £1.6 billion and expanding its coverage, helping innovative businesses across the country get greater access to the finance that they need.
Catherine West
I welcome the British Business Bank and the fact that it has a regional focus, but what advice does the right hon. Gentleman have for businesses that are still in debt due to the covid loans they are struggling to pay back and therefore do not want to take on any more debt?
Kwasi Kwarteng
The hon. Lady makes a sensitive point. Nobody engaged in business wants to take on unsustainable levels of debt, but she will appreciate that the credit was offered in totally unusual circumstances; my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to make decisions very quickly and we used the BBB to distribute that credit. No one is suggesting—not even anyone in the hon. Lady’s party—that the interventions and credit that was provided on good terms should not have been offered to many businesspeople. I am fully aware of the nature of the debt overhang and I am engaged with trying to think of ways of softening that, but the intervention was absolutely the right thing at the time. I must remind the House that many predictions of doom and catastrophe were mercifully avoided thanks to the timely and wise interventions of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.
As well as supporting businesses, the Budget will protect the health, wealth and livelihoods of the British public. Under this Government, the proportion of people in low-paid work has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years. That is why I was so surprised to hear the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) suggest that an increase in the national living wage was something to be regretted.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the business part of his speech, will he update the House on the latest provision of support for energy-intensive industries?
Kwasi Kwarteng
That is a very direct question and, as I have said, conversations are ongoing. I speak to the CEO of Ofgem on a daily basis and we are always looking at the situation in terms of gas and electricity prices and how we can mitigate those risks.
Edward Miliband
The right hon. Gentleman was asked a very direct question, as he said, by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The right hon. Gentleman acknowledged two weeks ago the very difficult situation of the energy-intensive industries and said that he had submitted a formal request to the Treasury. What has happened?
Kwasi Kwarteng
We are not ignoring anything. We are in active conversations, as we always are, on dealing with the situation. [Interruption.] Absolutely, we are completely as one on this, and we feel that, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said, we cannot simply bail out every single company—but we can provide a general context in which risks are mitigated.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
We are not going to nationalise anything.
Kwasi Kwarteng
We are not going to nationalise anything; that is very true.
Edward Miliband
It is hard to follow that response from the Secretary of State; he said, “a general context in which…something, something.” Can he just answer the question: when are we going to know what help is available for energy-intensive industries, if any, and what kind of help is it going to be?
Kwasi Kwarteng
All I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is watch this space and let’s see what happens.
Kwasi Kwarteng
The hon. Gentleman chunters from a sedentary position. I have visited his constituency—I have seen Teesside—and the picture of gloom, misery and devastation he paints is a total rejection of the optimism, dynamism and enthusiasm I see in Teesside. His negative attitude shows precisely why my friend the Mayor of the Tees Valley got 73% of the vote in the last election. [Interruption.] I am being told I am speaking loudly, but I am outraged that the hon. Gentleman should characterise his constituency in such poor and uninspiring terms; it is a disgrace.
Alex Cunningham
The right hon. Gentleman makes an attack then will not give way.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He talks absolute nonsense: I have spent 11 years championing energy-intensive industries in my constituency, trying to ensure people keep their jobs. He knows that, because I have met him and talked about it time and again, and what do I see? I see very little action. It is about time he got on the right horse, got down to Ofgem and started talking seriously about how we can put things right for energy-intensive industries in my constituency.
Kwasi Kwarteng
I was not making a personal attack on the hon. Gentleman’s role. If he had listened to what I said, he would know I was not commenting on his record as an MP; I was simply saying that the tone and negativity he expressed in that particular intervention in this debate did a disservice to his constituents. I was making a specific point.
Richard Fuller
To bring my right hon. Friend back to what the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) was saying about the haste with which money can go to support my right hon. Friend’s plan for energy-intensive industries, is this not the same Labour Front Bench that was urging my right hon. Friend to give money to a business that is now under review by the Serious Fraud Office? Is my right hon. Friend’s prudence not therefore wiser than the rashness of the Opposition Front Bench?
Kwasi Kwarteng
That is a very good intervention. Labour Front Benchers were urging that £170 million from the UK taxpayer be given to a business that we now know has been recapitalised, has money from private creditors and is still operating. It would have been a disaster to sign away £170 million directly in the way they urged.
In conclusion, the Budget is a blueprint for a stronger Britain: a country where those with innovative ideas will get the support they need to turn them from dream to reality; a country where those whose talent is nurtured and whose skills are honed will get support, ongoing interest and strong engagement from the Government; a country where those who do an honest day’s work will receive a decent wage. We have every right to be confident about our future. We have listened to the litany of woe and despair for too long and, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said yesterday, we are optimistic and excited about the future of our country. Only a week ago at the global investment summit, people from across the world were desperate to invest in the UK; they believe in their bones that the UK is a great place to do business.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and I hope to have a meeting with you shortly on hydrogen and how it can be used to advance this great United Kingdom. Can you confirm exactly how it will benefit every part of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he cannot address the Minister as “Minister”; he has to address him as “the right hon. Gentleman” or say “would the Minister?”, because when he says “Minister” that is second person, vocative case. He cannot say “Minister.” Other Members might know that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I have been having this conversation now for several years and it is my ambition that he will get it right, and one day he will.
Kwasi Kwarteng
We are very grateful for the long-forgotten grammar lessons administered from the Chair.
Hydrogen is important, and we have had debates on it in Westminster Hall and this place. I look forward to engaging with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on this; I am due to visit Northern Ireland and I am sure we will have very constructive conversations.
The global investment summit was a huge success, and it was proof that, contrary to the picture of devastation, gloom and pessimism painted by Opposition Members, we are open for business as a country and attracting investment to a degree we have never seen before. It showed in the Budget yesterday that, as we race towards a new and brighter future, the Government will make driving economic recovery through private investment—that is central to this—a top priority. That is something I certainly commend to the House.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.
This Budget may have fallen a few days short of Hallowe’en, but for many of my constituents and people across these islands, it represents a real horror show. The past 18 months have been difficult for many people, but yesterday we saw that this Government are prepared to continue to heap misery upon misery by balancing their spending on the backs of the most vulnerable. Not even the most cynical among us could have imagined tax breaks on sparkling wine and short flights just weeks after universal credit payments were cut.
We have all seen the headlines over the last few weeks about monetary tightening, but the self-enforced fiscal tightening in this Budget is much more worrying. The Chancellor tried to fend off criticism and evade proper scrutiny by trailing Budget announcements in the press before presenting them to this House—and his sleight of hand did not stop there. He instructed the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to produce its Budget forecasts using out-of-date figures to increase his chances of being able to cut taxes before the next election. That is a cheap trick, and people should not fall for it.
It was an illusion, too, to try to make out that the Chancellor’s actions yesterday do not come on the back of 11 years of Tory austerity—11 years of the same Government on those Benches, albeit in different guises—of cuts to public spending that this Budget does not come close to reinstating, and of assumptions predicated on some iffy figures peppered through the Budget Red Book. On this Chancellor’s watch, the public are facing a Tory cost of living crisis—an energy crisis, a poverty crisis, an inflation crisis—and the people who can afford it the least are bearing the brunt of it.
The furlough scheme has now ended, and while we do not yet know the full impact of the withdrawal of that support, economists expect that there will be a rise in under-employment and a subsequent squeeze on wages. When the UK Government should be stepping up to tackle the challenge of this cost of living crisis, they are compounding matters with this spending review. It is difficult to remember a bleaker outlook.
IFS director Paul Johnson said on Twitter:
“This is actually awful. Yet more years of real incomes barely growing. High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade”.
The OBR has said that since it closed its forecast, its analysis is consistent with
“inflation peaking at close to 5% next year,”
even higher than the 4% the Chancellor alluded to yesterday. That is further evidence that high inflation may not be temporary, as the Prime Minister has previously said, and that even those families who are relatively well off will feel the impact of it.
We must not be misled by this UK Tory Government. When the Tories talk of a living wage, it is not a real living wage, determined by the Living Wage Foundation; it is a pretendy living wage, and it is not enough to live on. The Government may claim that the increase to £9.50 matches the real living wage as it stands today, but in reality that is yet a further deceit, because the increase in the minimum wage will not match the real living wage by the time it is implemented. We are three weeks away from Living Wage Week, which will see the most up-to-date real living wage for the UK announced. It will almost certainly increase from £9.50, because the real cost of living pressures we face are taken into account and folded into that figure.
That pretendy living wage has age discrimination baked in, with workers who start the same job on the same day legally entitled to less if they just so happen to be younger. There is a £5,000 gap between an 18-year-old and a 25-year-old. House of Commons Library figures lay bare the difference between the wage paid to the youngest and that paid to older workers, which has grown from 20% at the establishment of the minimum wage to a staggering 97.5% in this Budget. There is absolutely no justification for that. Rent is not cheaper for young people, electricity is not cheaper, childcare is not cheaper, nor is food and nor is travel, so why have this Government decided that their labour should be?
I commend the more than 2,000 real living wage employers in Scotland and I hope that many more will join them. Of course, the minimum wage increase will be gobbled up by the Chancellor’s other monstrous policy choices—the £20 cut to universal credit and the increase in national insurance. People who are out of work or not earning very much will see no overall benefit to these changes, and those on legacy benefits, including people with disabilities and carers, are again forgotten about altogether by this UK Tory Government. Of course, some people are not even entitled to support in the first place, including those with no recourse to public funds—and the many who were excluded from support schemes completely during the course of the pandemic found that they were not entitled to support either.
Those out of work are a big and varied group, including people who have cancer; people who have disabilities; people who care for their children who have disabilities; veterans; people who have been injured at work, and people who are struggling to find a job. All of them are now flung into the Chancellor’s pile of “undeserving” universal credit claimants. That is not good enough, and he should hang his head in shame. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has estimated that that particular group of people—those the Government think are undeserving—now has the lowest main rate of out-of-work support in real terms since 1990.
Let us look in a little more detail at the situation for those who are working. The Chancellor said that the annual increase resulting from the minimum wage increase is £1,000, but overnight analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation puts that figure at an absolute maximum of £364 when the taper rate and cost of living increases are factored in. Some people on universal credit will be nearly £700 worse off. On top of that, every person on universal credit is, of course, £1,000 worse off from the scrapping of the uplift. My back-of-a-Twix-wrapper calculation says that these measures mean that the Chancellor is cutting incomes for those on universal credit by between £600 and £1,700 a year. And it is clear from page 136 of the Red Book that the Chancellor’s giveaways are being funded from the pockets of pensioners, who have lost their protections under the triple lock.
These are policy choices. They are not an inevitability of the situation in which we find ourselves. This spending review is a chance to show the UK Government’s priorities, and unfortunately, it seems that their priority is to give their friends in the City a tax cut, paid for by ravaging universal credit. It is a political choice to cut the tax surcharge on bank profits from 8% to 3%. It is a political choice for the Chancellor to tie his own hands with fiscal rules while our economy is still reeling from a pandemic that has not yet ended. It is a political choice to take food out of the mouths of children by removing the £20-a-week universal credit lifeline, to keep the appalling two-child limit and the rape clause and to maintain a five-week wait for new claimants. It is a political choice to refuse to increase statutory sick pay in line with international standards. And it has been a political choice to press ahead with Brexit in the middle of a pandemic, in the face of all reason.
The Chancellor barely mentioned Brexit in his speech yesterday, even though it is the single biggest policy change the UK has made for generations. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, yet our businesses are having to adjust and absorb the costs of this Government’s mistakes. The OBR says that the evidence so far shows that the impact of Brexit will be a 4% hit to GDP, with knock-on effects on living standards. That is bigger than the expected long-run effect of the pandemic. The OBR’s own analysis cites migration and trading issues as driving factors of the supply chain issues currently hitting our businesses, on top of debt through covid and soaring energy prices that businesses also face and will pass on to consumers.
While the EU is giving Ireland €1.05 billion to mitigate the damage of Brexit, Scotland has yet to receive a single penny piece from Westminster. We need urgent clarity that the £4.6 billion annual increase to the Scottish Budget will be new money, rather than giving with one hand and taking away with the other, as this Government so often do. The £150 million small business fund for Scotland, like the rest of the funding, should be disbursed by the Scottish Government and their agencies, not by Westminster—or, in this case, the British Business Bank, whose good work should not be politicised through this brazen Tory power grab. It is little wonder that more and more people are coming to believe that Scotland’s future will be best served by its becoming an independent European country.
The OBR also said in its outlook report that labour supply constraints are likely to suppress productivity, and it cited constraints on immigration as an example of that. It is very likely that the Government’s restrictive and arbitrary immigration rules are having a long-term negative fiscal impact. That will be of no surprise to Members across the House who proudly represent, as I do, communities with high levels of immigration. As MPs, we see daily the impact of the hostile environment—the widespread misery and harm that it causes, but also the economic impact—and it is only going to get worse. The Refugee Council, for example, says it will cost the Government £400 million more in prison costs to implement the provisions of the new Nationality and Borders Bill. That is an awful lot of taxpayers’ money to treat people so badly. Removing the right of people to work as they wait, sometimes for years, for the outcome of an asylum claim is as dehumanising as it is senseless. My constituent, Sandra, is studying adult nursing at university and is on track for first class honours. She desperately wants to work and contribute to the NHS in Scotland, but has been waiting over a year for contact from the Home Office. She does not have any faith that it will happen before she graduates. That is a shameful waste of her talent and skills, and there are many, many more like her.
Members of this Government will stand and applaud the NHS, but they fail public sector workers at every opportunity. The Chancellor talked about unfreezing public sector pay, but that is a previously announced change that will not generate Barnett consequentials and so will have no impact on the Scottish budget. It is also worth noting that ending the freeze during this period of high inflation does not go far enough. It is effectively a pay cut. If the Government are serious about levelling up, they should commit to public spending and pay public sector workers a fair wage.
The Chancellor should take a leaf out of Scotland’s book and deliver a national care service, creating jobs and increasing the quality of public services for years to come. This Government should stop talking about care as if it is a burden. The Women’s Budget Group says that a high-quality care service requires investment of £28 billion per year over and above current spending, but that that would produce 2.7 times as many jobs as an equivalent investment in construction.
The Tories promised £500 million for family hubs in England to support parents and children, including breastfeeding and mental health advice. That is welcome, no doubt, but the anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe perhaps put it best when she said:
“for every £1 the Tories have taken out of local council funding…in the last decade, Sunak’s budget announcement is putting 0.5p of it back and expecting us to all jump for joy at his largesse and conveniently forget about that 99.5%”.
Now, I try not to get too deeply into matters relating to England and I do not intend to do so, but in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and inequalities, I congratulate the Secretary of State on his new arrival. I hope the services his family needs have been there for him. Health visiting and support services in England were lost in the pandemic in many areas, with new parents left unsupported. I urge him to put a figure on breastfeeding support specifically. An expert in this field, Dr Natalie Shenker, suggests a figure of at least £30 million to be truly transformational, covering: additional training, Baby Feeding Initiative community service accreditation, ramped up peer support, integrated specialist lactation support, and comprehensive hospital-only milk bank services. I look forward to engaging with Ministers on that and invite them to present their detailed plans to the all-party group.
In the run up to the spending review, I met business representatives from all sorts of industries, as I am sure the Treasury team did. I was impressed by the well thought out proportionate policy ideas that would have genuinely helped both individual firms and the wider economy in this difficult time, such as: the call from the Federation of Small Businesses to increase to the employment allowance to encourage firms to hire more staff and to take action on increasing energy prices; the Finance and Leasing Association’s call to extend the super deduction to those who lease equipment, which is particularly important as firms face increased costs and increased debt repayments in the coming year; the call from Scope and employers such as 4ICG in my constituency to expand the restrictive eligibility to the Kickstart scheme to support more disabled and young people to apply, because at the moment many lose out to their great loss and frustration; and an online sales tax to encourage people back to the high street.
This UK Government chose none of those things. Instead, they chose: an increase to national insurance, which is a tax on jobs; yet more Brexit red tape; and an industrial strategy that was scrapped before it could be implemented, leaving creative industries in particular without any clarity on the support they are entitled to. There is a lot of talk about science, but there is much that comes from the arts and they have been lost in that conversation. For example, the Glasgow School of Art produces exceptional graduates who should be a part of the strategy, but they do not see their place within it. The Chancellor will say that he has offered cuts to business rates, but, of course, that does not apply to businesses in Scotland, who have already benefited from the Scottish Government’s action. The Scottish Government offer 100% rates relief to retail and hospitality for a full year, the only part of the UK to do so. That was done without consequential funding from the UK Government.
I welcome the review of alcohol duty and hope it will lead to better outcomes on public health. I am concerned, however, that the measures trumpeted yesterday fail to support hospitality and tourism more widely. A few pence off a pint, sooked up by the large breweries, does nothing to support a sector hard hit by the pandemic. Retaining the reduced 12.5% VAT rate for the hospitality industry would make a significant difference as supply chain costs and prices for fuel and labour increase, and it would increase the sector’s attractiveness and global competitiveness. It baffles me that the Chancellor would ignore that call from UKHospitality. I urge those on the Treasury Bench to reconsider and see what more they can do in that regard.
All eyes are on my constituency of Glasgow Central this month for COP26. This Budget and spending review fell woefully short of the ambition required to tackle the global climate challenge: nothing for carbon capture in Scotland and nothing on our need to grow and scale up the renewables industry in Scotland, not just wind farms but tidal and wave.
Jamie Stone
Further to my intervention on the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), it is all about delay. One of the terrifying aspects of delay is that we have the skills in Scotland—welders, fabricators, pipe fitters—but the people with those skills are ageing. Every year that goes by, we are missing the opportunity to educate the next generation, the young people who came to the reception on UK renewables in the Commons yesterday. That is another reason why we cannot countenance delay at any price.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. This is an industry with a future. Climate change is the most significant challenge we face and investing in those industries now will set us up for the future. Carbon capture and storage in Scotland would have employed 20,000 people, a pipeline of jobs in an area that much needs it and a transition from the old to the new. The Government ought to be investing in that or giving us the powers in Scotland to do it in our own right.
There should have been measures to tackle energy inefficiency, such as cutting VAT on insulation and solar panels for houses. Such measures encourage people to play their own part in that effort. What do we have instead? We are cutting air passenger duty on internal flights. Manchester United were roundly condemned for taking a 10-minute flight to Leicester recently, but the Chancellor wants to encourage this! He wants more climate profligacy and that is utterly irresponsible. He could have put the money from the scrapped £20 billion Boris bridge through the Beaufort’s Dyke munitions dump into green infrastructure, but he has failed to do so.
The Tories have cut Scotland’s budget when we need to be investing more to stimulate the economy and have undercut the devolution settlement, taking powers from the democratically elected Parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Budget is great news for the 1%, but bad news for equality, inclusive growth and the environment. Time and time again, the people of Scotland are seeing a tale of two Governments with divergent priorities: this Westminster Tory Government providing tax cuts for short-haul flights, sparkling wine and their pals at the banks; and a Holyrood SNP Government determined to stand up for people and businesses, and deliver a fairer, greener Scotland.
I look forward to the day when we do not have to live with the choices made by a UK Government that Scotland did not elect, but have a Government chosen by the people of Scotland with our people’s priorities at their heart.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The House will be aware that everybody wants to speak. We have plenty of time for the debate this afternoon, but I hope to manage it without a time limit. If everybody takes around seven to eight minutes, everyone who wishes to speak will have an opportunity to do so and we will manage without a time limit. If that does not work, later in the debate I will put on a time limit, but it is so much more dignified if we manage without one.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng).
I have to say that only one of those speeches was remotely optimistic and captured the positive nature of yesterday’s Budget. If we think back to the data we were given at the start of the Chancellor’s Budget speech, it is clearly excellent news that we are recovering from the pandemic faster than expected. We return to pre-pandemic levels in the economy by the end of this year. Considering the decline 300 years ago after the Great Frost, that is a remarkable achievement. Unemployment was predicted to be 12%. It is now 5.2%, which is a huge difference—that is 2 million more people in work. On the impact of the Budget on Harrogate and Knaresborough, I think it will be very helpful and very well received. I will focus on just a few areas, if I may—I am conscious of your point about time, Madam Deputy Speaker—the first of which is low-paid work.
The change to the universal credit taper is extremely positive and very significant. Not everybody knows what it is, but we in this Chamber do because we discuss it regularly. Moving from 63% to 55% simply means that people will be able to keep more of their money by not losing benefits if they earn more. That directly incentivises work and is a tax cut, and if we combine it with the increase in the work allowance, it represents a tax cut of £2.2 billion. It is easy to bandy around very big numbers, but I am more conscious about what that means to individual households: basically, it makes people £1,000 a year better off in their pockets. That is a significant figure.
Universal credit has been part of Harrogate for a considerable period. We were one of its development locations and we are the location for the managed migration pilot. I have been following it very closely during that period. I have met those implementing it at the jobcentre, those receiving it and employers, and I have absolutely no doubt that it has helped more people into work.
On the national living wage, it is very positive that we have moved to £9.50 an hour. That is a 6.6% increase and a big pay rise for 2 million people. Some sectors of the economy will be more exposed to this than others. Harrogate and Knaresborough has a large hospitality, retail and care sector, which will benefit disproportionately from the increase in the national living wage, and I welcome that.
Cutting business rates by 50% for 90% of the businesses in hospitality, retail and leisure is also significant for Harrogate and Knaresborough. We are one of the top 50 constituencies in the country for the hospitality sector. North Yorkshire will be particularly affected by this measure; in the top 10%, we also have Thirsk and Malton, Scarborough and Whitby and York Central. To use figures from UKHospitality from the 2019 general election—in other words, before the pandemic—nearly 9,500 people in Harrogate and Knaresborough worked in the hospitality sector. They have had a very tough time. This measure will help those businesses continue to invest and stay strong and will therefore be very welcome in the sectors affected. We have a strong, high-quality retail offer—not just in Harrogate and Knaresborough, but in much of the north—with a large number of independents across a number of different sectors, so I welcome these measures, as it has been a tough time.
On business rates more broadly, I welcome the points made about the frequency of revaluations, but business rates need reform in the longer term. This is an analogue tax in a digital economy. It is still clumsy and it does not reflect how the economy works, but the measures that are being taken are positive and I welcome them.
Turning to alcohol duty, in Harrogate and Knaresborough we have one vineyard, two distilleries and five breweries—we are obviously very thirsty—and just outside the area we have many more. The number of businesses involved is therefore high, as is the number of workers in those companies as a result. We have quality producers. Yorkshire beer is famous, and rightly so. It is positive that we are seeing the 3p cut in duty for draft beers. Pubs have also had a grim time over the past few years. They have a social function in our communities that is not easy to quantify, but we all know that pubs are at the heart of village and town life. The cut is therefore helpful for the on-trade.
The small brewers relief, which has been a feature of the industry for a while, is being extended to cider. Let me give a slight hint of a warning: the small brewers relief has had a disincentivising effect on investment and growth in the beer industry. I discovered that early on in my time in the Treasury. I clearly saw businesses that had stopped growing—in fact, they directly told me that—because they had reached the top of the tax breaks. That is clearly disincentivising. When we have a tax structure that disincentivises growth, it needs to be reformed. The Treasury has been doing that. I started the review—I have been followed by many others since—but we now need to press on with that. I am absolutely sure that we have the correct policy, with a tapered effect, but we need to implement it. We need to make sure that as the relief is extended to cider, we do not delay implementation or make the mistakes that we have seen with beer.
I am conscious of the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me say a few words on levelling up. Communities have been left behind in our country for far too long. We in this House have often talked about things such as the north-south divide or the northern powerhouse, but this issue is far broader in scale than just north-south. There are communities all over the UK that have been left behind, even in the most affluent areas. I like the focus on levelling up, but we must also recognise that this is a long-term issue and that the situation is hard to change. Governments of all colours over many years have tried to make progress on that and not succeeded sufficiently. There are a number of different elements that can make a real difference, such as infrastructure, skills and devolution.
The Budget is strong on investment in infrastructure, with £35 billion for rail infrastructure, which includes opening some of the closed lines, and £31 billion for roads, to remove bottlenecks. We can add to that the investment in broadband, so infrastructure will clearly get a significant benefit. One issue that does not get quite so much coverage is bus networks, to which we are seeing big changes around the UK. In implementing the Bus Services Act 2017, we are seeing people move towards enhanced partnerships or possibly franchising. We have seen Budget funding go towards zero-emission buses. These are very positive developments. They are about connecting people to jobs, making it much easier for larger cities in particular to develop sustainable transport plans, which we all know is the right thing to do, and making it easier overall to move people and goods around the UK.
The infrastructure provisions are positive. However, having spent much of my time here talking about infrastructure and being at the Department for Transport, I actually think that skills policy is the most significant thing that we can use to improve the levelling up around this country. That is how we will improve the productivity of our nation. Big changes will be required in the skills environment. Our economy is going digital, and that trend has been compounded by the pandemic. We are transforming our economy as we go to net zero. The number of jobs required in new industries will be fantastic, so this is a transforming moment. It is also clear that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor clearly recognise that, which is why we are seeing a 26% overall increase in the skills budget across this Parliament. Other areas matter for levelling up—we have discussed the levelling-up funds—but all these measures add up to a strong performance on a difficult issue.
There are other areas of interest in the Budget, but let me highlight what I consider to be a risk: we are very exposed to changes in interest rates on our public borrowing. Yesterday, the Chancellor quantified that by saying that a 1% increase would lead to a £23 billion cost, so we are exposed, and we are greatly sensitised to change. That means two things: the pressure must be kept up to keep inflation down, and we must make every effort to reduce our borrowing. I thought the positive words from the Chancellor about fiscal conservatism at the end of his speech yesterday did that very well. The good management of our economy has meant that we will also meet the criteria for returning to spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid in 2024. I was very pleased to see that.
Overall, this Budget is positive. It is optimistic. It is a direct contrast to the messages from the Opposition parties, giving us their customary mixture of unfunded spending promises and, “Vote for us—the future’s gloomy”. That strategy has not worked for them, but they have not learned. This is about making our country better. The prospects are brighter. The Budget showed that in the data that the Chancellor highlighted, and it will only make the situation even better.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and a pleasant surprise to be called so early, Madam Deputy Speaker.
It appears that this Budget is more notable for what is not included than what is. In February last year, in reply to me at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister pledged that money would “be passported through” to Wales to deal with the unprecedented damage caused by flooding as a result of Storm Dennis. Despite the estimated cost of alleviation work across Wales, which is upwards of £150 million, the Government have been reluctant to engage meaningfully with the Welsh Government. Instead they have tried to brush it aside as a “devolved matter”, and there is no signal in the Budget that they are serious about dealing with the issue.
I am also deeply disappointed that despite calls from the Welsh Government in preparation for the Budget, the UK Government seem unwilling to work with them to resolve the remediation work required to make Wales coal tips safe. Last Thursday, I attended a service with families and local residents in my constituency to mark the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. I believe that there is no greater example of the failure to address coal tip safety.
It is simply unacceptable and breathtakingly arrogant for the Government and the Treasury to ignore the very real concerns on the issue. In Merthyr Tydfil alone, we have 59 tips in the most serious categories, D and C—a cause of concern to many residents. In Caerphilly county borough, too, there are far too many examples of blights on our communities from the legacy of an industry long gone.
The legacy of the coal tips predates devolution. The export of coal from the south Wales valleys and elsewhere helped to create the wealth that built this country, and indeed what was the British empire. Responsibility for the issue therefore transcends the devolution arrangements. Wales is affected disproportionately by the legacy of coal mining in the UK, but the existing devolution settlement and broader legal arrangements fail to recognise that.
The Welsh Labour Government have set in train a wide programme of work to improve the safety of coal tips in Wales, including by changing the law, but they cannot do it alone. They need the UK Government to share responsibility for the legacy of coal mining in the UK and provide a long-term funding settlement to make the tips safe and prevent another tragedy. However, the UK Government have so far refused to fund the long-term costs, washing their hands of their coalmining past and of their responsibility to clean up after their industrial past.
As I said, the Welsh Government have offered to work with the UK Government on the issue, so my question today for the Treasury is why it has not stepped up and stood by its responsibilities. The shadow Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), has raised the issue with the Secretary of State, but unsurprisingly she has received no response. The Government’s current stance is simply appalling.
Applications to the levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund were submitted in mid-June. Now, four and a half months later, approvals are being issued. I hope that grants from the community renewal fund will be out the door very soon, because they have to be spent by 31 March 2022—a totally unsatisfactory timescale. The failure to deal with initial applications in a timely fashion demonstrates that the Treasury simply does not have the capacity to deal with such a level of applications. How, then, will it be able to manage the levelling-up fund applications? It is clear that decisions about managing the funding should be devolved to the Welsh Government and to other nations and regions of the UK. The top-down approach from Whitehall simply will not work.
It would be good if the Government provided more clarity on the shared prosperity fund. The House has been waiting since 2018 for clarity on the fund, which is meant to match the significant EU structural funds that have been lost. Shared prosperity funding was meant to be in the region of £1.5 billion, to match EU funds, yet the figure in the Budget for next year is just £400 million.
If the Government are already struggling to manage the levelling-up fund, how can we believe that they will manage applications to the shared prosperity fund, let alone the project monitoring and evaluation that will inevitably be needed? The UK Government are keen to allocate funding through those funds in areas of the Welsh Government’s responsibility, but they will not fund areas that predate devolution, such as responsibility for coal tips.
The Government and the Chancellor have talked in recent weeks about strengthening the Union. I have some sympathy with that, but in my view they are going the wrong way about it. It is clear that HS2 primarily benefits England; as a north-south spinal scheme it will clearly benefit Scotland, too—much more than Wales. The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs recently recommended that Wales receive the same Barnett consequential share of HS2 as Scotland. Simply put, as a proportion of population, Scotland gets 91.7% of its share of the costs of HS2. If Wales got 91.7% of our 5% share of the total cost—let us call it £100 billion, for argument’s sake—we would get something in the region of £4.6 billion. I would be grateful if the Treasury outlined whether it is willing to consider the Welsh Affairs Committee’s recommendations.
The rising cost of fuel is crippling many families who were already struggling under this Government. Yesterday, Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the outlook for living standards is
“actually awful… High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade”.
In-work poverty has reached record levels under the Tories, with 2 million more people in working households living in poverty now than in 2010.
It is clear that the Government are out of touch with ordinary people across the UK. The Budget did not address the huge inequalities in our country. After taking £6 billion out of the pockets of some of the poorest people, the Government are expecting them to cheer for £2 billion in compensation. You really could not make it up.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
We are clearly in very difficult and unprecedented times. It is a therefore a huge challenge for any Government, of any political persuasion, to decide exactly how to deal with the economy. We do not have a crystal ball and we cannot foresee what will be. It has been difficult for the Treasury to take a decision to increase taxes, but that is what it has done. It is not something that I am in favour of—I believe that productivity and boosting business are not helped by increasing taxes—but, as I say, these are challenging and difficult times.
The key for me is that to the extent that we raise taxes, there must be a clear plan of action. I do not believe in money for money’s sake, which is why when the Government brought forward a plan to increase national insurance, I did not support it. It is not that I think that the health service and social care do not need the money; they absolutely do, but I want to see a specific plan, particularly for social care. I do not believe that social care can wait three years for an injection of cash, although I am pleased that this Budget includes a contribution in that direction. Overall, I think the measures are balanced in these difficult times. As a non-economist, I do not think I can advise how we might have done it better.
From my constituents’ perspective, much of what the Chancellor said yesterday is very positive. My constituency in the heart of Devon is very rural and heavily dependent on tourism, and wage levels are very low. Much of what the Chancellor announced will help tourism and help people on some of the lowest wages in the country. On balance, I think people in Newton Abbot, Teignmouth, Dawlish, Kingsteignton and the 30-plus villages and hamlets that I represent will see it as a win.
Business rates have always been the biggest issue that my local businesses bend my ear about. Other hon. Members have said that business rates need proper reform, and the case is well made; it needs to be a priority for the Chancellor and his team. Too many Governments have consulted and too few have actually acted, but I am pleased with the creativity that has been demonstrated, at least for the short term. The 50% business rate cut for leisure and tourism is extremely welcome, but I ask that it come sooner, not later, and that it be for more than a year. The multiplier being frozen is brilliant; it will make a huge difference overall, along with the revaluation changes.
It is no surprise that my wonderful area has lots of village pubs, and indeed some vineyards. Much of what we have, including the small producer relief, will therefore be very welcome. Ashcombe, as it crushes its apples, will be absolutely delighted, and as the tax on English sparkling wine falls, the vineyard in Bishopsteignton will be smiling. As for draught relief, goodness me! It is great for the pubs, but it is also great for the village community, where the pub is at the heart of it all.
It may not surprise the House to learn that my constituency area is also a great centre of culture. I am sure that the tax relief extensions for museums and galleries will be welcomed by Newton Abbot Museum, among others, and the Teignmouth theatre will definitely enjoy the double tax relief for orchestras, theatres and museums.
Of course, at the heart of any community are its families, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) and her diligent work to persuade the Government to consider more support for the very young at the very start of life, which is an extremely challenging time for parents. The start for life programme is one of the best things to come out of the Budget. The new network of family hubs is welcome, as is increased funding to allow more childcare provision and more training for those who provide childcare. I have always felt passionate about the supported families programme; funding for it has ebbed and flowed over the years, so I am pleased that this year there will be more.
Support for young people does not stop there; it goes on at schools, where the rise in the pupil premium is welcome, and the tripling of special educational needs places is a particular benefit. May I suggest, however, that we not only provide money and create places, but consider how to use them better? I have a wonderful SEN institution in Dawlish, Orchard Manor School, which currently has places unfilled because of all the challenges, debates and arguments about who should take up those places within Devon County Council. That cannot be right.
The catch-up fund is fabulous news, but one of the comments I heard from my local schools was that while the money is very welcome, the fact that there are so many constraints on how it can be used is not so welcome. The support for lifelong learning, with a 26% increase in skills spending, is also fabulous, but could we focus not just on colleges but on sixth forms? A number of headteachers have told me that funding for sixth forms, as opposed to colleges, has been going down rather than up, so I hope that some of the funding will be going in their direction. Of course I welcome the news of more T-levels, more traineeships and more apprenticeships, but can we have more degree-level apprenticeships? At present, there are too many aspiring young people coming out the grammar schools just outside my constituency who leave, because there is no opportunity to do more.
The rise in the national living wage is particularly good news for working people in my constituency who are on very low wages, and the reduction in the universal credit taper rate is very welcome. Of course, in rural areas people have to travel to work, so reducing their burden by freezing fuel duty and providing more money for roads and dealing with potholes, as well as more money for buses, is absolutely what rural constituencies need. In addition, there is to be a proper public sector pay review.
It is good that there is £150 billion more, before 2024, for the public services that have served us so well during the pandemic, but local government has borne much of the brunt. The £1.6 billion is very welcome, but can we ensure that it is given flexibly, so that local authorities can use it in the way that best meets local need rather than simply being told, “This must be spent in this way by centrally produced providers”? As for housing, I was pleased to receive a letter yesterday saying that my constituents would be given a piece of the brownfield land release fund.
I look forward to working with the Government, Devon County Council, Teignbridge District Council and the community, and discussing how we can increase productivity and improve the quality of life across Teignbridge.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris).
Today my husband Ray would have been 75, and he would have been glued to the Parliament channel, not only looking out for me on the green Benches—hopefully —but, more importantly, following the Budget debate and scrutinising the Chancellor’s announcements, because as cabinet member for finance on North Tyneside Council, he would have wanted to work out just what the Budget meant for our borough and the people of his Camperdown ward. I know that his successor, cabinet member Councillor Martin Rankin, will be doing just the same.
Having missed out on freeport status in March, I hoped to hear of some direct benefit for our green industries and other businesses on the Tyne in the Chancellor’s statement, but once again it seems that for some—known—reason, Teesside has the Chancellor’s favour. The Chancellor can be sure that I will keep banging on his door and those of his Cabinet colleagues asking for help for the Tyne’s industries to compete on a fair playing field, nationally and internationally, until we get what we need.
I congratulate those involved in the North East Homeless hub and the Whitley Bay Big Local community building, which have been granted £300,000 each from the community ownership fund. The North East chamber of commerce has commented that the Budget contains some welcome announcement for businesses in the north-east, but
“substantial longer-term strategies like the levelling up White Paper, the integrated rail plan and details on how the Shared Prosperity Fund will work, have yet to see the light of day. Without these plans it is difficult to judge how much of a long-term impact the levelling up agenda will have on our economy”.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It has taken me a while to dig out the quotation with which I wanted to intervene when my hon. Friend mentioned freeports. Bristol’s freeport bid was also rejected. According to the OBR’s document, published yesterday, the primary function of freeports is
“to alter the location rather than the volume of economic activity. So the costs have been estimated on the basis of activity being displaced from elsewhere.”
That feeds into our biggest concern about freeports—that they do not boost economic growth and performance overall. It is just a case of taking those from one area to another, and it means that areas like ours will miss out even more.
Mary Glindon
My hon. Friend is exactly right. That was one of the biggest fears about freeports, and it is why we so desperately needed them to be close to each other.
With inflation set to rise, taxes being increased and the cost of living soaring, there is little comfort for my constituents, especially those on the lowest incomes, who are worried about how they will manage their own budgets. Moreover, there is no certainty about what the public sector pay rise will mean in real terms. It was very worrying to learn that, this very morning, the Northumbria police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, resigned from her national role negotiating pay deals for police staff in response to what she has described as the grossly unfair pay offer made to police staff and officers. She has said that if Ministers will not stand by our workers, there is no point in negotiating with this Government.
Unions across the public sector agree that the Chancellor must allocate extra money to Government Departments to fund pay rises. He must put his money where his mouth is. Data shows that real wages have fallen in every region in England over the last 10 years, by more than £23 per week on average. When we add to that the fact that more than 11,000 households in North Tyneside claimed universal credit and more than 4,700 of them were working people, only a third of whom will benefit from the taper rate, things are looking very bleak for many of my constituents.
North Tyneside Council has suffered Government funding cuts amounting to £127 million since 2011. When my Ray delivered his budget speech to the full council in February this year, he announced that the Labour Cabinet under Norma Redfearn, our elected Labour Mayor, had worked to fill the £6.3 million gap in funding and protect services, including the council’s poverty intervention fund, which has been a lifeline for many people during the pandemic. No doubt there will be many calls on the fund in the coming months.
However, the Local Government Association has pointed out that among the announcements for councils, the spending review makes no mention of whether local government will receive a three-year financial settlement, or whether and when local government reforms will be implemented. In recent years, settlements have been published in draft form very late in December, after the stated target date of 5 December. The LGA rightly says that this target should be met and that councils should receive early certainty with a three-year local government settlement.
Whether it is in public services, local government, household budgets, the environment or business support, there remain so many ifs and buts in this Budget that I am afraid we may need heavenly help if we are to get anything worth while or concrete from our Chancellor.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon). I am sure that her late husband would have been pleased to see her banging the drum for her constituency.
I want to speak in this debate because I want to make two points: the first is about levelling up; the second is about the impact of the spending review on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget. First, however, it would be appropriate to reference my own constituency, which, outwith the highlands of Scotland, is the largest constituency in the United Kingdom. It is therefore extremely welcome news that fuel duty is to remain frozen, especially just now when family budgets are already under so much pressure. Over the past 12 years, since the freeze on fuel duty was introduced, I have argued for its extension. It currently saves the average driver £10 every time they fill up, compared with how the escalator would have operated. In a rural area, fuel costs are always higher, so the further freeze announced by the Chancellor will be welcomed across my constituency.
The Chancellor’s announcement of a £150 million fund to help thousands of small and medium-sized Scottish firms to recover from the pandemic is also good news. The UK Government’s furlough scheme helped to save hundreds of thousands of jobs during the pandemic, and this fund will now help small businesses in Scotland to grow back even stronger. I hope to see it benefit companies across my constituency when the full details are announced.
It is particularly welcome that, through the Barnett formula, the block grant to help support public services in Scotland is to increase by £4.6 billion. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), this is not welcome. We know that, however much money there might have been in that Barnett increase, it would never have been enough for the Scottish Government. Some grievance would always have been manufactured, however the funds were deployed. On this occasion, however, I want to express my own grievance, and it is about the way in which the Scottish Government allocate funds within Scotland. The south of Scotland is systematically starved of resources, and my constituents feel that, because we are not a nationalist-supporting area, we do not see resources coming into the south of Scotland.
Jamie Stone
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem affects a slightly wider area than just the south of Scotland, and that the very remote areas of the highlands have the same problem as he does?
David Mundell
Indeed. The very northernmost part of Scotland is well represented by his good self, and the hon. Gentleman does not sit on the SNP Benches.
Alison Thewliss
The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. I wonder whether he has spoken to his colleague, the Secretary of State for Scotland, because I understand that the Boris bridge would have left from Stranraer in his constituency, and there will now be a loss to that constituency. Perhaps the Secretary of State could speak to the UK Government and ask for the £20 billion from the imaginary bridge to come back to his constituency.
David Mundell
Madam Deputy Speaker, it will not surprise you to learn that, when a fixed link from Scotland to Northern Ireland was proposed, SNP Members opposed it. They were absolutely and completely opposed to it. Now that it is confirmed that it is not going ahead, they are demanding the money instead. That is just so typical of their approach.
I want to see some of this £4.6 billion coming to the south of Scotland. Many important projects that are within the responsibilities of the Scottish Government could be carried out there. We do not have levelling up in Scotland. Instead, we have areas that are deprived of resources, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) has pointed out, and that continues to be so.
In relation to levelling up, I want to make what I regard as an important point to the Treasury, and I hope that it and other parts of the Government will take it on board. I welcome the levelling up funding and the approach of the shared prosperity fund and the community regeneration fund, but we have to acknowledge that smaller and rural local authorities and organisations operating in those areas are not always fully resourced to put in bids of the calibre that the Treasury and others are looking for. It is important, if we are going to proceed on this basis and achieve levelling up, that we do not allow only those who are the most professional at putting in bids and ticking the boxes in central Government to succeed. If levelling up and the shared prosperity agenda are to achieve what is being sought for them, we have to support rural and smaller local authorities and others in putting forward those bids. In that regard, I hope that the system can be changed.
I raise my second point in my capacity as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nutrition for growth. Along with Lord Collins, the co-chair, and Congressman Jim McGovern, the chair of the House hunger caucus in the House of Representatives in the United States, I am writing to the Prime Minister and the President ahead of the Tokyo summit on nutrition for growth to ask the United Kingdom and the United States to come together and demonstrate world leadership in taking forward the nutrition agenda.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, particularly in relation to nutrition and the way those issues affect the developing world. Lord Collins has worked on global health, and particularly on malaria and other neglected tropical diseases. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that these are the key issues that we need to keep on the agenda? We welcome the announcement that there will be more money for this in two or three years’ time, but we must not lose the momentum that has been gained as a result of the historic role that the UK has played in that arena.
David Mundell
On this occasion, I am able to agree fully with the hon. Lady. I particularly commend the work of Lord Collins, who has kept these issues on the agenda in the other place.
The covid pandemic has unfortunately led to an increase in malnutrition, and hundreds of thousands—indeed, millions—more children are being affected by that. There is an opportunity to do something about it at the summit, which will take place in Tokyo after a year’s delay. I hope that the United Kingdom will be there at the highest level and make it absolutely clear that, along with the United States, we are renewing our commitments to nutrition. The spending review, on my reading of it, would allow us to do so, and I hope that that opportunity will be taken.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
It would be churlish of me not to refer to the good work of the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on nutrition for growth. The House will not be surprised to learn that I did not agree with some of his other comments, however.
I would describe the Chancellor’s Budget statement as failing real people, especially those with disabilities. Likewise, after the past 18 months, my constituents in Motherwell and Wishaw, and indeed people across Scotland, have very little to celebrate. An increase in the living wage is welcome, but it will be denied to workers under the age of 23. An hour’s work is an hour’s work, regardless of the age of the person doing it. In the main, living costs do not differ by age. The Tory party claims to be the party of opportunities, but it is denying those under 23 the opportunity to earn a dignified wage.
Pensioners who have worked hard all their lives have been denied a triple lock on their pension. Pensioner poverty has recently risen to a 15-year high of 18%, meaning that around 2.1 million pensioners across the UK are now living in poverty. They have been utterly let down by the UK Government. The state pension is the primary source of income for most pensioners, and they will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find another source of income.
Reducing the taper on universal credit is welcome, but it does not come close to balancing the cut of the £20 universal credit uplift or the onslaught of rising costs of living. Hard-working families have been an afterthought in this Budget. It looks like a long, hard winter for so many people, who must now choose between heating and eating.
The Chancellor was also silent on introducing viable statutory sick pay for all. The UK has one of the lowest sick pay rates in the OECD. The current rate of £96.35 a week is wholly inadequate, and one in five workers is not even eligible. The TUC estimates that more than 2 million low-paid workers are excluded because they do not earn enough to qualify. This is another hit for those in insecure work and will disproportionately affect people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
The SNP has repeatedly called on the UK Government to increase SSP in line with the real living wage, to make it available to everyone by removing the requirement to be a qualified worker and the earnings requirement, and to extend it to 52 weeks from 28 weeks. This is another missed opportunity where, yet again, the UK Government have let down sick and disabled people. After a global pandemic in which the health and livelihoods of the entire country were at risk, it is unforgivable for sick pay to remain so low.
Disabled people have been especially let down. According to the Disability Benefits Consortium, the financial situation of 78% of disabled claimants has worsened since the start of the pandemic. More than half said this was partly due to the increased cost of living, from rising utility bills to the cost of food shopping. This Budget does absolutely nothing to address those issues.
Inflation is set to rise—Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s new chief economist, thinks it might hit 5%—which will only increase the misery for millions. The Resolution Foundation has found that four in 10 households on universal credit in the UK face a 13% rise in energy costs in the same month that their income is cut by £20 a week. Experts warn this will push an extra 150,000 Scots into fuel poverty.
It is beyond belief that the Chancellor did not introduce an emergency energy payment to help those struggling to pay their energy bills. He has failed to tackle the cost of living crisis in order to give a tax cut to bankers that is paid for by slashing universal credit, ending furlough and keeping poverty-inducing policies that push people into further hardship.
We have a steelworks in my constituency of Motherwell and Wishaw. We are a proud steel town, and we have been let down by the Chancellor. There is no mention of help for energy-intensive industries in this Budget. In my more than six years in this place, Tory UK Governments have dragged their feet and still have no discernible plan for steel.
The Chancellor had a real chance to vastly improve the lives of the most vulnerable, but instead he has acted true to type by reducing tax on prosecco and cutting the levy paid by banks. Those experiencing in-work poverty and earning poverty wages will not be cheering the Budget as the £20 a week cut to universal credit bites but, with the duty and levy cuts, bankers quaffing champagne and prosecco on planes will certainly be cheering. The Poverty Alliance said:
“We want to see the benefits of the economic recovery from Covid-19 going to everyone, and unfortunately this budget just doesn’t do that.”
It is apparent now more than ever that the only way for Scotland to have a Government and a Chancellor who can meet the needs of Scotland’s people is through independence. At election after election and Budget after Budget, Scotland is being denied the Government that it votes for. Whether it be a dignified wage for young workers making their start in life, reasonable energy bills for working families who do not want to choose between heating and eating, or elderly pensioners who want to enjoy their retirement with the peace of mind that their pension is triple locked, these basic necessities are available in so many other countries but Tory Governments in the UK continue to deny them. I am truly convinced that, sooner or later, the people of Scotland will have their say and will vote to determine their own future.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
What an honour it is to speak in this debate, and what a fantastic Budget, too. I am a locally focused MP, and the Budget will help constituents in Don Valley and across Doncaster. In particular, businesses across the borough will be relieved following the announcement of the 50% business rates cut, with the cut totalling £7 billion.
Equally, the additional money for the Best Start in Life programme that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) has championed and the increased support for family hubs, for which I have campaigned throughout my time as an MP, will do a great deal of good in helping families in Don Valley and across the north of England.
There is much to celebrate in this Budget, not least the fact that Doncaster has been successful in securing money from round 1 of the levelling-up fund, which, hopefully, will open a gateway to more private investment in this great historic town and soon coincide with a new hospital being built in Doncaster. I apologise to no one for mentioning the hospital.
Despite everything that has occurred since March 2020, the Government have continued to invest in our people and businesses, which is what I am most pleased about. During my many hours of research ahead of my Westminster Hall debate on artificial intelligence last week, the importance of funding for research and development and for innovation projects was brought up time and again by policy papers and stakeholders.
I firmly believe we can award ourselves the title of “Great Britain” because we continue to punch well above our weight, and this Budget will help us to continue to do so. After all, even before the Chancellor’s statement, the UK ranked third in the world for artificial intelligence investment. As the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), told me last week, this is not a baton we should drop. I look forward to welcoming him and his Treasury colleagues to Doncaster to show them the fantastic artificial intelligence investment opportunities in my borough.
The Chancellor’s statement means we will increase research and development spending to £22 billion by 2026, with a considerable amount of that funding going to support priorities such as a national science and technology council and artificial intelligence. This ambitious spending commitment, coupled with the additional money for families, schools and further education, will undoubtedly give young people across the country the skills and tools they need to help ignite the new green industrial revolution, about which this Government are so passionate.
It is clear that this Budget puts the levelling-up agenda at the heart of decision making. No longer can levelling up be accused of being a mere slogan. Instead, thanks to the £22 billion of R&D investment, industries will be created directly out of the net zero fund, the future fund and the R&D tax credits regime, to name just a few. This will ensure quality jobs are provided to people across the country, not just down in the south-east. As much as I want Oxford, Cambridge and London, the so-called golden triangle, to continue to succeed and be a beacon of innovation, it is time for a new golden triangle in the north that connects not just our great northern cities but our ambitious northern towns, such as Doncaster, to opportunity and investment. With the multifaceted packages of support provided to businesses, communities and educational institutions yesterday, the creation of a northern powerhouse is a real possibility.
The only way that a person can grow is through everyone around them sharing knowledge. Companies can grow by sharing knowledge, and the only way that a country can grow is by doing the same. Consequently, I shall carefully follow the research and development projects that continue to engage with businesses in places such as Doncaster and Sheffield. There are already fantastic processes that can be built on. For instance, Sheffield has made a great start in utilising R&D projects, and the University of Sheffield’s advanced manufacturing research centre is now home to the biggest names in the industry, including Rolls-Royce, Boeing, McLaren and many others. I thank Steve Foxley and Simon Collingwood from AMRC for their continued support for my mission to get children and young people in Doncaster an AMRC in their town. These two individuals share my dream, and good business sense, that our future lies in our children’s hands and that, with strong local educational institutions, they can help to do great things.
As much as I am, as a result of the Budget, excited about our future, I am concerned about the future impact of AI, as it will be a revolution like we have never seen before. We cannot stop it—and neither should we want to—so we must embrace it. That will involve using R&D funds wisely and involving individuals from all aspects of society. In other words, the R&D investment mentioned in the Budget concerns not only the young but those aged 40-plus, so let me speak directly to that demographic.
They say that life begins at 40 and, having come to this place at 47 years of age, I can certainly attest to that. If I can start my new career at 47, we should be able to help constituents in their 40s to retrain, skill up and start a new career, too. If individuals at this age are happy doing what they are doing, that is great, but if furlough has got them thinking that they can live on less, or that they have nothing more to offer, we should encourage them to think again. Perhaps they do not have the right skills or, as the Chancellor rightly pointed out yesterday, sufficient numerical skills, yet it would be a travesty to give up on people who are only halfway through their lives. I was therefore delighted that the Budget confirmed continued support for the lifetime skills guarantee, along with the new £500 million Multiply programme. From meeting community groups in Don Valley, I know that the programme will ensure that individuals can get the support they need to improve their livelihoods and better look after their families. If that is not levelling up, I do not know what is.
Before I finish, let me express my gratitude to all the businesses out there—from the white van man to the entrepreneur; from the young people setting up a start-up to the loyal employee of a private enterprise; from the chief executive who is sweating about his next board meeting, to the salesman who has just lost or won their latest order. This is not some cheap talk from a politician: I know what it is like. I have been there: no days off; sleepless nights worrying about getting paid; fretting about being able to pay staff; the thought of reading that tax bill. I know that literally thousands of people have those thoughts on a regular basis, and they are members of our business community. We must not forget them, and neither must we forget to thank them for all the work they are doing to prop up this great country and help to fund the services that we hold so dear.
I certainly do not forget, so I end by thanking businesses throughout the UK, not least in Doncaster, for staying strong during this incredibly difficult time. After all, we rightly clap for our NHS, yet there would be no NHS without businesses. I and my colleagues here would not get paid without businesses. In fact, the entire Budget would not be possible without businesses. So, tonight, I shall clap for every business, and for as long as I am here I shall remind those on the Front Bench at every Budget to remember what businesses enable Governments to do for the benefit of everyone in our country.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I am in the same place as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband): we do not know what planet the Chancellor is living on. But we do know that he urgently needs to get back in touch with reality. In yesterday’s Budget, he kept referring to the biggest investment changes in a decade and spoke of an “age of optimism”; I remind him that the only reason his investments look even remotely positive is that the past decade was defined by the devastating cuts and under-investment from Conservative Governments who have driven public services into the ground. Even if he was talking about new money, particularly for public services, it would replace only a fraction of the huge cuts over the past 11 years.
The truth is that this Budget is an underwhelming and uninspired response to the anxiety inducing cost-of-living crisis that our constituents face. Tax cuts for champagne and domestic flights will not go far to offset the difficulties of the long hard winter ahead. Over the next five years, real household disposable income is expected to grow by only 0.8% per year—far below the historical average. It is worth repeating what Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, said:
“This is actually awful. Yet more years of real incomes barely growing. High inflation, rising taxes, poor growth keeping living standards virtually stagnant for another half a decade”.
The rising cost of living is biting hard in my constituency and the Budget does nothing for those hit the hardest. Figures published yesterday by the financial management company Aryza showed that the average personal debt in Teesside stands at £19,345—the second highest average in England—yet a recent report from the North East Child Poverty Commission revealed that in the north-east, spending to support people in financial crisis fell by 78% in the decade from 2010 to 2020, and the number of local welfare assistance awards made in the region fell from more than 16,000 to just over 12,000.
I have seen local Conservatives spin the Budget as one that is good for the Tees valley, but that simply is not true. Once again, the Tees freeport has been trumpeted, but the actual forecasted benefits are extremely limited. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned, the OBR’s October fiscal outlook notes that
“given historical and international evidence, we have assumed that the main effect of the freeports will be to alter the location rather than the volume of economic activity, so the costs have been estimated on the basis of activity being displaced from elsewhere.”
We have been promised tens of thousands of jobs, but now it appears that the Government’s own Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that that is nonsense.
Kerry McCarthy
That point about freeports ties in with the Government’s approach, which seems to me to be that they want announcements that get them photo opportunities and good press releases, and the MP who managed to get the freeport can then put that on their leaflets. But freeports contribute nothing at all to the overall picture; they just take from one area and give to another, which is no way to run the economy and to try to stimulate economic growth. We need a strategy by which everyone is helped to level up.
Alex Cunningham
My hon. Friend is totally correct: the Government rely on picture opportunities and short slogans to run our country. That is not the way forward.
We have had promises of jobs in the future that simply do not materialise. We do not want other people’s jobs: we want real, new jobs, not recycled ones. If it was all as grand at the Tories tell us, we would not still have around 10,000 more people unemployed across the Tees valley than there were in March 2020 and an unemployment rate 50% higher than the national average.
There was some good news in the Budget for the Stockton borough, but for me it was tarnished. I would not deny leafy Eaglescliffe and Yarm their success in being awarded levelling-up funding, but it was disappointing to see Billingham miss out once again, especially as it is in much greater need of levelling up. It just goes to show that the Tories like to talk a good game on levelling up—it is further proof that it is just an empty slogan.
As was mentioned earlier, the Budget contained nothing to address the high costs for energy-intensive industries, even though just weeks ago the country was on the brink of being plunged into a CO2 supply crisis when CF Fertilisers in my constituency had to cease ammonia production because it was not economical. Energy-intensive industries, like many in my constituency, face a triple whammy of unsustainable costs. The sectors have been left reeling by the combination of sky-high gas, electricity and carbon prices that is damaging their ability to compete in international markets and risks domestic supply chains. While I, of course, welcome the announcement that a deal between CF and its CO2 customers will see production at its Billingham plant continue until January of next year at least, industries such as these need longer-term support, including urgent reforms to the short-haul gas tariffs and progress at pace on carbon capture, use and storage.
There was not much at all on energy in the Budget. Companies such as Kellas in my constituency, which I visited a couple of weeks ago, would have hoped for clarity on hydrogen production and the potential balance between blue, green and pink varieties.
Once again, we saw nothing of the support that we need to tackle the health inequalities in my area. Stockton-on-Tees is often used as a case study to highlight health inequalities in the UK. Men who live in the town centre ward are expected to live 18 years fewer than their peers just a couple of miles down the road. In every Budget speech that I have made for the past 11 years, I have called on the Government to fund the new hospital that Stockton desperately needs. I am, however, pleased that my neighbour, the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), seems to have joined my campaign around North Tees Hospital and has secured today’s Adjournment debate to talk about that very topic. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister later on today. I have also tried to enlist support for a new hospital from other north-of-Tees MPs, and I sincerely hope that they will lend their voices to the campaign, which would benefit all of our constituents hugely. They will have found it just as galling as I do that just a fraction of the billions of pounds wasted on a failing test and trace system could have built us a new hospital.
This Government have not spent public money wisely, and they cannot be trusted with the public purse. The Tees Valley needs systematic and long-term investment that is controlled at a local level by local people and local councils, that will make sure that families have enough to live on, and that will free our children from poverty. We also need a plan that will stop firms such as Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company and local steel firms going bust. We need to save and retain existing jobs as we await the promises of the future to be fulfilled. Once again, the Tories have failed to deliver anything like that. The Chancellor’s small-fry solutions will do little to help working families in our areas who are facing hikes in their Bills and lower take-home pay as we head into that long, hard winter.
Yesterday, the Chancellor said that it was a tall order to complete the spending review, and that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) was just the man for the job. Sadly, he and the Chancellor have given the people of my constituency and the entire country short shrift.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and to hear his observations on the Budget for his constituents.
If I may, I will summarise what I believe are the views of my constituents in North East Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire is probably able to speak for much of the country. My first observation is that this was a fair Budget. In very difficult times, there was a tremendous risk that the Budget could be mispositioned, misplaced, or perhaps focus on the wrong priorities. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor demonstrated a fairness in his Budget and that, I think, would be reflected in the views of my constituents. They would also say that it was a very thoughtful Budget. Although I have not done a survey—I know that others have—I am reassured in my thoughts that the Budget was fair and thoughtful, because the latest opinion poll shows that the majority of voters think that, too. Indeed, a majority of Labour voters approved of the Budget as well.
Some measures were very relevant to my constituency. There is a great interest, for example, in support for buses, and rural bus services in particular. This is especially true in Stockfold and Arlesey, and the additional funds will be welcome. There is a great interest in and support for active travel networks—for cycling and walkways—particularly in the new developments between Sandy and Potton and Biggleswade, and for additional resources for special educational needs provision. There is a lack of SEN provision in my constituency and I look forward to working with Central Bedfordshire Council on a proposal so that we might benefit from that additional funding.
On balance, my constituents would also say that taxes are too high and that they need to come down. Looking at the Budget report, it was interesting to see what this Government are doing. Some reports say that there has been some largesse in spending, but if we look at the period of spending from the 2020-21 out-turn to 2024-25, we see that, in real terms, current expenditure is pretty flat. It is into the investment side of public services where this Government are putting additional resources. Before the pandemic, public expenditure as a percentage of our overall economy stood at 39.8%.Yes, it has grown now to what I would suggest is an unsustainable 53.1% of the economy in 2020-21, but by 2024-25, it will go back down to 41.9%. We will be on the right trajectory to get back to where we were before the pandemic, but with an emphasis on investment rather than current expenditure. Those are worthy points to make and support the fact that taxes will come down, as the Chancellor has said.
Every Budget must be presented within the context of what is going on, and none more so than this one. We are coming through the covid period and through the Brexit transition. Even today, a French Minister has said that the only thing the British understand is force. That is unwelcome language. We do not want to have opposition from France or from any other member of the EU, but there will be issues about the Brexit transition that will affect the economy. We have spoken a lot today about climate change, but not so much about the changing relationship with China and what that does to supply chains. The other contextual factor is the OBR forecast itself. It is ambitious in its forward growth projections in the near term. All of those issues provide the context for the Budget.
What we should really focus on is the purpose of the Budget. One of the great advantages of being given the honour to return to Parliament as the representative of North East Bedfordshire was to support our Prime Minister in setting our country’s strategy post our departure from the European Union. That, ultimately, is the purpose of this Budget; it is to marshal the talents and the resources of our people to create a successful, global Britain on this new international basis. This Administration under this Prime Minister have the opportunity to become one of the great reforming Administrations of our country. The purpose of this Budget is to provide the confidence to investors, to the public and to the Government themselves that they can take those major steps to ensure the long-term strategic success of our country in that new direction. I think that it does that very well indeed in very difficult times.
It is important though that we cast a critical eye over some aspects that have the potential to knock the country off course. The first is on capital markets. The Bank of England has indicated that it has intentions to stop repurchasing and quantitative easing when interest rates hit 0.5% and then potentially to start restricting the money supply by making additional repurchasing if interest rates hit 1%. That could have a significant impact on the cost of Government borrowing, which is why the Government are right in this Budget to chart a downward course.
On labour markets, we should remember that the United Kingdom with its flexibility has one of the best labour markets in the world, in large part due to reforms undertaken by Conservative Administrations, but the Government must make sure that they achieve their increases in productivity targets.
We should also cast a critical eye over public sector efficiency, particularly in relation to health. If I could say also to the Minister that a further critical eye should be cast over the accounting of public sector pensions, which has been the subject of many questions. We went through tremendous changes in public sector pensions a decade ago, but as the Institute of Economic Affairs paper pointed out just last week, there is much ambivalence and discretion over the way in which the Government are currently accounting for public sector pension costs. The estimated under-reported cost is of the order of £57 billion. That is not a slight accounting error, but a very major difference in costs, which is caused by the way that the Government sort out how they account for public sector pensions. It is worth their looking at that seriously and it is worth consideration by the Treasury; I hope that they will look into it.
Let me close on three points. First, as the Chancellor said, the Conservative party has demonstrated that it is the party of public services, although I would say that that is demonstrated not by how much is spent, but by the quality and efficiency of the services delivered to the public.
Secondly, the Conservatives are the party of low taxes. That must mean that the Chancellor will fulfil his promise—I believe he will—to reduce taxes, because taxes are too high and an unsustainable burden on enterprise. However, we all have to recognise that any tax reductions in this Parliament will mean that choices will have to be made, and they should be focused on improving the efficiency and enterprising part of the economy.
Thirdly, the Conservative party is the party of work. As I listened to Opposition Members, I reflected on the questionable negativity of the Opposition to many of the measures that have dramatically changed the importance of work in this country over the last decade. It was the Conservatives who introduced the living wage. It was the Conservative party and the coalition that did so much to increase the personal tax allowance. It was the Conservative party and the coalition that did so much to reform the benefits system that was a restriction on people’s willingness to work. It was the Conservative party that introduced the universal credit system. And it is this Budget that has introduced the taper relief at the original level that was set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith).
All those points indicate that this was—as I think the people of North East Bedfordshire believe—a fair, thoughtful and reasonable Budget.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
It is right that we view this week’s Budget in two contexts: that of the pandemic, which is still very much with us, given the high case rates across the UK; and that of the political decisions that have been made by this Government over the past 19 months.
Time and again, the political choices that have been made by the Conservative party have been economically and morally adrift. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) rightly said yesterday,
“we have a Government who are a byword for waste, cronyism and vanity projects.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 290.]
We should not forget that it was this Government who awarded hundreds of millions of pounds in personal protective equipment contracts to a pest control firm and to a Florida jewellery firm that had no experience of public contracts, as well as £150 million to a company that produced 50 million face masks that the NHS could not use over safety fears.
All too often, the decisions were made before financial and company due diligence was applied. Seventy-one contracts, with a total value of £1.5 billion, were awarded to suppliers before the financial and company due diligence processes were completed. Some £2 billion of contracts were awarded to businesses with direct links to friends or donors of the Tory party. The Public Accounts Committee highlighted this yesterday in its report on Test and Trace, which showed that £37 billion was spent. It said that “eye watering…sums” of taxpayers’ money were spent that failed to achieve the ambition of the project. That is the context of this Budget. That taxpayers’ money could have been spend much more wisely elsewhere. The Government would have done well to have looked at the Welsh Government’s actions in the pandemic for a good demonstration of political choices, under the sensible, steady and evidence-based leadership of Mark Drakeford.
My constituents have not been shielded from the Tory Government’s cut to universal credit this month; 8,630 households in Newport East have lost out as a result of the Government’s decision to remove the £20 uplift, which has made such a difference during the pandemic. The cut, coupled with the rise in national insurance, which will disproportionately impact those on the lowest incomes, falls in the middle of a cost of living crisis that this Budget does so little to address. The reduction in the taper rate is modest, and the Resolution Foundation highlights that about 75% of the 4.4 million households on universal credit will still be worse off as a result of decisions to take away the £20 a week uplift. This is made worse by the fact that the prices of so many everyday essentials, from food and fuel to gas and electric bills, have skyrocketed. No support was announced in the Budget for soaring household energy bills—and 3p off a pint in two years’ time may be welcome, but it is no help for families today.
I very much praise the work of Newport and Monmouthshire citizens advice, which has highlighted that the country faces a perfect storm of household debt, with an estimated 2 million households across the country already behind on paying their energy bills. This Budget presented the Government with an opportunity to take action on the issue. Indeed, the Opposition called on Ministers over recent months to remove VAT from domestic gas and electricity bills—a policy that I know some Government Members would have supported—but that was rejected.
On the theme of missed opportunities, with COP26 beginning on Sunday, there was little in the Budget to suggest that the Government are willing to invest in tackling the climate crisis. Climate action must start at home, and Britain’s credibility as holders of the COP presidency rests on the example that we set. There was little in the Chancellor’s speech to suggest that the Government will invest in delivering the benefits of the green transition to households and to industry, and certainly nothing to match Labour’s ambitions and the achievable demand for an investment of £28 billion every year until 2030 to tackle the climate crisis.
Crucially, as other hon. Members have said, there was nothing in the Budget this week for steel, an industry that would be a beneficiary of and contributor to the creation of a net zero economy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) set out that case brilliantly. Steel should be at the heart of the green recovery from the pandemic, and I say that as the Member representing Tata’s Llanwern site and Liberty Steel in Newport. UK Steel has rightly said that this Budget is a “triumph of complacency” and “a missed opportunity” ahead of COP26. Indeed, in the Chancellor’s statement, there was no hint of action on the sky-high industrial energy costs.
We heard a hugely weak response from the Secretary of State earlier in the debate that will deeply disappoint the industry, when he said that he is “in active conversations” and “watch this space”. We have been talking about this for many years. It is a really big burden on our industry that holds back British steel manufacturers against continental competitors. There was also no allocation of funding to the clean steel fund or wider decarbonisation support for the sector. The steel industry has highlighted that, of the 10 points in the Prime Minister’s plan for the green industrial revolution, eight relate to industries or goods that depend on steel or support the decarbonisation of steel. Either the Chancellor has forgotten that or the Government’s industrial strategy was not worth the paper that it was written on in the first place.
The Prime Minister has said:
“It would be crazy if we were not to use this post-Brexit moment to use the flexibility we have to buy British steel.”
It is one of the very few times that I can kind of agree with him. But this Budget was not the vote of confidence in our industry that it needs and deserves. That will need to come, especially if the Government are serious about converting their rhetoric around levelling up into action for an industry that is so well placed to be at the heart of that agenda. The fact that the UK currently imports 60% of the steel that it requires remains an environmental and economic own goal. We have a highly skilled and passionate steel workforce here in the UK, including in Newport East, who are ready to play their part in a green industrial revolution if the Government will just let them.
Yesterday, the Government boasted of recruiting new or extra police officers, but, as the chair of the Police Federation has highlighted, the new recruits, while welcome—I very much welcome those joining Gwent police—are only a partial replacement for the 21,000 officers and thousands of police staff lost over the last decade. Forces such as Gwent, which faced a 40% cut to its budget from 2010 to 2020, deserve a fairer funding settlement from the Government to deal with the many challenges they face, from rising antisocial behaviour in our communities to new and emerging forms of organised, violent and cyber-crime. From speaking to constituents, councillors and local community groups in Newport East, I know that tackling crime is a pressing priority for them. They want our police to be properly resourced to protect us. Sadly, there was nothing in the Chancellor’s statement to suggest that the Government are serious about giving the police the support that they need and deserve.
On public sector pay, as Unison has pointed out, there is no guarantee that it will rise above inflation. Wage rises below the cost of living, when taxes are going up and universal credit is cut, are, in effect, a pay cut.
Finally, of the 10 Welsh projects earmarked to benefit from the first tranche of levelling-up funding, half fall within marginal Conservative-held seats, although I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on her allocation. There are just three beneficiaries in south Wales and none in the entire Gwent region, which means that the excellent cross-party bid for the regeneration of the leisure centre and town centre in Caldicot in my constituency apparently fell on deaf ears, which is disappointing. The Chancellor talked about beer barrel politics yesterday but this actually seems to be a classic case of pork barrel politics from the Treasury.
On that theme, yesterday the Government announced Restoring Your Railway funding for a bidder from north Wales. I ask that the Government now make progress on other bids in the Restoring Your Railway funding pipeline, including the excellent application for a walkway station for Magor in my constituency, which has enormous local support in the community and would bring economic and environmental benefits to the area. I look forward to pursuing this yet again with Ministers in the light of yesterday’s announcement for north Wales.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) was quite right to say that this Budget was underwhelming and uninspired.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It has been quite painful to sit through some of the speeches today and hear how negative they have been about a Budget that has been put together in incredibly difficult circumstances. It is entirely wrong just to pour negativity on it and to say that it is pork barrel politics when there are so many examples of Opposition right hon. and hon. Members whose areas are benefiting from this funding. I was pleased to see a poll in which over 50% of the public approved of this Budget and 17% disapproved. Those are very positive numbers.
What is crucial here is economic credibility. One of the problems that Labour has is a lack of economic credibility. A lot of that goes back to the note that was left saying, “I’m sorry, there’s no money left.” That is still in the minds of millions of voters up and down the country. The thing about getting economic credibility is the need to be open and honest about the fact that there are difficult decisions that have to be made. If the Opposition pretend that there are no such difficult decisions, then it will be very difficult for them to gain any kind of credibility.
Tom Hunt
The Opposition can agree to every kind of spending pledge under the sun, whether it is saying, “We don’t want to cut international aid from 0.7% to 0.5%”, or whatever else, but at no point actually prioritise and say, “We think this is particularly important, so we will make up the money in this way.”
Tom Hunt
All we get when the Opposition vote against the increase in national insurance, say, is vague strategies about wealth taxes, so we do not get any detail about how much will be raised in what way. Yesterday, the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer went on the attack against the independent schools sector as though that alone is going to start raising the billions of extra money we need to do. That is just typical Labour class warfare to no end whatsoever.
Tom Hunt
I am not going to take any interventions at the moment, okay, so stop trying.
In terms of the circumstances we face at the moment, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) asked why we broke a manifesto pledge on tax. The key reason was the pandemic, and actually we spent £407 billion on dealing with the pandemic. That is why we had to do what we did. It was remarkable—the furlough scheme was absolutely the right thing to do, and it was incredibly impressive how quickly it was put together and it saved millions of people’s jobs. But when we were coming to end of that scheme, I was concerned myself about what it would do to unemployment. The suggestion that it could have been 12% was not unreasonable, and I feared that it could be around that level. The fact that it is 5% at the moment is a significant achievement. Regardless of our politics, every Member in this House should be really pleased about that and the fact that there are huge numbers of people in work, in a secure job, who we feared might not be. A lot of that is to do with the ingenuity of the Treasury, the Chancellor and his team. I thank them for that because it saved many of my constituents’ jobs.
On help with the cost of living, I very much welcome the decrease in the universal credit taper by eight points. The key thing about universal credit is that it was to try to ensure that it always pays to work—that work pays. Decreasing the universal credit taper by eight percentage points furthers that aim and saves some of the people on the lowest incomes a significant amount of money. That is to be welcomed. We should probably work to try to reduce it even more in future, but in a sustainable way that matches up with being responsible with our public finances.
Freezing fuel duty is also to be welcomed, as is increasing the national living wage. Apparently we are stealing Labour’s clothes—that is what I have heard—but I would like to think we are doing so in a responsible, sustainable way. It is absolutely right that as a party and as a Government we are single-minded about trying to do everything we can to support some of those on the lowest incomes in society. Many of those people are in my constituency. They are on lower incomes but want to work to get a higher income, and want the support to do so. There is a lot in this Budget that does that.
I am very passionate about the hospitality sector in Ipswich. We have some of the country’s best pubs, and we have some great breweries in Suffolk. The biggest cut in beer duty for 50 years is to be welcomed. I was one of the 100 Conservative Members of Parliament who wrote to the Treasury requesting that this happened. Only recently I was at the Belstead Arms, with its fantastic landlord Steve, who started the pub up in January 2010 and has got through a remarkably difficult period. He, for one, is very happy about this decision, as are the other 40 to 50-odd landlords in Ipswich, some of whom I will be visiting this weekend, but not too many.
The business rate reduction is also very welcome. It is one of the biggest reforms of business rates we have seen. It is not just tinkering; it goes much further than that.
Many right hon. and hon. Members will know that special educational needs are one of the things I feel most strongly about, partly because I myself had learning difficulties. I know I am a bit of a broken record in talking about that. I had dyslexia and dyspraxia. When I was 12, I had the reading and writing age of an eight-year-old. I was very lucky to get the support that I needed, so I am acutely conscious that a huge number of young people who are in the same position that I was do not get the support that they need. Not everything about special educational needs is about money, but a lot of it is, because most of the most powerful interventions we can make in special educational needs are resource-intensive. It is incredibly welcome that that has been recognised by increasing the special educational needs and disabilities budget by £2.6 billion over the next three years, with 30,000 extra special needs places. Yes, special schools are part of this, but better provision within a mainstream setting is part of it as well.
I see extra money for SEND as an investment, whether it is for prisons, where about a third of prisoners have some kind of learning disability—I reckon it is actually more like 50% if we diagnosed everyone who went in—or for children in care, over 50% of whom have learning disabilities. There is often pressure on families when their children’s needs are not met. Recognising that is incredibly important, and that is what the Government have done.
I want to finish by talking about levelling up and whether it is working for Ipswich. I think that in many respects levelling up is working for Ipswich. When some of my constituents heard about levelling up they feared that it was all about the north and the midlands. They were concerned that deprived parts of East Anglia would be forgotten—I actually mentioned that in my maiden speech. There are many examples of where the Government do recognise that it is not just about the north and the midlands. Ipswich has received £25 million from the town deals, and there are 11 discrete projects, many of them focused on skills. They are at the heart of levelling up and they make a massive difference to the lives of many of my constituents. We have had safer streets funding—in particular, for two parts of town with the worst problems of antisocial behaviour. We have a freeport just down the road in Felixstowe—one of just eight—which will hopefully bring forward 10,000 new jobs. We also have an opportunity area in Ipswich—one of only 12.
But there is one area where I would like to see the Government go a lot further. If we are going to sort out levelling up, we need to look at the way in which we fund our public services, and more specifically the funding formulas that lie behind the way in which those public services are funded, principally in two areas: education, particularly special educational needs; and police funding, where I do think Ipswich gets a raw deal. In Suffolk, police spending per head is £114.20 while in London it is £298, but we also compare very unfavourably with similar counties.
On SEND, there is a multi-academy trust with one school in Tower Hamlets and one school in Ipswich, and spend in Tower Hamlets is four times higher for children with mild to moderate learning difficulties, two and a half times higher for moderate to significant, and two times higher for significant to severe. It does not matter where it is—whether a child with a learning difficulty is in Ipswich, Birmingham or London, they are of the same inherent worth and value. There is no reason why random historical funding formula anomalies should mean that they get less funding and support per head than any other young person. That needs to be looked at.
I welcome this Budget. It is focused on the cost of living, focused on levelling up, and focused on allowing us to recover from an unprecedented pandemic.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I remind everybody that, unlike yesterday, there are wind-ups at the end of the debate today. Members are expected to come back for the wind-ups if they have participated in today’s debate.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Despite the protestations of Government Members, this really was an alternative reality Budget, with a Chancellor living in a dream world, ignoring what is actually happening in our communities and our high streets across the country.
This Budget had nothing to fix the emptying of our supermarkets and the escalating cost of living. Cafés, bars and restaurants, including businesses in my constituency of Cardiff North, are still reeling from the pandemic and struggling to find the staff they need and to keep going. Nor did the Budget tackle the lack of rape prosecutions and the severe court delays, which are leaving victims high and dry and struggling to cope.
There was no action on escalating energy costs, whereas Labour has been clear that we would immediately remove VAT for six months, which would have an immediate impact. Data released yesterday confirmed that real wages fell in every part of the country between 2010 and 2021, by a startling £23 a week on average. The Budget did nothing to remove the enormous tax burden on working people and businesses. There was a £4 billion tax cut for banks, a £300 million tax cut in domestic air passenger duty and a £12 billion tax cut for large businesses such as Amazon. Those tax cuts do absolutely nothing to help working people who are struggling day to day.
In the week of COP, it beggars belief that the Chancellor thinks it is okay to come to this House and make domestic flights cheaper. Will he really be going to COP next week and telling world leaders in his speech that that is what he has done? What an embarrassment! They are a Government who talk the talk on climate action, but when it comes to it, they just do not deliver. Where were the announcements on tackling the huge energy efficiency crisis we are facing? We have rising energy costs, cold houses and homes, and people unable to afford the weekly shop, let alone Christmas. This Government are letting working families down. Labour has pledged £28 billion a year to climate investment right up until the end of the decade. Our Labour Chancellor would truly be a green Labour Chancellor, investing in the jobs and skills of the future.
This Tory Government have created a low-wage, low-skill and low-productivity economy, taxing working families, making millions of people pay for their mistakes and refusing to overturn the £20 cut to universal credit. Three quarters of people on universal credit are worse off from the Chancellor’s changes. With no plan for growth—just more of the same—it is working people up and down the country who are paying the price.
For Wales, there is no new investment for coal tip remediation and no significant additional funding to support rail infrastructure in Wales, even though the Welsh Labour Government highlighted those priorities again and again with this Government. It is clear this Budget does not deliver for the people of Wales. It does not deliver for anyone. There are clear gaps in funding and it takes hard-working people for granted.
This Budget showed yet again that this Government do not care about people up and down the country. There was only a passing mention of climate in the Chancellor’s speech. It is clear that the Government do not care about the future of this nation. In the week of COP, that tells us all we need to know. We must act now if we are to face up to the scale of the climate challenge. Not acting now not only risks the future of the planet, but is a major fiscal risk and a risk to our economy. I want to see a Budget that delivers, not only for working people, but for our children and our grandchildren.
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). In the limited time available, I will talk primarily about infrastructure and education, but I want to cover a number of other issues, too.
I start by talking about the many small businesses we have throughout Sedgefield. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) that a more fundamental review of business rates would be very welcome. I have everything from small cheesemakers, such as the one in Mordon, to breweries such as Yard of Ale at the Surtees Arms, and I am sure that the changes to duty will encourage them to move forward. Emma McClarkin, the chief exec of the British Beer and Pub Association, welcomed the Chancellor’s continued support of the pub sector. I hope that the many pubs across Sedgefield, from Hurworth to Thornley and Ferryhill to Bishopton, also see the benefits of simplifying duty in particular. I must give a shout out to, of all names, The Impeccable Pig in Sedgefield, which was recently awarded “AA Inn of the Year”. There are clear benefits to small businesses, but there are also benefits, as other colleagues have mentioned, from people being able to socialise in pubs. Getting away from the cheap lager from the supermarkets is a good step in the right direction.
One thing we need to remember, whatever we are doing, is that we always talk about “this place”, and place is an important thing for us all to be thinking about. We need to think about where people are coming from and what they do there. That is where the importance of levelling up comes in. It is about looking after communities, but in particular those that my all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods focuses on, which can miss out because they do not have the capacity to go for the grants and support being picked up by other people. We need to encourage all our businesses to be as cognisant as they can of social impact. We need to remember that the quality of place that people are coming from is a key driver in the quality of employee that businesses will get.
The primary town in the Sedgefield constituency is Newton Aycliffe, and it has put in a levelling-up bid to for town centre recovery. That is a key thing that must happen to help us grow. We also have some fantastic businesses there, ranging from Crafter’s Companion, which has been active during the pandemic in getting people into crafting work and helping their mental health, to the likes of Hitachi. Hopefully we will see some announcements in the not-too-distant future on HS2, so that we can get some certainty. Certainty is what businesses need to move forward.
I also have 3M, whose efforts on masks through the pandemic have been incredible. We need to be careful about restructuring supply chains, because of the investment that people have needed to make. We also have lots of coach businesses. I hope the Department for Transport will continue to support our local council on a capital and revenue basis to help those businesses transition back from the depths that they have reached, so that they can get back to viability. On council funding, I want to ensure that there is proper consideration of the rurality or deprivation indices for councils. Durham in particular sometimes suffers from the way that they are used in funding formulae.
To return to business and its the social benefits, there is a company called Finley Structures in my patch. Last week, I had the pleasure of going there to see a blue plaque put up for the Aycliffe Angels—the ladies who made munitions during the war. To our delight, a 100-year-old lady called Muriel Scott turned up unexpectedly while we were there. If funding comes through from the money that has been talked about for that kind of thing, John Finley, who runs the business, wants to create a museum to show what people like Muriel Scott went through.
We need to drive science innovation. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have visited NETPark—the North East Technology Park—just outside Sedgefield, and understand its significance. If we can get the investment, we will have the north-east space hub there too. The local council is doing a good job, but we need to make sure that we pull that off.
That feeds into education and training, which are critical. T-levels have a place in the agenda, but I encourage the Government not to throw out BTECs. It is important that everyone has an opportunity, wherever they come from and whatever level of education they start from, to engage with the process and take the next step forward. That leads me to university technical colleges, of which I have one of the best in the country. Because it is linked to the likes of Hitachi and Gestamp, it attracts people from all over the north-east and Northumberland—as far away as that. Lord Baker wants more UTCs to be established, so I am hopeful that they will happen. I encourage investment in them to develop the opportunity for more people to learn technical skills and get us all into a better place.
To return to infrastructure, I have spoken many times in this place about Ferryhill station and the opportunity for it to reopen. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) referred to jobs. If that station goes in, the line will go through to Stockton North and connect to Teesside and to all the jobs being created by the Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen. Like all railway lines and roads, however, it is a two-way link, so it would present the opportunity not only for my people from the Ferryhills of this world to get to Teesside and the jobs there, but for anybody in the Stockton and Middlesbrough area who wanted to come to NETPark for the high-value science-led jobs to come on the train in the other direction. It is at the evaluation stage and I am hopeful that it will come forward.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) and I think that my constituents will feel that this is a fair Budget at difficult time. Opposition Members have made a number of comments about Labour’s position on business, but I sit on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and I have to say that the Opposition’s presence in that Committee is lamentable. The number of times that the only Labour Member present has been the Chair is poor. How can they talk about business when they do not even turn up to the Select Committee? When we went to Tata Steel, the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) met us there; credit to her for joining us, but she was not a member of the Select Committee.
I welcome the funding for the British Business Bank. As a last point, because I do not think anyone should forget it, climate change is important but we need to make sure that we do things in context. There is no point in stopping doing things that nobody wants to do—I will use an easy example of the Cumbrian mine—only to then import coal from the other side of the planet and pay all the carbon costs that go with bringing it in from elsewhere.
There is a lot in the Budget that I like, but there is the odd thing, such as the Leamside line that was announced this morning, that I would have liked to get through, although that is not the Budget but the Restoring Your Railway fund. We will need to come back to that and have a closer look at it. In general, however, I welcome this Budget.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The mistake with Budgets is to think that they are the beginning of a financial process. Often, they are the result of one. This Budget is the result of 11 years of austerity and under-investment. Wages flatlined, and our public services and infrastructure were ill-equipped for the pandemic and to be the engine of growth that we need to bring us out of the economic crisis it has precipitated.
The Budget is uncomfortable for Conservative Members of Parliament. No Government since the war has implemented a higher tax take from the people of this country.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman said that it has been an uncomfortable Budget for Government Members. I have to say that I am extremely proud of the Budget, and later I will have the opportunity to say why.
Barry Gardiner
I am sure that the hon. Lady will explain exactly why she is so proud of the Budget. That is her right. However, it is clear that many of her colleagues feel that it is pulling them in different directions. I will come to explain why that is the case.
As I said, no Government since the war have implemented a higher tax take from the people of this country, yet wages are scarcely where they were 10 years ago, growth in the next three years will slow to a sluggish 1.3% and our country’s debt stands at the astonishing figure of £2.2 trillion. It was notable that yesterday the Chancellor referred to underlying debt rather than gross debt. Underlying debt is still a staggering 85.2% of GDP and, on his own admission, set to rise over the next three years. Gross debt is now 103% of GDP.
What of the deficit? After the global financial crisis had seen it skyrocket from £50 billion to £103 billion in 2010, George Osborne said he would eliminate it by 2015. The deficit at its peak in 2010 was £103 billion, or 6.9% of GDP. At year end in March, the last ONS release said that the UK’s deficit was £304 billion, or 14.5% of GDP. The hon. Lady may not feel uncomfortable about that, but I think that a number of her colleagues do, yet the Chancellor had the extraordinary brass neck to the tell the House that
“it is the Conservatives, and only the Conservatives, who can be trusted with taxpayers’ money.”—[Official Report, 27 October 2021; Vol. 702, c. 276.]
The Chancellor talked about building a stronger economy. His party has had 11 years to do that and it has failed. What should be of real concern is the Budget’s lack of direction. There is an extraordinary tension between No. 10 and No. 11, which are operating like a Doctor Dolittle character, with the Chancellor pushing for fiscal conservatism and the Prime Minister pulling for a bout of sunny optimism and lax monetary control. The truth is, they are afraid of the electorate and it showed in their spending decisions.
The Government are rightly relaxing the public sector wages freeze—to the horror of their Back Benchers—but they have wrongly imposed a £4 billion clawback on the very poorest in our society who rely on universal credit. Their changes to the taper relief show only how fearful they really are, but those changes do not nullify the impact of the clawback.
The Government have no strategy to tax wealth on unearned income. It is shameful that a cleaner on universal credit doing three jobs to make ends meet pays a higher rate of marginal tax and national insurance than her landlord. It is extraordinary that, instead of working with international partners to develop a proper tax framework for companies such as Amazon, they have done all they can to block one. It is extraordinary that the Chancellor has given £1 billion of tax cuts to the banks. Working families get tax rises; banks get tax cuts.
Priorities are the stuff of politics and the Chancellor has made his party’s priorities clear. But, in addition to the wrong priorities, the Government have been incompetent and profligate. The total investment announced yesterday for the next three years was £150 billion. That same day, the Public Accounts Committee reported that, despite being allocated an eye-watering £37 billion, Test and Trace failed to achieve its objectives, failed in its key purpose and, at the most critical time, failed to disrupt onward transmission. The Prime Minister had a phrase for money wasted like that—it referred to something being done up a wall. Delicacy prevents me from saying what it was.
The past 11 years of Conservative Government have seen our economy grow at just 1.8% per annum. Even taking into account the impact of the global financial crisis, in the years from’ 97 to 2010, when Labour were in government, the economy grew by 2.3%. No wonder the only person on the Conservative Benches to look pleased at the Chancellor’s discomfiture yesterday was the Foreign Secretary. The truth is he has taxed more and more unwisely, while presiding over unacceptably slow growth.
Many of us will recall the Government’s response to Labour’s manifesto commitment to invest £200 billion in the infrastructure of the country. They called it a magic money tree, but since then they have discovered a forest, even if their £130 billion infrastructure strategy now looks scarcely adequate to turbocharge our economy in the way that is required.
Let me now turn to the way that is required. It is to be regretted that the Chancellor does not use public transport when in London. Were he to do so, he would have seen the poster campaign that says, “The world is looking to you, COP26.” One of those posters says, “Secure our priceless planet. Or argue over cost.” Yesterday, the Chancellor could truly have given us a Budget of optimism: a Budget that addressed the infrastructure needs of our country, the skills development required for a just transition to a net zero economy, and the basis for sustainable economic growth. He failed, and did so in a way that displayed such an astonishing lack of awareness of the problem and what one can only call contempt for the reality of the crisis that it appeared a deliberate provocation to all those about to meet this weekend in Glasgow for COP26.
The Chancellor referred to the tax super-deduction of 130% allowances for capital investment. He failed to mention that these have no environmental or climate filter and that some of the biggest fossil fuel companies will be able to use them to receive from the taxpayer not only the entire cost of their polluting capital investments but a bonus 30% for doing so, in projects like the Cambo oil field,. This incentivises the very behaviour COP26 is trying to curtail.
The Chancellor announced a new lower rate of air passenger duty on domestic flights and support for regional domestic airports to incentivise air travel within the UK. Other countries have banned domestic flights where a fast rail link exists and have been investing in their low-carbon rail infrastructure. It is, frankly, obscene that it is often cheaper to fly within the UK than to take the train. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) earlier remarked that a flight from her constituency in Bristol to Glasgow costs just £29.99, while the train costs £97.20. The Government’s investment priorities on this are wrong. They are wrong economically and they are wrong morally.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
I want to start where the Chancellor left off, by saying that I strongly believe that it is not just for the Government to fix every problem and tackle every challenge. I am a Conservative because I believe in and want to support strong families, strong communities, the voluntary sector and charities coming together to make our country a better place to live, work and raise a family. We saw that during the pandemic. The state played an enormously important role but so did families, volunteers and charities in Crewe and Nantwich and across the country, and I shall focus on welcoming the measures in the Budget that support families.
I welcome the introduction of family hubs—I supported my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) in campaigning for that—further funding for parenting support, more support for adopted children and their families, and the continuation of the holiday activity programme. In discussing the stability of families and poverty, we cannot ignore, and must pay greater attention to, some of the factors that make it much more likely for children to be living in poverty. Single-parent families and families with three or more children are much more likely to be living in poverty and I wish campaigners and those on the Opposition Benches would pay as much attention to these important factors as they do to the role of Government in topping up family incomes.
The emphasis on the first 1,001 days is also welcome. We are seeing increasing understanding across Government that the big impact we can have early on in terms of children and families is worth our attention and gets better results in the long run.
The Opposition too often focus purely on financial security. Of course financial security is important, but it is also important to support people to be the best parents they can be and to ensure that their children grow up with emotional security and have the kind of self-belief and aspiration that I was given by my family. Sadly, when I meet some children in my constituency, they do not have that. We have to do better at giving that to them.
As much as we argue over relatively small, albeit important, changes in the percentages and numbers of people living in absolute and relative poverty, if we take a step back and look at the big historical trends, those figures have been stubbornly in roughly the same place. I think that is because we focus too much on the money and not enough on the other factors that might lift people out of poverty and give them aspiration and opportunity.
Supporting people into work and better jobs is absolutely part of that, not just because it improves people’s incomes but because we know that work helps to improve people’s mental and physical wellbeing. I am proud that, compared with 2010, there are half a million fewer children growing up in a household that has been out of work long term. That is the kind of achievement that sustainably lifts people out of poverty.
That is why I welcome the emphasis on the changes we have made to universal credit—using the money wisely to encourage people into work and to keep more of their own money—and to the minimum wage. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the right incentives are there for people to be in work. Of course, closely tied to that are the commitments we made earlier in the year on things such as the lifetime skills guarantee and further funding to support free childcare. We need to look closely at whether we can go further when it comes to childcare. We still have historically high childcare costs in this country, and that remains a difficult barrier to work. Things such as the change in the taper would go further if childcare were cheaper.
We also need to look at child maintenance, which is another key factor in poverty. Some 60% of children living in single-parent households that are not in receipt of maintenance would be lifted out of poverty if that maintenance were received. When the restrictions and measures brought in to tackle this issue, which largely focused on things such as deduction orders for people’s earnings and court orders to seize assets, were considered, I do not think enough thought was given to the realities of using them, because most of those things make it difficult for someone to earn money, which defeats the object. Consideration was given to home curfews for people who were non-compliant with their child maintenance, but those powers were never enacted. We need to look at that again if we want to drive down the absence of child maintenance payments.
I am conscious that Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy colleagues are leading today’s debate, so I want to mention an area that will be important for job opportunities in Crewe and Nantwich, which I have been talking to the Secretary of State about—the geothermal industry. We saw earlier in the year the difficulties of over-relying on solar and wind power when it comes to our renewable energy drive. Geothermal is an under-utilised opportunity in this country. Unfortunately, earlier in the year, just as the industry wanted to invest, we removed the tariff that would give it a guaranteed return. That has obviously had a devastating impact on investment in geothermal. We see it rising across Europe and across the world, but it is not rising in this country because we do not have that guarantee. I will continue to work with BEIS colleagues to see whether we can do something about that.
Levelling up is important to us all. It is no good encouraging families and encouraging ambition if opportunity is not spread evenly around the country, as colleagues have mentioned. Yesterday, we saw the announcement of hundreds of millions of pounds of investment through the levelling-up fund. Through the impact of the £22.9 million Crewe town deal that we were awarded earlier this year, I have seen the real, tangible difference that those projects can make—led by local MPs, working with local authorities and, importantly, picking projects that are important to local communities across a whole range of issues. I look forward to us making a levelling-up fund bid in future funding rounds.
I am afraid that we have heard the usual today from those on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members want to tell everyone that there are no difficult decisions. There is never a request for more benefit spending that they say no to. There is no problem to which their answer is not just “tax the rich”, despite the increasing proportion of our tax bill being paid by the wealthy. Some 30% of income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners. I am not quite sure where Labour Members want that figure to be before they will accept that those with the broadest shoulders are carrying the biggest burden, and I do not think it is sensible in a global economy to further discourage wealth creators from living in this country.
Labour Members know that their rhetoric on taxing the rich does not add up. That is why, despite all the talk, they have outlined only one measure, which—along with all the measures they have talked about but failed to detail—they know full well does not come close to meeting their continual spending commitments. For example, they wanted us to spend not just £6 billion on retaining the uplift on universal credit, but £2 billion to extend it to those on legacy benefits, and £1 billion to extend it to those on tax credits. They wanted £2 billion to scrap the two-child policy; £2 billion to turn advances into grants—I could go on. They never explain how they would pay for that, besides broad discussions about taxing the rich. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), from a sedentary position, talks about champagne. It is classic Labour to misunderstand what it means to be aspirational. The people I know who want to buy a glass of champagne are not wealthy; they are people from ordinary families who maybe have a wedding or another special occasion and want to enjoy themselves. The hon. Gentleman’s disdain for that measure just shows how he does not understand the people he is supposed to represent.
Paul Howell
Does my hon. Friend agree that when we talk about champagne, we are probably more likely to be talking about a £7 bottle of prosecco?
Dr Mullan
Absolutely. That is the kind of thing that the Conservative party understands when it comes to aspiration, but those on the Labour Benches simply do not.
I want to pick up on some of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller). We cannot underestimate the real economic risks we face at present. We must be extremely careful. We have talked about how slight changes in interest rates and inflation can have a huge impact. The amount of money that we had to spend to get the country through the pandemic—of course, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) wanted to criticise the Government for creating that level of debt—would have been even higher had the Opposition been in charge. Despite spending £407 billion, it will never be enough for those on the Labour Benches. We cannot pretend it will all be smooth sailing. There will still be difficult decisions to come. We will need to say no at certain points. The Conservatives are trusted repeatedly on the economy by our voters because we understand that.
I want to pick up on the usual lines about the cuts we have made. Opposition Members have tried, again and again, to win elections by convincing the public that we made those choices freely and happily, but the public understand that we had no choice, given the economic mess we inherited. I encourage the Opposition to think about a new line of attack and perhaps they will have better success with it in future.
Difficult times ahead—and a difficult Budget. It is not risk free and we may still need to make difficult decisions, but the emphasis on families, early years, people in work and getting on in life is a direction of travel I welcome. In that regard, I support the Budget and support the Government in their attempts to get us back on track.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
Diolch, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). To start on a point of consensus, I agree that these are very difficult times and I, for one, do not envy the Chancellor for having to navigate some of the large events on the horizon.
In the course of the debate so far, a couple of themes have emerged as ones that we all want to highlight, but on which we perhaps have different points of view: climate, the cost of living crisis and levelling up. I hope to be able to comment on each in turn in the time that I have.
On the climate theme, I echo and share the bemusement of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). In his opening remarks, he called into question the Chancellor’s commitment to net zero and the decarbonisation of the economy. In response, the Secretary of State referred the House to the net zero strategy that the Government announced last week as evidence of the Chancellor’s credentials. However, questions remain unanswered. The Institute for Government has suggested that the net zero strategy lacked detail on who will pay and offered only vague hints about a tax strategy to support the transition to net zero. In advance of COP26, we had hoped to see a bit more of that detail in yesterday’s Budget, but we did not receive it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke eloquently on another theme that hon. Members have touched on: the cost of living crisis. She made a very good argument about how rising costs of living on the one hand and relatively low wage growth on the other have produced a situation where households are struggling. Government Members will perhaps accuse me of being negative or pessimistic, but we might agree that some of the OBR’s analysis is quite staggering. Real household disposable incomes across the UK are expected to grow by only some 0.8% over the next five years, and if we look at next year, we see that the OBR suggests that net inflation will peak sooner than expected and that growth will be only about 0.3%.
I do not think that I am being too negative and pessimistic, but if I am guilty of that, it may well be because—unless my accent has not already betrayed me—I represent a constituency in Wales. In Wales, gross disposable household income in 2019 was already only 80.5% of the UK average—the second lowest in the UK—so households in Wales, in particular, have experienced a longer-term cost of living crisis, which hon. Members from across the nation were very keen to see some action on in yesterday’s Budget.
I cannot deny that the announcements on the minimum wage and improvements to universal credit were welcome steps in the right direction, but welcome though the change in the taper rate and the working allowance were, they come on the back of about £6 million being taken from families in Ceredigion through the removal of the uplift.
The Chancellor and the Government were correct to remove the cap on public sector pay. Plaid Cymru has championed that for several years so we were very glad to see it included in yesterday’s Budget statement. However, questions need to be answered that will determine how much of a difference it will make to people in the public sector. Ceredigion has a high number of public sector employees, so an important question for us is: how much will public sector wages increase and how will that compare with inflation? That is not my being pessimistic; we just need to bear that concern in mind when we talk about whether some of these policies will be transformational and make a real difference to people’s pockets.
Let me focus on the rising costs of living. Energy bills have been mentioned and I agree with some of those concerns. Something that particularly affects rural areas such as Ceredigion is the price of fuel, and several hon. Members have spoken very effectively about that topic. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) mentioned how the fuel duty freeze helps somewhat to insulate rural households against the rising cost.
We all acknowledge that the freezing of duel duty—I might even get plaudits for this from those on the Treasury Bench—is an incredibly expensive policy. We cannot deny that and it is reasonable to suggest that, in the not-too-distant future, we may need to reconsider whether the fuel duty policy is sustainable, not least for financial reasons, but also given our decarbonisation commitments. Should we come to that politically prickly and technical discussion, we should perhaps look to extend schemes such as the rural duty relief scheme so that those living in rural areas, who, at the moment, do not have the benefit of a sophisticated public transport infrastructure, should not have to shoulder the burden of unrealistic costs. That would also perhaps introduce an incentive, for areas that have the luxury of fantastic public transport, to choose to use public transport more often than cars. In rural areas, however, as I think hon. Members would acknowledge, there is not that level of choice at the moment, and, sadly, using a car is still a necessity. Whether they are nurses working in hospitals or teachers going to school, people need to use cars. In approaching the big questions of decarbonisation, we need to think about how to ensure that there is investment in public transport in rural areas so that abandoning cars is an option, but for the time being, 80% of commutes in Wales are still by car.
Another pressure that I hoped would be addressed yesterday is the added burden on small businesses from next year’s increase in national insurance contributions. When I speak to businesses in Ceredigion, they are grateful to the Treasury for VAT reductions; they have told me, especially in the hospitality sector, that they have been able not only to invest savings in their business to improve productivity and improve their offer, but to increase wages for staff. If we are serious about moving to a higher-wage economy, perhaps we could return to that point. It could be considered a missed opportunity in yesterday’s Budget, so I encourage Members on the Treasury Bench to think about it for the future.
The Federation of Small Businesses has asked for an increase in the employment allowance for small businesses and simplification of the process of making tax digital, both of which are concerns that businesses in Ceredigion have raised with me. Any movement on those fronts would be welcome: they would not only support employment and reduce the risk of higher taxes being passed on as higher prices, but offer much-needed support to our high streets.
I would like us to return to the discussion about retrofitting homes. It was a missed opportunity yesterday not to look at improving the energy efficiency of our housing stock. A report by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales suggests that a commitment from the UK Government of some £360 million a year would go a long way towards bringing the quality of housing stock in Wales up to, I think, energy performance certificate rating C. The benefits are evident: it would not only create much-needed skilled jobs, but improve the efficiency of homes and reduce household bills by some £418 per year once the work was completed. It would also be good for the environment, of course.
I will leave it there, because I have run out of time. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me so soon in the debate.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) for what I see as a perfect model of constructive opposition. He gave a thoughtful, considered and helpful speech; I hope that the Treasury takes up some of the points that he raised. I thank him for making that contribution to the debate.
I am extremely grateful to the Chancellor for supporting businesses in my community throughout the pandemic and protecting jobs. There is no doubt that there is still a very challenging and difficult environment for businesses, so of course I welcome all measures in the Budget to support business. I pay tribute to the many businesses that have struggled and struggled, but succeeded in getting through the pandemic with the help of the Chancellor. They have my full support as we move forward in what will continue to be a challenging time.
I would like to congratulate Mr John Ellis, a publican in my constituency. John, who runs the Elephant and Castle in Dawley and the Crown Inn in Oakengates, has campaigned for his sector harder than any constituent I have ever met. Throughout the pandemic and in the prelude to the Budget, he wrote letters to me and to the Chancellor; he met me; he bought me pints of beer. He gave me a full insight into the very serious challenges that the pub sector faces. Mr Ellis may not be 100% satisfied with the Budget and its measures for supporting pubs and hospitality, but I know that he will be delighted by many measures in it.
I am extremely proud of this Budget. I am proud of it because it is a Conservative Budget—a Budget that supports families and incentivises and rewards work.
Like all other Members—whether they will admit to it or not—I am delighted that this Budget puts more money into the pockets of the lowest-paid constituents in Telford, and specifically provides support for the struggling families whom we must support if we want to create opportunity for young people. As we all know, whether we admit it or not, these measures will make a real difference to the lives of our constituents, particularly those who struggle the most.
At the heart of the Budget are incentives and rewards for those who work The universal credit policy that we now have is by far the most effective tool in helping people back into work. We on this side of the House do not agree with disincentives to work and keeping people trapped on benefits, and I know that many on the other side also believe in helping people back into work. The incentives in the Budget are welcome because a job gives people so much more than a route out of poverty. It gives them a sense of identity and of belonging—they are part of a community—and of personal responsibility, and they are surrounded by a support network which is particularly helpful in tackling the mental health issues that so many people have experienced during covid. That is why I am so grateful to the Chancellor for, since the start of the pandemic, prioritising jobs and skills as key to our economic recovery.
I particularly want to draw the Chancellor’s attention to the fantastic work being done at Telford College in my constituency in respect of skills such as engineering, HGV training, digital and maths. In almost every sector one could think of, the college is delivering opportunity across our community, and, vitally, providing local businesses with the skilled people whom they need in order to succeed. I invite the Chancellor to come to see this inspiring college for himself: I know how impressed he will be by students and teachers alike.
I must also thank the Chancellor for the levelling-up money that has been coming to Telford. Earlier in the year we were awarded £22.3 million, and an additional £1 million for an exciting programme of projects that will build opportunity across our community. The jewel in the crown was a digital and maths hub to provide access at every level to all who want to improve their skills. My thanks must go to the town deal board for its work on this, and to our excellent council officers, who are as dedicated as I am to Telford’s future. The Budget has also confirmed the provision of a diagnostic health hub at the Princess Royal Hospital to tackle the backlog. That is desperately needed. While the health challenges that face Telford are perhaps a subject for another debate, there is no doubt that this will change lives, and we are truly fortunate to have been selected as one of the areas to receive such a hub.
Let me sound a note of caution. My constituents understand full well that getting the NHS back on its feet will take time. They understand full well that it will cost money, and they understand full well that they must make their contribution and share the pain of paying for it. My constituents are reasonable people who want the NHS to succeed. However, they want to know that their money, the levy money, will be spent wisely. I hope it will feature clearly on payslips, so that people have an understanding of the significant contribution that they are making to healthcare and social care. I want it to be spelt out, because I think that that will help to bring greater accountability to health trusts and boards to ensure that they deliver good-quality healthcare for my constituents and their families, rather than spending money on shiny projects such as state-of-the-art specialist units to which local people may never need access. We have seen that happening in Telford: having already been given £312 million for a specialist unit upgrade, the health bosses decided to put in a further bid for £560 million.
I understand that we all want to invest in better hospitals, but this really is not about buildings. As we emerge from the pandemic and try to recover and ensure that the NHS gets back to functioning at full capacity, I urge the Chancellor not to give money to those kinds of projects but to invest in tackling our backlog, as he has done in this Budget, and in ensuring that people can access their GPs and get through to them on the phone. That is what local people really want. They want better healthcare that they can access.
I would like to end by saying that sometimes it is good to say thank you, as I have been doing throughout my speech. There are those who say that the money is never enough, that things are never good enough and that Telford is missing out, and my local Labour council is never satisfied, no matter how much money comes to Telford. It very nearly scuppered the Telford levelling-up bid by saying that it had been cancelled. This upset not only the towns fund board but many people who were invested in that project. It is important to recognise when things are going well, and to look at what is getting done despite the extraordinarily challenging circumstances.
All of us in this House know that Ministers have given their all to get us through the pandemic and out the other side and to rebuild our economy, and I am grateful to every single one of them, whether or not I agree with everything they say and do. They have tried their best and given their all, and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. My constituents are grateful to the Prime Minister. On that note, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank you for including me in this debate, which I much appreciate.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I am the only speaker for my party in this debate, so I hope that the House will forgive me if I adopt a slightly winding-up tone. I want to put on record what a pleasure it has been to take part in the debate after the long time we have spent dealing with covid. We are not out of its shadow yet, but hopefully we are on our way. How nice it is to be back in this Chamber speaking in debates in our normal way.
I do not think that I am known for having a pop for the sake of it in this place, and if the Minister were still here, I would thank him for the excellent work that has been done on the space launch front. That is very enthusiastically supported in my constituency. However, I am bound to make two points, the first of which is a national issue.
As the House will be aware, as my party’s Defence spokesman, I have made the point in recent times that I am particularly perturbed by the reduction in the numbers of our armed forces personnel, particularly in the British Army. Two points arise from that. The first is that if—perish the thought—we had to mount some sort of operation similar to the one in Afghanistan, I worry that the size of the British Army would not be sufficient to do that. Secondly, I believe that when it comes to recruitment, if the British Army gets below a certain critical mass, the brightest and best of our young people who might want to join our armed forces would take a look and say, “It’s too small. It’s beginning to look like a sunset industry. I’ll go and do something else.” That worries me about recruitment, because it is an issue for the British Army.
Returning to the Budget, I am deeply perturbed to see that there will be a cut of 1.4% in Defence spending over the next four years. I want to put on record that that is a dangerous cut, and I am surprised to see it in the context of what is a tax-and-spend Budget. We could debate the rights and wrongs of such a Budget, but I will not do so today. For those who have not seen it, I draw the House’s attention to the editorial in The Times today, which states that the Chancellor runs the risk of stoking inflation. If we take a tax-and-spend Budget and add it to the increase in the price of commodities in the world—the price of fuel has been mentioned, and we have to consider the ramifications of covid and Brexit—we could, perish the thought again, have inflation on our hands.
I am the oldest member of my parliamentary party at the august age of 67, so I lived through the horrors of inflation in the 1970s. I was working in the oil sector on a smallish wage, and during the year my wages started not to meet the costs of the bills I had to pay. Inflation is a bad, bad thing. I hope it does not hit us, but I fear it might.
This morning I telephoned a friend of my daughter—they were in the same class up in the highlands. I spoke to her and another friend, both single mothers living in council accommodation, and I asked, “What concerns you about the Budget?” Members might think that perhaps they did not take a big interest, but they did. One lady said to me, “It is the cost of the bills I have to pay. I am concerned that I may not be able to afford them.” The other young lady said, “I am concerned about education. I am concerned about special needs assistance for my child.” I believe they speak for a lot of people, as other hon. and right hon. Members have touched on.
These worries are out there. When we think about how inflation would add to those worries, it becomes scary. When we think about what inflation would do to our hard-pressed frontline services, it becomes very worrying indeed. I put down those two markers at national level.
I end on a point that might not ingratiate me with SNP Front Benchers. The right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) mentioned the great jug of money called Barnett consequentials that is poured out towards the Scottish Government after passing through a sieve. I think he was referring to the fact that in some parts of Scotland the sieve seems to have a hole, and in other parts of Scotland it seems to have a very fine mesh. What we in the highlands fear, with all due respect to my good friends in the SNP, is that the money rushes through the hole to the central belt and does not come to more rural areas. That is the challenge the right hon. Gentleman posed to the Scottish Government.
I have spoken many times in this place about maternity services in the far north of Scotland and how pregnant people have to make a return journey of 200 miles to give birth. There are so many pressures because of rurality, distance and sparsity of population. With the best of intentions, I sincerely hope that the Scottish Government will address those inequalities with the moneys they are being afforded through the Barnett consequentials. I live in hope, but there is a nagging doubt at the back of my mind.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). I attended the reception he hosted yesterday for young people working in the renewable energy sector. He mentioned the reception in a couple of his earlier interventions, and I agree with those points.
I congratulate the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), on her assured response to yesterday’s Budget statement. I am not sure how much notice she had, but I do not think it was very long—perhaps half an hour. She had to put up with some very ill-mannered barracking from two or three Conservative Members, but she seemed, if anything, to relish it and she set out a compelling case that the heart of the problem is the poor record on growth over the past 11 years. Her commitment to abolishing business rates has clearly rattled the Chancellor, and there is a compelling case for fundamental reform given the dramatic shift to online shopping, as a number of Conservative Members have said. Until the shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), told us at the start of the debate, I did not realise that a promise to do that has been included in every Conservative manifesto since 2010. I do not know why, 11 years on, the Government are still nowhere near doing it.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy told us today that yesterday’s announcement about business rates meant that they would be “more responsive and agile, with more frequent revaluations”; I do not think there is anything very fundamental there. In making the case for fundamental reform, my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor is absolutely right. That is the kind of bold change that is needed.
It is striking that Ministers currently do not seem to be taking much notice of UK businesses. They got into the habit of ignoring all businesses’ fears about Brexit, so they seem to feel they should continue to ignore their views now. From what I can tell, businesses are currently getting a hearing from the Labour Front-Bench team that they are not getting from Conservative Front Benchers. The argument made by my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor—that the central problem has been weak economic growth since 2010—is very persuasive. We have a difficult winter ahead and the appetite for an approach different from the Government’s may well be rising rapidly next spring, with real wages due to fall again in the next year.
We all understand why the tax burden is high coming out of the pandemic, but there seems to have been no attempt to share that burden fairly. It is all being borne by working families, what with the national insurance increase—the jobs tax—and the Chancellor’s evident delight in cutting the duty on champagne then seemed to be rubbing salt in the wound.
I welcome yesterday’s announcement of the reduction in the universal credit taper and the increase in the work allowance. Those are significant changes that are large enough to be worth while, and they will help low-paid working families to get over the £20 a week cut and will increase work incentives—those are positive things—but they will do nothing at all for unemployed families and people who cannot work because of ill health, all of whom have suffered the £20 a week cut to the rate of universal credit.
Benefit support for unemployed families is now at its lowest level, in real terms, for more than 30 years. In those 30 years, GDP has increased by more than 50% in real terms, but support for unemployed families is no bigger at all than it was 30 years ago. It is now at the lowest level ever as a proportion of average earnings. In fact, according to the House of Commons Library, support for unemployed people is now at a lower level, as a proportion of average earnings, than it was when Lloyd George introduced unemployment benefit in 1911. These are historically low levels of support.
When the Minister responds to the debate, will she give us some explanation of why unemployment support has been cut so low? We have had no explanation at all. I have pressed Ministers on the issue at the Work and Pensions Committee but they cannot give any justification for why this has happened. Social security has a job to do; we cannot have successive Ministers simply dipping into it to fund other things. At its current level, particularly in some parts of the country, it has been cut below the level at which it can any longer do its basic job. People cannot focus on getting a job if they are worrying about whether they can pay for their children’s next meal.
We have just had 18 months in which people who were unable to work—unable to do their jobs—have had to live not on £75 a week but on 80% of their in-work earnings, up to a maximum of £30,000 per year. That is an approach to supporting people who are not in work that is very different from the one provided by social security in the UK. Perhaps we can learn lessons for the future from the success of that most recent approach. The Work and Pensions Committee is going to conduct an inquiry on this subject over the coming year, to look at what the level of support for unemployed people should be and to consider the approaches being taken elsewhere and the evidence on the effectiveness of those different approaches.
The analysis published yesterday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the running cost budget for the Department for Work and Pensions has been one of the most deeply reduced in Whitehall since 2010. That is no doubt one of the reasons for the serious problems in the state pension service at the moment. Very large numbers of people—well over 100,000 people now, according to the Department—have not received the correct amount of pension over a period of 30 years or more, with older women particularly hard hit. Just in the past few months, there have been very large numbers of people having to wait a long time to get their pension after applying for it. The reduction of the running cost budget for the DWP must be one of the reasons why those things have gone wrong.
I do hope that the very modest increase in the Department’s running-cost budget will allow some modernisation of the very old computer systems on which the state pension benefit and some other benefits are run. There has been a meeting this morning of the Public Accounts Committee with the permanent secretary, in which questions were asked about how things have gone so badly wrong with the state pension, particularly in these past few months.
By contrast, the universal credit system, which is modern, did a very good job during the pandemic in getting support to a large number of people efficiently and well in a short period of time, but too many of the Department’s other systems, such as the state pension system, need urgent investment.
I note from the Budget document that the Government are planning for the universal credit roll-out, which we were initially told would be complete by October 2017, but which we are now told will be complete by March 2025. The OBR has always and rightly been sceptical about the Department’s forecasts on this and expects it to take 18 months longer. I think that it is likely to be proved right.
I warmly welcome the case that the shadow Chancellor and her team have set out in response to the Budget. The heart of the problem has been this weak economic growth over the past 11 years. I hope that, between us, we can come forward with some compelling proposals for how that failure can be reversed in the years ahead.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). I agreed with much of what he said, particularly with regard to state pensions. It was disappointing yesterday not to hear anything in support of our 1950s women who have been betrayed by this Government, as have our miners whose pensions have been completely neglected for many, many years. As always, it is a privilege to speak in the debate today, and I am grateful to be able to raise the concerns on behalf of residents and businesses across Pontypridd and Taff Ely.
We truly are in a cost of living crisis. The long-term problems caused by this Government’s inaction on our crumbling economy are severely impacting working people. Fundamentally, it is working people and our businesses up and down the country who are paying the price. Along with so many colleagues on the Opposition Benches, I have spoken passionately and at length about the need to support people through what will inevitably be a difficult winter. And how do the Government respond? By piling costs on working people and businesses at the worst possible time, hitting them with tax rises and a cut in universal credit while of course giving breaks to bankers and big companies such as Amazon. This is an absolute car crash of an attempt at economic recovery, all at a time when our taxes are at the highest they have been since the war, but with even less than ever in return.
The sheer irony of the Chancellor standing in this place announcing billions of pounds of investment at a time when his Government voted for the devastating cut to universal credit only a few weeks ago certainly is not lost on me or on the residents in my area. Indeed, I had hoped that, in the previous Budget, the Chancellor was at last understanding the fundamental impact that a broken welfare system is having on people, when he finally admitted that the previous levels of universal credit simply were not enough for people to live on. Once again, though, I am disappointed, but ultimately not surprised, by the Chancellor’s actions in recent weeks.
With that in mind, it would of course be remiss of me not to make reference to the devastating knock-on impact that this Government are having on people living in Wales. Put simply, this Budget simply does not deliver for Wales or the United Kingdom. It does not deliver on vital funding priorities, such as the long-term funding required for urgent work to repair Wales’s coal tips. Indeed, only earlier this week the Welsh Government published data showing the true extent of Wales’s challenge in increasing safety around coal tip sites. The Welsh Government have identified 2,456 tips across Wales. Although I welcome the joint approach by the UK Government and Welsh Government to set up a coal tip safety taskforce, it is clear that we still have some way to go on long-term investment. Despite a cross-party joint letter endorsed by all 22 council leaders in Wales, requesting funding from the UK Government, we see no commitment to an ongoing programme of funding, even though the issues with coal tips predate devolution in Wales.
This Budget, along with pleas for help and support, finally provided an opportunity for the Government to give some much-needed reassurance to communities such as mine in Pontypridd, and across Taff Ely and Rhondda Cynon Taf, that remain in the shadow of their industrial legacy. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), who is a good friend, reminded Members that only last week we commemorated the 55th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. That catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip, even years down the line, serves as a poignant reminder of how dangerous coal tips can be. Although I recognise that safety measures have vastly improved since that horrendous disaster, it is only with long-term, sustainable financial support that the issue can truly be tackled at its root. With that in mind, it is extremely disappointing that despite having the opportunity to make a positive change, the Chancellor has once again failed people in our coalfield communities, with no money for the coal tips and no justice for miners’ pensions.
I welcome the announcement of funding for our community arts centre in Pontypridd and the dualling of the A4119 at Coedely in my constituency. I commend the outstanding RCT County Borough Council and our leader, Andrew Morgan, for all the incredible hard work they have put in to ensure that our levelling-up bids were successful. But let us not forget that although this money is welcome—and we are grateful—the £120 million for Wales is actually a £255 million cut on the promise to replace the EU funding. The failure to accept the responsibility for coal tips will cost Wales £600 million. Wales will get no consequentials for transport infrastructure, and the universal credit cut will do nothing to tackle poverty, including in-work poverty. This is Wales not levelling up, but being short-changed by the Budget.
If the Business Secretary were in his place, I would take the opportunity to congratulate him on becoming a father and on the birth of his child. I am extremely passionate about an affordable and flexible childcare system that works for us all. Time and again, I have raised the injustice of the paltry parental leave allowances currently on offer from this Government, and that extends to neonatal leave. Although I was pleased to see the Government announce plans to introduce neonatal leave that will cover up to 12 weeks when a baby is receiving neonatal care, the policy simply does not go far enough. The changes announced are unlikely to come into force until 2023 at the earliest, leaving around 300,000 families with babies who will be spending time in neonatal care in the next three years forgotten and left behind once again. Once again, I find myself urging the Chancellor to be bolder in his commitments to parents who are going through what can only be described as absolute hell on earth.
Ultimately, I fear that this is a half-baked Budget, with hundreds of thousands of people being left behind once again. At the last Budget, I urged the Chancellor to learn from previous mistakes and rapidly to learn some lessons from the pandemic. Instead, we are seeing the same age-old policies, which will have a huge impact on working people. I urge him and the Financial Secretary to take these concerns seriously, and to act reasonably and responsibly. Diolch.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on a powerful and excellent speech. As a representative of a coalfield area myself, in County Durham, I express my solidarity with colleagues from Wales who have raised the issue of unsafe coal tips and the need for funding. It is poignant that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd mentioned the terrible disaster at Aberfan. I know that it touched many hearts throughout the nation, including that of our sovereign. It was the most appalling tragedy. We must never, ever forget the debt of honour that the nation owes the coalminers and their families and communities. Although it is not the focus of my speech, I am also disappointed by the failure of the Chancellor to address the historic injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme. It is not a case of demanding more public money, as the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), who is no longer in his place, claimed. This is the miners’ own money. That this historical injustice has not been addressed cuts to the quick those of us with mining connections.
The broad theme of this debate is people in businesses. I will confine my remarks essentially to cancer, which is the most dreadful business. I know that the Treasury Bench is populated by Ministers with a background in science, innovation and workforce skills, and I hope they will relay my comments to their colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary groups on cancer and on radiotherapy. Access to cancer services is an issue that has touched me personally and about which I care passionately. About 50% of us will suffer and battle against cancer at some point in our lives.
A week ago, I joined my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), and, from the other place, Baron Fox of Leominster, and representatives from national cancer charities, cancer survivors and the cancer workforce, to deliver a petition and a letter to No. 10 Downing Street. The petition was signed by over 53,000 people. The letter, sent on behalf of a coalition of national cancer charities, patient advocacy groups, 64 MPs of all parties, peers and APPG chairs, called on the Government to invest urgently in our vital cancer workforce ahead of the Budget. A few months earlier, just before the recess, I presented to Downing Street a petition set up by Catchup With Cancer which was signed by over 370,000 people. That campaign was launched in conjunction with Craig and Mandy Russell, to whom I pay tribute. Tragically, they lost their daughter to bowel cancer at the age of just 31. Her life expectancy was drastically cut short after her cancer treatment was stopped as a direct result of the covid-19 response.
Even before the pandemic, at 62 days, we had the worst cancer waiting times on record and worrying variations in cancer services across the United Kingdom. The pandemic has not just laid bare the terrible strain on the cancer workforce, which has been happening for a number of years, but has driven cancer services to crisis point. It is reported that significant numbers of nurses are leaving or planning to leave our NHS following the pandemic. One in four NHS staff in England say they are now more likely to leave their job than was the case one year ago. In addition, long-standing unfilled vacancies and high staff absence and sickness levels continue to constrain cancer services. I am a great admirer of Professor Patricia Price, who appeared before the Health Committee earlier this week and spoke of
“the biggest cancer crisis in living memory”.
To give credit where it is due, the emphasis on cancer diagnostic services in the Budget is welcome. It matches the ambitions set out in the NHS long-term plan of diagnosing 75% of cancers at stage 1 or 2 by 2028. The projections are that 55,000 people each year will survive for five years or more following their earlier cancer diagnosis. However—I must regretfully, with due respect, take issue again with points raised by Conservative Members—we need greater clarity on exactly how the money is to be spent. Unless the boost in cancer diagnosis is matched by an equal boost in treatment services and investment in the workforce to deliver those services, they will continue to fall far short of the Government’s stated ambition. The future of the workforce is now the most significant threat facing the NHS today. We need investment in equipment needed for treatments such as advanced precision radiotherapy, which I have benefited from and which plays a vital role in cancer care and has continued to be the stand-out cancer treatment during the pandemic.
Make no mistake, the cancer backlog is a huge issue. Without a fully funded plan to increase the number of skilled staff and train the future cancer workforce, more patients will see their treatments unnecessarily delayed. Investment in cancer treatment services and the cancer workforce needs to be expanded to match investment in cancer diagnosis. The two are hand in —two wings of the same bird.
Grahame Morris
Precisely. We must ensure that people living with cancer get the support they need and deserve now and in the future.
The specifics are that according to the cancer charity Macmillan, we are 2,500 specialist cancer nurses short in England. Macmillan is urging the Government to take action and create a nurse cancer training fund, which could be set up with a modest investment of £124 million. That would train 3,300 specialist cancer nurses. When we think about the many billions spent on the test, track and trace system, the investment of a fraction of that sum in cancer treatment—modest as far as the budgets are concerned— would command majority support, not just on the Opposition Benches, but in the whole House and the country.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for calling me in this important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. As ever, it is a real honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who spoke so eloquently about cancer. In the Budget, there was not a word about the call from the Association of Medical Research Charities to have a medical research charity partnership fund to fund vital medical research. Charities have been so hard hit during the pandemic, yet there was not a whisper from the Government yesterday.
The people and the planet will pay for yesterday’s Budget. While the Chancellor’s job is to positively spin each announcement, it is what is not said that exposes the economic reality and fragility. We must remind ourselves, after more than a decade of economic regression, that we are in this place because of the mismanagement of the pandemic. The Government were ill-prepared, despite warnings. They ignored those warnings, then were slow to act.
Inflation rises are costly, and they hit the poorest hardest. The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that inflation could rise to 5% or even more. Inflation will really hit the poorest people in our constituencies, with energy, food and housing costs soaring. That will mean that family budgets will rapidly move into the red because of the contents of the Chancellor’s red box. Inflation will mean that many more families will visit one of York’s 16 food banks, 15 of which are in my constituency, and that many more will go without. That process will be accelerated for those who have just had £20 a week stripped from their working tax and universal credit payments, including 7,850 people in my constituency, at a time when the Government have also announced increases in national insurance contributions. Those in my constituency are living in a place where house prices and rents are rising more sharply than just about anywhere else in the UK. That £20 cut embeds inequality and injustice, yet the proposals from Government keep driving inequality through housing. There was not a word yesterday about how to fix that or the homes that people live in, so many of which are damp and overcrowded, with families struggling in them.
While York’s Poverty Truth Commission will unveil the depth of this crisis, the Chancellor failed to bring fresh thinking to his Budget. A wealth tax, as many in business now call for, would have seen redistribution and been a first step to tackling entrenched disparity. With York as one of the most inequitable cities in the UK, we need to see that change.
While underemployment and underpay in York make living there more expensive than most places in the country, the relief for the hospitality sector will act as a sticking plaster to address some of the issues that it is facing, yet not all. Staff shortages are pressing down on the hospitality sector and making many businesses so unviable that they can open for only a few days a week—we see the notices going up in their windows. What was missing yesterday was how we are going to not only address that issue, but transition to secure and better jobs for our future economy. Of course any wage rise helps, but when the pressures are escalating disproportionately on the least well off, a £10 minimum wage was needed as a starter. As the Labour conference determined, it should rapidly rise to £15 an hour.
When we talk about the current staff recruitment challenges, we need to understand the pressure that is putting on our private sector businesses and our public sector. For example, there is a deficit in people providing the care services that are vital to address some of the challenges facing the wider NHS. If we cannot care for people in our communities, we need the Government to step in, yet we heard no response from the Chancellor yesterday as to how that crisis will be addressed.
On business rates, we again saw sticking plasters coming out of the Chancellor’s pockets to cover the wound, but there is still a gaping hole and we need more innovation to address those rates. A property related tax belongs to a different era. As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who is no longer in his place, said, we cannot have an analogue tax in a digital economy. That is why we need reform. I have talked to businesses in my constituency, 65% of which are independent and innovative in what they are doing. They are calling for a tax that looks at profit and turnover to address their contribution proportionately. We need to address those issues because, time and again, we have seen offshore landlords not paying attention to what is happening on our high streets. It is about time that they were held accountable.
Most seriously, the Chancellor’s silence on support for local authorities to run good local services was telling. Our City of York Council’s leader has squandered public funds on pay-offs, but my constituents should not pay a heavy price. They deserve decent services, but the Chancellor failed to say how they will be provided without cuts and rises in council tax. For example, how will the cost of repairs be met for schools such as All Saints Roman Catholic School, which desperately needs a new school estate, or Tang Hall Primary School, which is so cold in winter that children wear hoodies to keep warm? That is the reality facing us, and it has to change.
There are other issues, such as the Sure Start programme. Yesterday, we heard a big brag from the Government about putting £500 million into 150 new family hubs, but we must remind ourselves that £974 million and 1,400 Sure Starts have been cut, which means that, for many years, many families did not get the support that they had had. On family hubs, the voluntary sector is expected to be a partner, but again that sector is really struggling and there was nothing from the Chancellor.
Although, obviously, I welcome the reannouncement of the funding for the National Railway Museum, as I have welcomed it each time the Chancellor has mentioned it, we need more investment in our city. That is why I was disappointed that York’s response to the green new deal, BioYorkshire, did not get a mention yesterday. It would bring forward, ahead of COP26, a proper green new deal and transition, as well as vital regeneration and crucial jobs for the future to my city.
As our planet continues to melt and burn and flood, the Chancellor failed to mention its fate. Holding down road and air travel costs will only accelerate its demise, not stem it. In just five years’ time, the UK will have spent its carbon budget. The Budget made the wrong calls. We just do not have time on our side, yet the Chancellor did not address that crisis. I am perplexed as to why, when the economic Budget is announced, the carbon budget is not addressed at the same time. They should be addressed together, hand in glove.
As the Chancellor stalls on funding for the poorest on our planet by suppressing overseas development aid until 2024-25, he also suppresses the green transition they need to make. Famine and droughts, conflicts and floods are forcing 80 million people to leave their homes and land to eat and live. Opposition Members cannot cheer the Chancellor with his veil of optimism, because we know that our constituents are not fooled. They see the trail of devastation that the Government are leaving for Labour one day to mop up. The Chancellor who said he would do “whatever it takes” left 3 million people stranded during the covid crisis. Yesterday, he abandoned not just the people but our precious planet.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who made important points on the inequality that exists. Her constituency has similarities with mine. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said, an enormous number of people are still on benefit, yet, at the same time, the wealth tax list published by The Times shows that 23 more billionaires have made money just from the covid crisis.
We have not talked much about waste this afternoon. The debate has to be considered in the context of the cross-party investigation on the covid crisis led by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and how much money was given out in a haphazard way. Had that money not been wasted, it would be available now to assist our constituents, who are feeling the pinch with autumn on its way and with inflation affecting food and fuel bills as well as clothing, shoes and everything that we purchase.
If my reading of documentation from the OBR and IFS is correct, there has been a 2% reduction in GDP as a result of the scarring from covid and a 4% reduction owing to Brexit. Trading with our European partners has gone down from about 63% to 60%. That may not sound like that much in percentage terms, but it actually represents quite a reduction in trade with our main trading partners. We face an autumn of many difficulties on many fronts—it makes one feel nostalgic for the last time we had a surplus Budget, which I believe was when Gordon Brown was Chancellor, which was quite some time ago. Since then, we have had deficit Budgets under Tory Administrations.
I want to highlight the increased tax burden on many people who do not earn very much money at all. The jobs tax increase of over 1% on employees and employers that will come in next April will lead to a sense of less money in the pocket. There is still much uncertainty at this time about covid and a question mark over whether we will need increased restrictions in the autumn. It feels like a bit of a gamble in terms of how much of a burden it is placing on working people to carry the can for Government mismanagement, waste and increased taxes.
Many hon. Members have mentioned the missed opportunity on climate ahead of COP26. We could have seen much more funding for basic measures: for example, we could have asked local authorities to retrofit homes and provide state-of-the-art new boilers. That could have provided the opportunity to train up the 180,000 workers we will need to install heat pumps. Our local authorities would have been grateful for the opportunity to do their bit; instead, they are still scrimping and saving, despite the small increase in local government funding. Much more could have been done.
We have the tax cut for flying between Manchester and Heathrow—should we be encouraging that in this day and age? When we look back at various green schemes—the green new deal introduced as a sort of payment on homes back in 2010 by Greg Barker, now in the other place, or the green homes plan, which ran out of steam—we see that time and again the Government have missed the opportunity to ask local authorities to deal with their own localities. Green schemes work best when operated at local level.
We all of course think day in, day out about the productivity puzzle. We know that, unless we spend more on education, we are not going to see long-term improvements in our economy. I welcome the work and report on early years by the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), but I do not think £500 million is going to do what Sure Start did. Many of us have had a number of Sure Start children’s centre closures over the years and this is reinventing the wheel and too little too late.
The Chancellor talked yesterday about tutoring. I am a big believer in tutoring, but it often implies that the hours a young person spends in school are not productive. How do we use the hours when children and young people are in school in a better way? My survey of schools shows the teaching staff to be exhausted and morale to be quite low, and I hope that, after the pay review body does its work, teachers will get a proper increase for their daily work. Why does this need to be a question of either tutoring or increasing the time young people can spend in school? We should be looking at both.
Further education spending has been cut by 50% since 2010. I am pleased that there are some bootcamps and there are new and different ways to spend the apprenticeship levy, but we need to think much more carefully about what works and increase investment in training, career development and the whole area from early years through to FE and adult education.
Sir Kevan Collins, who was the education tsar under the Government, has written in today’s Times. He thinks that the £5 billion is only a third of what is needed to bring our education system up to the required level. We all want our workforce to be more skilled and the productivity gain that would bring, but if Kevan Collins, the expert who was commissioned to look into this, says this falls far short, we need to believe that and do more about it.
I am very proud of my busy London high streets, but I was sad that the Chancellor did not even mention the word “London” yesterday; it seems to have gone out of vogue but, as those of us who are based in our wonderful capital will know, we need quite a lot of levelling up ourselves in London. The high street in Wood Green, where I am the MP, has a number of people walking up and down but businesses say that, although there is plenty of footfall—people are still there—the amount they are spending has dipped right down. Since 2010, the number of transactions and payments to small businesses and the chains in our mall have dropped considerably. That reflects Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis showing we have had negative growth, or tiny bits of growth in our local areas. A lot of that is down to these patches where we have high unemployment and not much at all in our pockets.
Our small businesses are very disappointed that, despite promising it for years now, there was not a proper review of business rates. The Labour proposal to take more as a digital tax from Amazon and to top up small business relief is a neat solution and I ask the Government to look at that again. They are letting down small businesses, which are the lifeblood of all our communities.
We are experiencing problems related to lack of occupancy of shops on our high streets. I am particularly cross with the banks. The week before last, I presented a petition about the closure of the NatWest branch in Crouch End, and then, lo and behold, as I sat down we learned that the Lloyds in Muswell Hill is closing. Not only is that a terrible waste of the lovely space that those banks were taking up on the high street, but often there is no guarantee that they will replace those branches with an ATM—a hole in the wall—which means that people will not even stop to buy a sandwich and get some cash out at the cashpoint. That is the least the Treasury could be doing.
I believe that there have been hundreds of bank closures since 2015. I would like the Treasury to show a bit of muscle and go back to the banks and say, “Okay, you’re closing a branch, so what are you giving us back?” Why do we not make them work for the tax cut—the £4 billion—that they got from the Treasury yesterday and say, “In return, every time a bank is closed on the high street, put in an ATM so that at least we can get cash out and our high streets are not deserts”?
We know that many of our small businesses really do it for the love. I am thinking of small shops such as the Pretty Shiny Shop in Stroud Green ward and Dunns bakery in Crouch End. They are fantastic local employers —that is the thing. They often have young people working after school, or women whose caring responsibilities work around the different shifts. They are doing their bit to keep our high streets going, and I would like to see the Treasury respond in kind to keep them going.
I want briefly to talk about the vibrant restaurant sector, which will benefit from some of the minor adjustments that the Chancellor announced yesterday. I am very grateful for that. I could not quite follow all the changes to alcohol, I am afraid—he lost me a bit—except that I think champagne is going to be cheaper, but I am sure you know that, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am sure you were taking notes, as somebody who likes a tipple.
However, some people do not drink—let us not forget that—and we could have spent that time talking about something that mattered more, such as fuel bills, how expensive childcare is, and the fact that people who are carers and do a job do not get any recognition for that in our taxation system. There are so many more things that we could have spent time talking about. Instead, I understand that yesterday’s announcement was followed by a very funny outing to a brewery, where the wrong prop—the wrong keg of beer—was used. I am sure that the shadow Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), will refer to that in winding up.
This has been an excellent debate. There is a lot that we have in common, but we face a number of challenges. I would like us to be much more focused on how we can help our constituents through this very tough and uncertain period. Autumn will lead to a Christmas of shortages, of very high fuel bills, of expensive food, clothing and shoes, and of looking at a very modest increase to the minimum wage, which could really be a living wage if we tried harder and made it a real £10 an hour. I hope that the Treasury will look again at making some announcements this weekend when COP is in town, so that we can be even more pleased to be in a leadership role there, and that it will look specifically at the role of local government in day-to-day measures to improve our environment.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We are now going to move to the final Back-Bench contribution, so will any Members who have contributed to the debate please start to make their way to the Chamber for the wind-ups? Those will follow Mr Jim Shannon.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
May I first say a big thank you to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Government for all the help that they gave us—I say “us”; that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—during the covid crisis? The moneys that have been spent are enormous—we know that—and they are the reason why many of the businesses in my constituency are here today. Help was given at the time that it was needed. This Budget follows that, and every one of us has to recognise what has happened before and what happens now.
I was thinking beforehand about how I would refer to the Budget and I was reminded of a saying that I have probably used before in this Chamber. The Budget is a bit of a curate’s egg: good in parts. I am a person who eats two eggs in the morning and two eggs at night, so I know how to eat me eggs. You have to eat the yolk and you have to eat the white as well, because they are both part of the egg. Now, what is the best of the egg? It is the yolk. I am going to speak about the best parts of the egg, but there are also parts of the egg we may not enjoy as much and we should recognise that. [Interruption.] I hear from a sedentary position, “Don’t eat the shell.” [Laughter.]
I chair the all-party parliamentary group on respiratory health, so I want to talk about some of the good things in relation to respiratory health. I was delighted to hear the announcement in the Budget that money has been set aside for community diagnostic centres. The Government announced that 40 new community diagnostic centres are set to open across England in a range of settings, from local shopping centres to football stadiums, to offer new and early diagnostic tests closer to patients’ homes. To roll out the strategy, the new centres will be backed by a £350 million investment and provide around 2.8 million scans in their first full year of operation. They are designed to assist with earlier diagnosis through faster and easier access to diagnostic tests for symptoms, including breathlessness, cancer and ophthalmology. The Chancellor also announced, through the health budget, additional moneys to tackle the backlog of diagnostic tests to deliver more checks, scans and treatment.
Those are some of the good things that have happened. The Government set a target of 100 centres across the whole of the United Kingdom, so I put on record my thanks to the Chancellor for making that very welcome announcement through the Department of Health and Social Care. I understand that each of the centres will include a multi-disciplinary team of staff, including nurses and radiographers, and will be open seven days a week. If those commitments are delivered—I hope they will be and I trust the Government to do that—we will have something we can be very thankful for. The all-party group warmly welcomes the creation of the centres and the funding allocated to them. I hope they can help to address the covid-imposed inequalities that we have seen across the country in asthma and lung cancer care and treatment. They should provide additional confidence to patients, and relieve pressures on the secondary and tertiary care appointments system. We also welcome the inclusion of breathlessness diagnostics in the centres. We think it is essential that the centres will be equipped to diagnose any cause of breathlessness, whether it is cardiovascular, lung cancer, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We have sent some questions directly to the relevant Health Minister to follow up on that.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) mentioned the need to retrofit homes. He is absolutely right. I am also the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for healthy homes and buildings. We need to address the efficiency of older homes, but every home across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be targeted in this energy crisis. We need a better system of retrofitting homes, making them more efficient and addressing the energy crisis. I think we can do more. That is a part of the curate’s egg that has perhaps not been addressed and I hope the Minister, in summing up, can provide some kind of indication on that.
I very much welcome the Government’s innovation targets, which the Secretary of State referred to earlier. On green energy, I made a point about hydrogen. I will be meeting him shortly with my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley). We will put forward some ideas on hydrogen to create jobs and boost the economy, so we can look to the future. Again, those are some of the good things.
Many hon. Members mentioned air passenger duty and I have to say, with respect, that I do not agree with them. For those of us who live in Northern Ireland, I am very happy that the Chancellor announced a reduction in air passenger duty. I travel to work from Belfast to here, but it is not just me. On Monday, the plane was almost full, with very few seats left. Many of those people were also travelling to work. APD has been reduced, so there is an incentive for people in Belfast, Scotland and elsewhere in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—money in their pockets. The planes will fly anyway, whether there are 30 or 120 people on them.
The benefit from APD is for the regions of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that is a method of levelling up that we can all take advantage of. We as a party have been asking, I believe, for three years for this APD measure to be brought in, so we are very pleased on behalf of our constituents and those who travel to work from Northern Ireland and to the United Kingdom. Here is something good for them.
I also welcome the £1.6 billion—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) referred to that yesterday—that has been set aside for Northern Ireland through the Barnett formula. These moneys will be vital for the Northern Ireland Assembly, for the working of the regional Administration and to help to address the issues, shortcomings and problems with health, education, roads, policing and so on. Again, the Government have been very generous and we are very pleased to be in receipt of that £1.6 billion; it is a real increase. There is also a real increase in expenditure, as my right hon. Friend said, and those are some of the things that we will wish to keep track of. I think there may be some other Barnett consequential money coming through the health budget that was announced, so we are very pleased.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion spoke about universal credit as well—it just so happens that he and I have similar thoughts on this matter—and I was disappointed that the £20 uplift has been removed. However, given what the Chancellor seemed to indicate yesterday—if I have read it right, and I have asked people in my constituency to look at the figures to see whether this is correct—if people can still be in receipt of universal credit and earn more, that will enable some, and I hope all, of my constituents to take advantage of universal credit and, at the same time, increase the hours that they are doing. The taper rate change seems to mean that people can earn more and still be in receipt of universal credit, if I have read that correctly. I will check it out, because that only became known yesterday, but I am, certainly initially, very pleased to see that in place.
On the curate’s egg, one thing that I am disappointed is missing, which is very important to my constituents, is an uplift in the child benefit cap for those working families who receive no Government help other than child benefit and whose children will receive no help for uniform, school meals, university fees or anything else. The fact is that they are living on less disposable income, with higher gas, car and electricity costs, and I am disappointed that the child benefit cap has remained for a further year. I say respectfully to the Ministers on the Front Bench—the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith)—who I have the utmost respect for, that middle-class people will be squeezed. I have asked for an uplift in the child benefit cap. If that was part of the Budget, it would enable some middle-class people not to be squeezed as much, and if they were able to take advantage of that, it would definitely make a difference.
I have two grandchildren who were born during the covid lockdown, and five grandchildren in total. Many in this House have grandchildren and their own children. I believe that my covid lockdown grandchildren will be paying for this in their taxes until the end of their lives and probably until the end of their children’s lives, so I want to make sure that every penny is well spent. Although I welcome the large amount, I question the situation for middle-class families: I believe that more can and should be done to bring relief to working families who get no help other than child benefit. Their shopping costs have risen by 20% and their fuel costs have risen by 30%, yet they cannot take a pay rise of a couple of thousand pounds because they would lose a percentage of their child benefit. What they are given with one hand is taken away with the other. It would have been better to raise the child benefit cap to ensure that they, too, could get some advantage. They are no longer comfortable, but stretched: stretched in their precious time with their children, stretched in their finances, stretched in their energy. I fear that, at some stage, that stretch will lead to a break. I believe that we must do more to help them.
This is a curate’s egg Budget: good in parts. Let us enjoy the yolk and enjoy the white part; they are all good, but some parts are better than others.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond to today’s debate on behalf of the Opposition. Although the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is not in his place, I begin by congratulating him on becoming a father for the first time. He would not tell us his age, but if he is an older dad, as I was, I suspect that he is learning the reason that people have children in their 20s and 30s. That is a lesson that we learn when we have them a little bit older in life, so I give him my full solidarity and best wishes on his new baby.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate, which were wide-ranging. Several hon. Members talked about the need for business rates reform in the longer term, which the Opposition very much support. Others raised continuing issues with universal credit and made the point that the changes made yesterday will benefit only a minority of those affected by the cut of £20 a week that was implemented a few weeks ago. There were also contributions on artificial intelligence, the return of inflation, bank closures and many other issues.
Several Welsh colleagues raised coal tip safety. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) rightly reminded us that it has been just over 55 years since the tragedy in Aberfan. I remember visiting the graveyard in Aberfan as a young man with my friend Huw Lewis, the former Assembly Member for the constituency: I will never forget the pictures of children on the graves, lovingly cared for and frozen in time forever. Fifty-five years on, I hope that the UK Government and the Welsh Government manage to reach agreement on securing the safety of coal tips for the future. I thank hon. Friends for raising the matter.
The Budget, like all Budgets, covered many things, but the stand-out feature was the Chancellor’s admission that taxes are set to rise to their highest levels since the early 1950s—higher than under Norman Lamont, higher than under Ken Clarke, higher than under Denis Healey, higher than under any of the Chancellor’s predecessors. Corporation tax, personal allowance freezes, national insurance, council tax—there is one tax rise after another. A new analysis today shows that the combination of them is set to mean £3,000 more in taxes per household than when the Prime Minister came into office.
The reason for all the tax rises is simple: the Tories have become the party of high taxation because they are the party of low growth. In the 11 years in which they have been in office, economic growth has averaged just 1.8%. In the previous decade, it averaged 2.3%.
Tom Hunt
I find it somewhat unbelievable that the right hon. Member cannot see that perhaps the £407 billion that we spent fighting the pandemic might have something to do with what he has just identified.
Mr McFadden
If the hon. Member reads the OBR report, he will find that it says very clearly that the effect of the pandemic is smaller in the long run than the effect of the low growth over which his party has presided for more than a decade.
As I was saying, in the decade before the Conservatives came to office, growth averaged 2.3%. Let us look at what the difference between those rates means to people. The difference, added up over the years, is worth £9,000 a year to every household in the country, and from the Exchequer’s point of view, the difference would be £30 billion a year more to fund our public services. It is that more than anything—that appalling record on economic growth—which has forced the Chancellor to raise taxes. The British people are being forced to pay the price of the Government’s long-term economic failures.
The long-term effect of this lack of growth is far greater than the impact of the pandemic. When we look beyond the huge fall in GDP last year, due to the pandemic, and the bounce back from it this year and next, the growth picture does not change. The OBR is predicting economic growth averaging about 1.5% between 2024 and 2026. It is that low growth which creates the projections of real wages barely rising in the coming years. In his dreams, the Prime Minister is Winston Churchill; in his rhetoric, the Chancellor is Margaret Thatcher; but in its actions, this Government is Ted Heath.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have trapped the country in a vicious circle of low growth, rising inflation, stagnating incomes and rising taxes. The economic legacy of this Chancellor will be a country on the path of low growth and high taxation, but his political legacy will be as the man who buried forever the Tories’ reputation as a low-tax party.
Barry Gardiner
I entirely agree with all the points that my right hon. Friend is making. The Chancellor said yesterday that in three years’ time we would still have growth of 1.3%—negligible growth. If we look back to the years of the Labour Government, we see that even in 2010, after the global recession, we still had growth of 2.3%.
Mr McFadden
That is precisely the point I am making. The long-term growth trend makes a huge difference to the Government’s choices and their power to fund public services.
In the face of that, what was remarkable about yesterday’s Budget was the total absence of any plan for economic growth, and nowhere is that clearer than in education. The Chancellor expects us to applaud a lap of honour where in a couple of years’ time, funding per pupil only just gets back to its 2010 level. Let us think about that for a moment: almost 15 years with no real increase in investment in the workforce of the future. A generation of schoolchildren will have gone through their whole education with fewer resources than their predecessors.
How can the Government talk realistically about levelling up when their record is long-term neglect of educational opportunity? What an appalling dereliction of duty to young people in this country. There can be no more short-sighted decision than to stop talent flourishing—to take away the platform from which dreams can be fulfilled. For people born without money or without means, education is the only way in which that can happen. It is the means by which people can change the circumstances into which they were born. It is the platform to ensure that the course of life is not dictated by the hand that they were dealt at birth. Yet, for 11 years, this Government have neglected it. Then, when they were presented with a catch-up plan to help children to recover from the education lost during the pandemic, they shredded it. That is not only socially unjust; it is economically self-defeating, and that record on education is a major contributor to the weak, anaemic, stunted growth that has resulted in the tax levels we are seeing today.
This was not a Budget written in a few weeks in the Treasury. These high taxes and stagnating household incomes are not the product of the short-term crisis through which we have been living. This was a Budget written over 11 long years. Where was the plan for growth? Where was the plan to back the best of British creativity and enterprise? Where was the plan to ensure that we succeed in the technologies of the future? Where was the plan to ensure that, when it comes to levelling up, it is people and the talents that they hold, not just bricks and mortar, that are at the heart of it?
It is not just our view that the Budget did not measure up. The CBI has said that it will not
“do enough to transform the UK economy for a post-covid world”.
The Federation of Small Businesses asked:
“Is there enough here to deliver the Government’s vision for a low-tax, high-productivity economy? Unfortunately not.”
The Government ditched their industrial strategy out of ideological spite. The transition plan for net zero produced just last week was a damp squib. One of the biggest challenges that we face is how to transform the heating in our homes, yet their plan would partially cover just one in 250 of the replacement boilers needed. The long-term reform of business rates, which several Conservative Members said they supported, has been ditched once again. Time after time it is ditched. And the Government have only just discovered the importance of early years education, a decade after taking a wrecking ball to Sure Start and setting back a good start in life for millions of children around the country.
It is not just the fact that we have the highest taxes in living memory; it is that those taxes are not being used for any coherent long-term plan for the country. They are being used to firefight one issue after another as it momentarily occupies the mind of the Prime Minister. There is only one plan that the Chancellor has here, and it is as clear as day. It is to hold some money back in order to offer tax cuts before the next election. If that plan succeeded and the Tories won, what do we think would happen afterwards? We know what would happen. There would be a big speech about how taxes now had to go up because we had to pay our way and could not borrow what we could not afford. And the reason for that would still be the Tories’ lamentable failure on economic growth. That is not a moral mission. It is just a Tory election plan, and it is one that has been funded by hard-working taxpayers.
There is a better path. There is a better future and a different way, and that is to put our efforts into raising medium-term growth prospects and to get out of this bind of high inflation, high taxes and poor growth that 11 years of Conservative Government have left us in. That is the better path to prosperity and security. That is the path to ensuring that talent is used and to making the most of the UK’s potential. On the Labour Benches, we want to work with business, not treat it as a scapegoat for every problem that comes along. We want a fair deal for the workers in business, with good pay and decent conditions. We want to support wealth creation every bit as much as we support fair wealth distribution. We want to invest in the skills and talents of all our people, whatever their circumstances, from the youngest age possible, and we will have a net zero plan that meets the challenge of the moment and gets the best possible economic and employment benefits for the country. That is a better plan than the high-tax, high-inflation, low-growth model that the Conservative party has been pursuing, not for two years, not for one year but for 11 long years. It is that failure that gave rise to yesterday’s Budget and the tax burden being imposed on the country by this Chancellor and this Government.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)
It is a privilege to close this debate on behalf of the Government. As we come out of the biggest recession in 300 years and emerge from the pandemic, it is critical that we as a Government support our people and our businesses, and this has rightly been the subject matter of today’s debate.
This is a Budget that delivers a stronger economy for the British people. It is a clear expression of what this Government stand for and what we are determined to achieve: investment in a more innovative, high-skilled economy, because that is the only path to individual prosperity; world-class public services, because they are essential to our day-to-day living; backing business, because our future cannot be built by the Government alone; help for working families with the cost of living, because we will always give families the support they need; and levelling up, because opportunity should never be limited to the few and should not depend on where a person was born or who their parents are. Our goal is an economy fit for a new age of optimism, and this Budget is our foundation.
The right hon. Members for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) talked about investments over the past 11 years, stagnation and the lack of growth. I wonder whether they remember the financial circumstances in which their party left the country when it left office, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) pointed out. As they talked about economic stability and credibility, I wondered whether they had spotted that, under its current leader, Labour has made more than £400 billion-worth of spending commitments, in opposition to the Government’s responsible decisions to pay for our plans, yet announced just £5 billion-worth of proposed revenue rises, showing that it has no plans beyond reckless spending and no plans to deliver responsible public finances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) said, it is important that an elected Government have economic credibility, and that rests with this Government.
The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East said the Government’s plan will only increase taxation. I wonder whether he was listening to the Chancellor yesterday when he talked about his fiscal rules, whether he heard the Chancellor’s commitment to cut taxes and whether he heard that the first step is a cut of the taper rate for those on the lowest incomes.
A year ago this country was experiencing the deepest recession on record, but thanks to the Chancellor’s plan for jobs, which the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday called “remarkably successful,” we are fast recovering. The OBR expects the economy to return to pre-pandemic levels at the turn of the year, earlier than it thought in March. It has revised anticipated growth up every year for the next five years, and it has revised expectations on unemployment down to 5.2%, with more than 2 million fewer people likely to be out of work than was predicted at the height of the pandemic. Wages are also rising. In other words, the decisions this Government took during the pandemic were the right ones for the economy and for the British people.
The subject of today’s debate is support for people and businesses, and that support is clear to see. I start by addressing our support for people, and particularly for those on low incomes. It was a Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage in 2016, and the Budget increases it by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, raising the pay of over 2 million of the lowest-paid workers. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) said that that is not enough, but I wonder whether she realises that the rate is set by the Low Pay Commission, and that is what we have accepted.
Alison Thewliss
Does the Minister accept that she is talking about not a real living wage but a minimum wage? The real living wage will be set by the Living Wage Foundation on 15 November. Will she match that?
Lucy Frazer
As the hon. Lady knows, we are on a trajectory to get the national living wage to a higher rate. We need to increase the national living wage, as we have by 6.6% this time round, and it will go up again in time. She will have heard Conservative Members asking how it will work for the businesses that are paying it, so there is a balance to be struck. This Government are progressing on that trajectory to the right path.
We are also reducing the universal credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, which, combined with a £500 increase in the work allowance, means an effective tax cut worth more than £2 billion a year. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central said that that would not help families, so let me give an example: a single mum living in Darlington who works full time on the national living wage would see a £1,200 increase in her pay by December, and that would be £1,900 in April when the new national living wage comes in. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) acknowledged the transformative effect that the increases to the national living wage and the universal credit taper will have for many of his constituents. I am grateful for the constructive comments made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) in welcoming the national living wage and public sector pay increases.
With fuel prices at their highest level in eight years, we are not prepared to add to the squeeze on families and small businesses, which is why the Budget freezes fuel duty for the 12th year in a row. The hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) is wrong to say that we are not supporting people with their gas bills: in addition to the fuel-duty freeze, we have the warm homes discount, which supports 2.2 million people, who receive a £140 rebate on their bills. Like the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), the hon. Member for Newport East called for a cut to VAT on fuel bills—something the Labour party calls for—but what would that do? What would happen if we cut VAT on fuel? Such a cut would apply for everyone, across the board, so who would it help as well as the low-paid? It would help the wealthy. I am quite surprised to hear Opposition Members suggest that.
Barry Gardiner
Does the Minister recognise that it is the poor who pay the largest portion of their disposable income in fuel costs? She is absolutely right that such a cut would, of course, be of greater benefit in monetary terms to the wealthy, who tend to spend more on energy, but in terms of the difference made to lives, 5.7% of the disposable income of the very poorest goes on energy costs.
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Member makes a valid point and I absolutely recognise that, but the way to solve that problem is not to give a tax benefit to a large group of people who simply do not need it, but to give discrete, directed support to those who do need it. That is what this Government have done: the hon. Member will know that six weeks ago we announced £500 milllion to support the most vulnerable families when they absolutely need it.
Members from all parties mentioned the support for families and for family hubs and welcomed the measures in the Budget. I was pleased to hear the support from my hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) made a good speech about how important it is to support struggling families, and I was interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said about the importance of not only supporting young families financially—we have heard how important it is to support recent mums and dads—but giving them emotional security as well.
I was disappointed to hear the shadow spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South-East, speak about our lack of support for education, because we have invested significantly in education, not only in this Budget but in previous ones. This Budget provides a wide variety of support through the education system. We are increasing the core funding for schools, with an additional £1,500 per pupil, and providing catch-up funding, with an additional £1.7 billion bringing the sum up to £5 billion, In addition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said, we are increasing the funding for SEND provision, with an extra 30,000 places for pupils with high needs. Through our new Multiply programme, we are helping school leavers who did not get the maths skills that they ought to have got at school.
Catherine West
There are some really good measures in the education package, but does the Minister not accept that returning us to 2010 expenditure on education when we have more children to educate, a bigger population and a need to look at the workforce as well, does not really help us in terms of the productivity puzzle, which is key to making the Brexit challenge work?
Lucy Frazer
The £4.7 billion investment in core school funding will be welcomed by schools and will enable them to support their students over the coming years. I would like to take this moment to thank all those teachers across the country who have committed so much over the course of the past 18 months in very difficult and challenging circumstances. I know that, although schools are back, students have lost time and there is a huge amount of work to do. Our one-to-one tuition and other such measures will help with that. The mark of a good Budget is one that makes a difference to people’s lives, in many different ways, and I hope that this Budget makes that difference.
Let me turn now to skills. Supporting people does not just mean cutting their tax bill. If we want to build a stronger economy and spread opportunity, we need to do more to boost people’s skills. I have talked about education, but, in addition, we are spending £3.8 billion over the Parliament, with more hours learning for 16 to 19-year-olds, expanded T-levels, more traineeships, more Institutes of Technology funding for the lifetime skills guarantee, and a large increase for apprenticeships by the end of the Parliament. I was very pleased to hear the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) welcoming our boot camps, which are increasing skills for people across the country.
Every Government should aspire to provide greater life chances for future generations, but this Government not only have the ambition, but have already shown through their plan for jobs that we can level up and we will continue to do so with this Budget.
Lucy Frazer
I will press on at the moment.
Just as the Budget seeks to help working families, so it supports businesses as they continue to recover from the pandemic, with a particular focus on encouraging them to invest. Small businesses are the lifeblood of the British economy. Their contribution to this country, day in, day out, is extraordinary, and we want to support businesses to grow, so the Budget introduces changes such as the new 50% relief for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties—a tax cut worth almost £1.7 billion. The Budget also cancels next year’s planned increase in the business rates multiplier—a tax cut worth £4.6 billion for businesses. Taken together, the Budget cuts to business rates amount to support of £7 billion over the next five years. I am really pleased that that was welcomed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) suggested that this was not significant support, but in fact it is the largest support by way of business rates over a period of time, save for the coronavirus measures.
I would like to address one point that was raised by the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon). There was a suggestion that freeports—one of our measures that significantly support business—were not generating economic activity. Let me say that we are already seeing evidence of new investments at freeports. DP World, for example, is investing £300 million at the Thames freeport.
Let me turn now to investment. We are boosting innovation by investing in our world-leading research and development sector, maintaining our target to increase annual public R&D investment to £22 billion, and spending £20 billion every year by 2024-25. On top of initiatives such as Help to Grow and the Future Fund, we are increasing regional financing to help businesses innovate and grow, and providing £1.6 billion for the British Business Bank to expand the UK-wide regional angels programme and establish new regional funds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) recognised, it is extremely important to improve our science education and investment, and that is exactly what we are doing. We want this country to be the most exciting and dynamic country in the world for business, and it will be.
The position in relation to the devolved Administrations was mentioned by several Members, including the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell). Some of them mentioned funding for the coal tips in Wales. I point out that in this Budget the devolved Administrations have had the biggest funding settlement ever, with the biggest annual block grants in real terms of any spending review settlement since devolution in 1998. I do hope, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) said, that that money is spent well.
Alex Davies-Jones
The Minister mentions the block grant that is given to the devolved nations, but surely she and the Government recognise that the £600 million needed for the coal tips legacy cannot be paid for by the Welsh Government alone. It was the UK that benefited from those coal tips, so it cannot be for the Welsh Government to pay for the legacy on their own, especially when it predates devolution.
Lucy Frazer
As the hon. Member knows, these matters can be dealt with through devolution. As I mentioned, there is a significant funding settlement coming the way of the devolved Administrations; obviously, it is up to them how they spend that money.
As the country emerges from the worst economic shock that we have ever seen, this Government choose to invest in people, in skills, in innovation—in our future. The Budget and spending review begin to deliver the new economy and optimism of which the Chancellor spoke yesterday, with a pay rise for over 2 million people, a £2 billion tax cut for the lowest paid, the biggest business rates tax cut in 30 years and the largest real-terms increase in departmental spending this century. This Budget levels up to a higher wage, higher skilled and higher productivity economy. It is a Budget that will be measured by the difference that it makes to people’s lives across the country. I commend it to the House.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Scott Mann.)
Debate to be resumed Monday 1 November.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank every Member who participated in the debate, because everybody turned up for the wind-ups. We will pause briefly as those who wish to leave the Chamber do so, before I call the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) to present the petition.
Inquiry into policing at Orgreave Coking Plant
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition on behalf of my constituents and many mining communities throughout the country on the need for an inquiry into policing at the Orgreave coking plant on 18 June 1984. In the five years since 31 October 2016, when the Home Secretary decided not to order an inquiry, the Government have not responded to any of the new evidence that has been presented.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Easington,
Declares that the UK government has not properly investigated the behaviour of police at the Orgreave Coking Plant on 18th June 1984; further that in the five years since the Home Secretary decided not to order an inquiry, on 31st October 2016, the Government has not responded to any new events and evidence; further that key events and evidence that came to light during that time include the 2020 decision of the Scottish Parliament to grant a collective pardon to miners’ convicted in Scotland during the 1984/85 strike, the 2018 independent approach by the Bishop of Sheffield that there be an independent panel set up (similar to the Hillsborough Independent Panel) to commence scrutiny and consideration of the events of 18th June 1984, the further release of Home Office papers relating to the strike in the last five years and finally the disclosure by the National Police Chiefs’ Counsel of the existence and location of Association of Chief Police Officers files relating to Orgreave and the miners’ strike that are embargoed until 2066; further that Tory MPs representing ex-mining communities have failed to publicly state their support for an inquiry; and further that the recent Daily Mirror article exposing Amber Rudd’s conversation about not holding an inquiry into Orgreave because it would “tarnish Thatcher’s memory” was very disappointing.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to consider the concerns of the petitioners and review its decision not to order an independent inquiry into policing at the Orgreave Coking Plant on 18 June 1984 and to consider afresh the legal submission presented to the Home Secretary by the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign in 2015.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002695]
North Tees Hospital
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I understand that Mr Cunningham has sought permission to speak briefly in this debate, and that Mr Vickers and the Minister have agreed, so after Mr Vickers has resumed his seat, I will call Mr Cunningham to speak.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to the House for the opportunity to hold this important and urgent debate, and to the Minister for his attention this evening. After much time spent securing the debate, I am delighted to have the chance to make the case for much-needed and urgent improvements to North Tees Hospital.
I pay tribute to all the amazing healthcare workers—the doctors, nurses, technicians, cleaners, and anyone who had a hand in making sure that our hospitals, including North Tees, stayed afloat during the pandemic. While many retreated to the safety of their own homes, they got on with the job, putting themselves at risk, to help keep us safe. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude. I was recently fortunate enough to undertake a shift alongside the doctors, nurses and surgeons at North Tees Hospital, and I saw for myself the challenges that they are facing and the sheer scale of the elective surgery backlog created by the pandemic. Doctors and surgeons are being forced to make decisions on who gets their treatment first: the elderly lady who needs a hip replacement to deal with her arthritis or the youngster who needs surgery after a sporting accident.
Dealing with this backlog involves us all making the difficult decisions that are required to get our NHS back to full health. While none of us on the Conservative Benches wanted to increase national insurance or create the health and social care levy, having seen the waiting lists, and seen the work our surgeons are doing, I am confident it was the right thing to do. This funding is what our constituents need and what our hospitals so desperately need. Of course, this money comes on top of the record investment that the Conservative Government are placing in the NHS, with 50,000 more nurses, 50 million more GP appointments a year, and, as announced yesterday, an additional £5.9 billion, taking the total investment to date to £176.5 billion—a 27% increase since the Conservatives came into government in 2010. In the past year, we have welcomed £6.5 million invested in North Tees, including huge improvements to our now award-winning urgent care centre.
Seeing the hard work and commitment of all the people who work and volunteer at North Tees Hospital is inspirational, and the people there really are award-winning. Dr Iain Loughran, one of the physiotherapy consultants, won an award at the chief allied health professions officer awards for creating an app for physiotherapists who were deployed during the pandemic; nursing associate Lisa Tomlinson was shortlisted for the rising star award for her work as an ambassador for cervical cancer after beating the illness herself; and volunteer Stephen Pratt was awarded the British Empire Medal as part of the Queen’s new year honours. These incredible people deserve the facilities and resources they need to go about their great work.
Built in 1968, the hospital serves a population of 400,000 people—a population with some of the highest health inequalities and highest rates of deprivation in the country. It is a heartbreaking and outrageous fact that, according to Public Health England, Stockton has the nation’s biggest gaps in life expectancy. In central Stockton, male life expectancy is just 64 years, while just a few miles up the road a man can expect to live to 85. This cannot go on; it has to change. When it comes to levelling up, people’s life expectancy must surely be a priority, and delivering good health services is the key to that.
Unfortunately, the North Tees Hospital building does not live up to the standard fit for the great people who work there and the patients treated there. During my shift, I got to see the challenges of the estate and the staff’s frustrations. The building was constructed in the 1960s. It is a concrete building constructed at a time when medical needs and processes were very different, and the architects had no foresight when it came to design. As a result, the hospital is in a state of poor repair and is pulling resources from frontline services to address its issues. Structural and engineering elements of the major buildings are now well beyond their life expectancy. The NHS workers in my patch, who have worked with determination and perseverance to make the best of the facilities they have, have said that this is putting the trust’s ability to provide good care at risk.
It is time to replace this hospital, which is far past its sell-by date. The fact that the hospital is comprised of two towers, which host both wards and theatres, means that piecemeal improvement or ongoing gradual investments will struggle to ever make the change needed. It is not practical and barely possible to extend a ward or theatre above the ground floor. The building has a flat roof, and as a result the building suffers hugely during adverse weather conditions. Nobody should be greeted by buckets catching water from leaky roofs when sat in A&E, in a ward or when in theatre or losing a loved one. At those tough times, we need to do better than that.
The hospital is no longer fit for purpose. By national health building note standards, our wards are way too small, with too many shared rooms. HNB guidance suggests that 85% of rooms should be single occupancy. In our trust, the proportion of single rooms is just 16%. Our theatres are also far too small. HNB standards suggest that theatres should be 55 square metres, while some theatres at North Tees are just 28 square metres. That has a huge impact on what can be done in them. There is not the space for modern technology and robotics. Not being able to have that equipment means that some patients must go elsewhere for certain surgery. Moreover, it results in some surgery taking longer to perform and it extends recovery times, so longer surgery slots are filled more quickly and more time is spent in hospital beds.
Improving isolation facilities on wards, improving clinical adjacencies and increasing the number of single-bed rooms are all options that would improve health outcomes in Stockton South, but they can only be achieved if we invest now. No amount of paint slapped on the hospital and no amount of plastering over the cracks could hide the fact that it is no longer fit for purpose. A six-facet survey was recently conducted, and it concluded that demolition and replacement was by far the best option. The costs are only one of the factors that justify that approach.
The trust continues to invest significant capital in maintaining the facilities in a safe and operational condition, but the six-facet survey indicates a steep increase in the backlog, with more than £250 million-worth of maintenance to be undertaken in the next 10 years as a “do minimum” option. On the other hand, the consolidation of services on to a new hospital site would have estimated savings of between £5 million and £6 million a year. My trust does not want to spend millions each year maintaining a crumbling building; it wants to spend the money on doctors and nurses and improving health outcomes.
By far the most important justification for this proposal is the improved care it would provide for my constituents and others. A new modernised estate could support a health management programme that would address some of the health inequalities that exist in communities such as mine, because, sadly, we are still more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or heart conditions or die earlier than the average citizen. Those problems are set only to get worse as our population ages.
Aside from that investment, there are so many other opportunities up for grabs that could revolutionise healthcare in North Tees. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the future of retail, I am a huge advocate of the “Health on the High Street” initiative, which I have been championing locally. By decentralising NHS estates and putting diagnostic centres in empty buildings on our high streets, we can bring healthcare closer to people’s doorsteps and bring some desperately needed footfall to our town centres. During the last year, I have taken that idea to my local NHS trust, and there is now a strong possibility of developing a hospital with diagnostic facilities in our town centres, but it all costs money, and we need cash in Stockton.
If there is one other thing we can do that would make the NHS fit for the future, it is getting rid of Labour’s crippling private finance initiative deals. The James Cook University Hospital, which is not in my patch, but serves many of my constituents, has a PFI scheme that costs £57 million a year. That is more than £1 million every single week and £18 million more than an equivalent hospital trust would ever have to pay. It is ridiculous. That £18 million could pay for 530 nurses in our hospitals.
I was delighted that the Conservative Chancellor announced in 2018 that those dodgy debt-loading schemes would no longer be used, but if we want to put the NHS on a surer footing, we need to get rid of the schemes that remain and hold it back. I ask the Minister to look again at what can be done to end Labour’s debt legacy on the James Cook University Hospital, so that that money can be spent on nurses, doctors and improving the health outcomes of people from our part of the world.
I will return to my main ask before I finish. To eradicate the risks associated with an ageing estate that is no longer up to the job, a new 21st-century hospital for Stockton is a must do. Now is not the time for sticking plaster. We cannot go on throwing good money after bad to maintain a building that is just not fit for purpose.
I hope that Ministers will back the bid that has been put forward by North Tees, so that we can build a new North Tees that is fit for the future, fit for patients, and fit for staff. I know that the Government are committed to modernising the NHS and have announced a massive investment that will fund healthcare across the region. The Minister is probably sick of hearing from me on the issue, but I will not give up until the amazing doctors, nurses and staff have the modern facilities and resources that they deserve.
In the light of that, I invite the Minister to the hospital to see the challenges and the improvements that must be made. If his diary does not allow that, however, North Tees will happily take a nice big cheque instead.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), my next-door neighbour, and to the Minister for agreeing to me making a short contribution to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South on securing it. I am pleased to see him following in the footsteps of Lord Wharton and Dr Paul Williams in championing the case for North Tees Hospital.
The speech of the hon. Member for Stockton South was excellent. I did not agree with everything he said, but it certainly made the case that many of us have been making for some time that we must have a new hospital in North Tees. Last year, the then Secretary of State visited North Tees and learned for himself—I hope the Minister will too—not just of the challenges we face with an outdated hospital, but of the plans and systems being developed to drive change and better healthcare in our area, where health inequalities are some of the greatest in the country, as the hon. Member for Stockton South said.
I have been calling for a new hospital to be built in Stockton for more than 11 years after the planned one was axed by the then Tory-Lib Dem Government. I often wonder what the health of our area would be like if that hospital had gone ahead. I wrote to the Minister in February requesting an update on the possibility of funding for the development work. To his credit, he has acknowledged that he owes me a letter. I am also grateful that he met the chief executive officer and the then chairman of the trust at my request just before that.
I will give a few short reminders. In Stockton North, 7.4% of the population suffer from asthma, which is higher than the 6.5% in England. In England, the level of COPD among the population is 1.9%, which rises in my constituency to 3.1%. Men in the town centre of Stockton-on-Tees, in both North and South constituencies, live 18 years less than their peers down the road. That inequality is appalling, but not inevitable.
I believe that the Minister is a good Minister—I do not say that very often—who wants to help and who recognises our challenges, but we need action now. We ask him to come good. We challenge him to join the two Stockton MPs as a champion for North Tees and convince the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister that we and our people need that hospital. We look forward to good news soon.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for their words. Without prejudging what the application process for a future new hospital might come up with, in contrast to the hon. Member for Stockton North, I agree entirely with the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South in what was, as ever, an extremely powerful exposition, on behalf of his constituents, of the need for a new hospital. I congratulate him on securing the debate. He has been a tireless campaigner on behalf of North Tees Hospital ever since he entered this place, and he continues to be a great advocate for the people of Teesside and Stockton on healthcare and many other matters. They are extremely lucky to have him representing them in this place.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Stockton North for his kind words about me. I will bank that, though I may consider it an asset that needs to be renewed from time to time and not one that lasts in perpetuity. He mentioned how, when he raised the matter at Health questions earlier in the week, I said that I owe him an update letter. I undertake to write to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South jointly to set out an update on the issue outwith the debate.
My hon. Friend was right to highlight that these have been incredibly challenging times for our NHS, including for the staff at North Tees Hospital and those across the trust and the country. I join him in expressing my gratitude to all of them for the work they have done and their dedication and commitment to caring for all his constituents and people across the region. I also pay tribute to him for the shift that he undertook at the hospital.
Before I turn to the substance of the case made by my hon. Friend, he kindly invited me to join him on a visit. I am due to bring my wellies to visit my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), who secured a commitment for a visit earlier this week. If we can find a way to add that to the tour that it looks like I may be undertaking around the country, I look forward to visiting him and the hon. Member for Stockton North in the not-too-distant future.
Edward Argar
Given that I have also committed to visiting places in Norfolk and—I think—Lancashire, it will be a pretty big tour. That is all I will say.
As I said, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South on his campaign on behalf of the hospital and on the dynamism that he has brought to it and to this place. He set out clearly the context of the hospital in terms of his constituency and the healthcare needs of his constituents. Two things that he said in particular struck me as very powerful statements. First, he set out the difference in life expectancy at 64 years compared with over 80 just up the road. Secondly, I was struck by the age of the hospital—it predates my existence, so it almost certainly predates his as well—and the impact that the design standards of that time and the ageing of the hospital has on its operation and maintenance costs as well as physically keeping it functioning as an acute hospital.
The Government have made clear our commitment to levelling up outcomes across the country, and that will certainly extend to benefiting the people of his constituency. To level up effectively, we need to improve health outcomes, and we are committed to reducing health disparities between the most and least deprived areas of the United Kingdom. Yesterday, as my hon. Friend said, the Chancellor confirmed that the Government are backing our NHS with a significant capital settlement including £5.9 billion to cut waiting lists as well as for surgical hubs, community diagnostic centres and IT improvements. That will create a step change in the quality and efficiency of care up and down the country. Of course, giving people greater opportunity to get diagnosed and scanned earlier may lead to an increase in the need for services at his hospital and others as people have their illnesses identified and need to have them treated. I will turn in a moment to his powerful plea for a new hospital.
My hon. Friend also touched on the critical need for trusts to maintain their estates. We are pleased to confirm that the spending review continues to back trusts with significant annual operational capital investment to do that, enabling them to maintain and refurbish their premises. Crucially, that is with multi-year predictability and certainty. We all know how, in capital spending, the longer the settlement in years, the easier it is both to plan for it and to get a better deal for the investment from those being employed to carry it out. More broadly, we previously confirmed an initial £3.7 billion over the four-year period from spending review 2020 to make progress on the building of 48 new hospitals by 2030. Thirty of the hospitals already announced are due to be built outside London and the south-east. Of course that comes on top of additional funding to upgrade hospitals.
My hon. Friend is, as ever, passionate and persistent in putting the case for North Tees to be among these new hospitals, as is the hon. Gentleman. I reassure my hon. Friend that I never tire of having the opportunity to talk about this with him and having him putting the case to me; he is always very welcome to do so. I will turn shortly to the process and timelines for these additional eight new hospitals on top of those already announced, but first I want to highlight a little of the significant investment that North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust has seen in recent times.
That investment includes: £3.5 million as part of our 2020-21 critical infrastructure risk fund to help it address backlog maintenance across the locations of services in the trust; £3 million as part of our A&E upgrades fund for covid measures, including funding additional streaming capacity for the emergency department at the University Hospital of North Tees; and as part of our £200 million diagnostic investment to replace diagnostic machines that are more than 10 years old, the trust has received a new CT scanner that has been installed and operational since 2020 at University Hospital of Hartlepool.
Of course, we are aware of the need for further investment across the NHS estate, and that is why the Government have been doing ambitious work providing substantial capital investment to support the biggest hospital building programme in a generation. As my hon. Friend has already highlighted, the Government have launched the next phase of implementation for our hospital building programme. On 15 July we invited expressions of interest from trusts who wished to be considered for inclusion in the next wave. The deadline for submitting expressions of interest passed in early September and, without prejudicing the decision, I was pleased to receive a submission from the University Hospital of North Tees.
We are of course committed to a robust selection process for these next eight hospitals, and as such I am sure my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on individual bids substantively while that selection is ongoing. The submission and assessment of expressions of interest is the first of a two-stage process for the selection of the next eight, to be followed by a more detailed process for long-listed schemes later in the year, considering schemes against multiple priorities, including: transforming services to deliver better, joined-up care; creating stronger and greener NHS buildings; and of course looking at need and the state of buildings that need to be replaced. Another key criterion is the fair allocation of investment by addressing levelling-up criteria. We aim to make and announce a final decision on the next eight hospitals in spring 2022.
My hon. Friend highlighted his concerns about private finance in the context of the legacy of the previous Labour Government and what that meant for his hospital trust. As he is aware, the Government have retired—that is the nice way of putting it—the private finance initiative used so extensively by previous Labour Governments, so, in future, new hospitals built for the NHS will no longer be privately financed. My Department continues to work with the NHS to do more to maximise the value of existing PFI contracts. I would encourage any trust concerned about their PFI contract to contact my officials for help. I continue to have discussions with Her Majesty’s Treasury more broadly and strategically about addressing the costly legacy of PFI in the NHS.
To conclude, I reiterate my gratitude, both to the hon. Member for Stockton North for the tenor in which he always approaches campaigning for his constituents and their hospital, but particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South for the work he is doing to support the refurbishment of North Tees Hospital. As I said, he brings a passion and a dynamism to this place on behalf of his constituents, and I am very conscious of the fact that, terrier-like, he will not let go until he has achieved what he seeks to achieve on behalf of his constituents. I commend him for that.
The Government are committed to delivering their improvement programmes to hospitals and the NHS estate across the country and look forward to delivering the step change in the quality and efficiency of care underpinned by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcements yesterday.
Question put and agreed to.
Rugby Community Ambulance Station
Subsidy Control Bill (Third sitting)
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. May I encourage Members to wear a face covering except when speaking or if they are exempt, in line with the House of Commons Commission’s recommendations? Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings.
We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room and shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue. Please note that decisions on amendments do not take place in the order they are debated, but in the order they appear on the amendment paper.
The selection and grouping list shows the order of debates. Decisions on each amendment are taken when we come to the clause to which the amendment relates. A Member who has put their name to the leading amendment in the group is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on all or any of the amendments in the group. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate.
At the end of a debate on a group of amendments, I shall call the Member who moved the leading amendment again. Before they sit down, they will need to indicate whether they wish to withdraw the amendment or seek a decision. If any Member wishes to press any other amendment in a group to a vote, they need to let me know. We will start with clause 1 stand part.
Clause 1
Overview and application of Act
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma.
Clause 1 provides an overview of what each part of the Subsidy Control Bill will cover and establishes its application to other legislation. It sets out the definitions, the requirements, the exemptions, the functions of the Competition and Markets Authority and the enforcement of the control requirements. Subsections (7) and (8) specify that if a subsidy is granted or a scheme is created using powers contained in either primary or secondary legislation, the requirements will apply unless an Act of Parliament specifies otherwise. It is a straightforward, uncontroversial overview of the Bill and its application.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his opening remarks on clause 1 stand part. We support the clause, but I will make a few remarks on it. It provides an overview of the Bill. There are concerns that we will discuss further later, but that I want to mention in relation to the overview in clause 1.
As we said on Second Reading, we recognise the need for subsidy control legislation that establishes the framework for state aid post Brexit, but the new regime proposed in the Bill will work only if it provides transparency, oversight and scrutiny. While the Bill’s chapters reflect what the key issues are, there are areas where the Bill does not provide sufficient detail and clarity.
We are concerned about a number of areas. First, crucial aspects of the regime are yet to be defined. The Bill may establish a regulatory framework of subsidy control, but it fails to provide any real indication of how, where, and on what scale the Government plan to spend subsidies. As Alexander Rose said in his written evidence,
“there is currently no preferential system to incentivise investment into disadvantaged regions.”
The Bill also fails to provide a fair role for the devolved Administrations, and we are concerned that there is not enough balance between efficiency and oversight, particularly related to the CMA. We will debate some of these issues later, but it is important to note in our discussion of the overview why we will want further debate on the gaps in the Bill, and that we will seek to amend it in Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
“Subsidy”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 2 is the cornerstone of the new subsidy control regime. It sets out the definition of a subsidy for the purposes of the Bill, and it is a fall-in test, so to be a subsidy, it must be given, directly or indirectly, by a public authority using public resources; it must confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprise; it must be specific, meaning it must benefit one or more enterprise over others by conferring an economic advantage; and finally, it must have, or be capable of having, an effect on competition or investment in the United Kingdom, or on trade or investment between the United Kingdom and other territories.
There is a non-exhaustive list of financial assistances that may count as subsidies in subsection (2). Subsections (3) and (4) establish that financial assistance provided by an intermediary will constitute a subsidy where the funds originated from public resources, or the nature of the relationship between the public authority and the intermediary is such that the decision is effectively that of the public authority. Subsection (5) establishes the point at which a subsidy is deemed to have been given.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks on clause 2. We support the clause standing part of the Bill, but there are some areas that I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on. He described the fall-in test: where the condition in each limb of subsection (1) is met, financial assistance is defined as a subsidy. That definition applies to goods and services. Subsection (2) outlines the means by which a subsidy is given. That effectively includes a direct and indirect transfer of funds. Could the Minister outline what that means for tax reliefs? Perhaps he could provide clarity on what the boundary is, and say what is and is not regarded as a subsidy.
Subsection (3) refers to a person who is not a public authority, but could be treated as one for the purposes of subsection (1). Will the Minister clarify who this is intended to refer to? Who could fall under the scope of subsection (3)? That is important, because it defines who has the authority to bring forward and grant subsidies. We would like greater clarity about what is intended by that; it was not very clear from the explanatory notes. That also relates, to some extent, to subsection (4).
We do not have an issue with subsection (6), but would like clarification on what is defined, and on why the subsection relates to “modification for air carriers”. We do not have a major problem with that; I just thought it would be helpful to clarify it, as it is the first time it comes up in the Bill.
Paul Scully
Largely, the definition of subsidies in the clause has been designed to be consistent with international obligations, especially those arising from the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU, but it does lay the foundation for a bespoke domestic regime, hence the discussion about the UK internal market. A lot of the terminology included is based on domestic legal precedent, such as the definition of an enterprise and the like. On the question about the “person”, that is what I meant about the intermediary; should a public authority not have a direct payment, or if any subsidy comes through a third party, that third party is the person defined in the Bill. Largely, as is the case for tax and aviation, all these definitions sit within the framework of our international obligations under the TCA.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Financial assistance which confers an economic advantage
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 3 establishes that financial assistance should not be considered to confer an economic advantage if it could reasonably have been provided on market terms. It is a small but necessary addition to the core definition of a subsidy for the purposes of the new regime. One example is a loan; it would not be considered to confer an economic advantage if it might have been provided by a bank on the same terms. Similarly, a public authority purchasing goods and services at market rates would not be considered to confer an economic advantage as long as the public authority follows the appropriate procurement processes.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks on clause 3. We have no general comments, but could clause 3(2) be brought in as a challenge if, for example, a cheaper loan could arguably have been obtained in the market? To avoid challenge, would that be something that the public authority needed to verify when granting the subsidy, and when a subsidy is posted, would there need to be some sort of confirmation that such a check had been made?
Paul Scully
The domestic subsidy control regime in its entirety is a bare-bones framework. It empowers public authorities in the UK to design subsidies and other policy interventions, including loans, without facing excessive bureaucracy or lengthy pre-approval processes. It does not have an EU-style regulator that acts as the gatekeeper and provides the definitive decisions on specific cases. However, we will provide guidance in due course that will help public authorities and recipients understand the practical applications of the definitions, and what authorities will need to do to comply with the subsidy control regime, including in the example that the hon. Member mentions.
Seema Malhotra
I hope, from what the Minister says, that there will be tighter guidance on how a public authority ensures that the subsidy it is giving is compliant, and on whether it will need to verify or confirm that—saying, “I confirm that,” or “All this complies with x”—in any entry it needs to make. During the evidence session, it was highlighted that there is a gap in auditing the quality of the checks a public authority makes; if there is no process for that to be recorded, it is not transparent.
Paul Scully
Clearly, anybody giving a subsidy, be they the UK Government, the devolved Administrations or a public authority, would need to keep their own internal audits in case of challenge. However, the guidance that we will develop—with full consultation and discussion with interested parties, including the devolved Administrations, businesses and public authorities, to make sure we are answering the right questions—will have that level of detail.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Financial assistance which is specific
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The purpose of clause 4 is to elaborate on the circumstances in which financial assistance is not considered to be specific where it benefits one or more enterprises over others for the purpose of the new regime. Subsection (2) confirms that financial assistance is not specific if different enterprises are treated differently in a way that can be inherently justified by the nature of the financial assistance. For example, in the case of a special levy for environmental purposes, treating certain goods or services differently can be justified by the effect that the levy aims to achieve.
Subsections (3) to (7) set out further considerations that are relevant to whether a tax measure should be considered specific, as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston mentioned. Subsection (4) sets out the situations in which tax measures may treat enterprises differently without being considered specific by reference to the normal taxation regime. One example is that a tax relief measure by a local authority that advantages one or more local enterprises over another is likely to be considered specific, but it will not be specific if all enterprises in the local area benefit. Subsection (5) makes provision for identifying what the normal taxation regime is by reference to its overall objective, its features and the level of autonomy that the public authority has in the design of the taxation regime.
Subsection (6) confirms that a levy with a non-economic public policy objective would not be specific if treating enterprises differently can be justified by objective criteria—for example, the criterion of limiting negative impacts on public health or the environment. Subsection (7) confirms that any carve-out from the levy will also not be considered specific if the same conditions as those in subsection (6) are met. I recommend that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks on the clause. Will he clarify what guidance sits behind it? This is a similar issue to that raised on clause 3(2). A concern was raised by some of our witnesses about potential tax reliefs not being defined as a subsidy, but having the same outcome as a subsidy for all intents and purposes. We obviously want to ensure that there is integrity in the implementation of the regime, so that it does not give rise to concern that there are subsidies being made through the back door that are not subject to the regime’s transparency and control measures. Will the Minister confirm that guidance will be developed around this, to make it very clear what the delineations are, and will that guidance be given and explained to local authorities?
Another issue that came up in evidence was that local or other public authorities that have not been involved in granting subsidies before want to be sure that they are making the right decisions, and want to understand the regime and the intentions of the Government.
Paul Scully
Absolutely. First of all, the guidance will give advice on the application of provisions, including the duty to consider and act consistently with the subsidy control principles. We will develop that guidance with full consultation and discussions with other parties, so that we can all look at all the measures, including the tax-specific measures. The guidance will be published in good time to allow public authorities and other stakeholders to understand the key requirements of the new regime before it commences. It is so important that we get the transparency correct and that, as the hon. Lady rightly says, we ensure the integrity of the system.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Section 2: modification for air carriers
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause establishes a more specific competition test to determine whether financial assistance for air carriers providing air transport services is a subsidy for the purposes of the Bill. Specifically, the clause will require that public authorities assess whether that financial assistance has an effect on competition between air carriers in the provision of air transport services, either within the UK or between air carriers of the UK and those of another country, or could have such an effect. An assessment of that kind more precisely reflects the specific characteristics of the market for air transport services provided by air carriers, as well as meeting our relevant international obligations.
Seema Malhotra
I have no comments or questions on clause 5.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
“Public authority”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 6 establishes the definition of the term “public authority” for the purposes of the Bill. It sets out the standard definition of a public authority, denoting a person who exercises functions of a public nature. It is consistent with UK legislative precedent. It does not include either House of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd or the Northern Ireland Assembly. Provisions relating to the subsidies and schemes in primary legislation are included under clause 78 and schedule 3.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks on clause 6. We have no further issues in relation to it.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to be part of this Committee. I wonder whether the Minister could explain a little more the logic behind the exclusions. I have read the explanatory notes, and the intention is still not entirely clear to me. I do not think that I have a problem with it—I think it makes sense— but if he could explain it a little more that would be really helpful.
Paul Scully
I am very happy to respond. The provisions for subsidies given by Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly are set out in clause 78 and schedule 3, which provide for the giving of subsidies by means of primary legislation. They are covered separately to reflect the unique legal and constitutional position of Acts of Parliament. The legislature is considered to have given a subsidy when it is given under a duty imposed by primary legislation. Those subsidies are captured by schedule 3, but if a subsidy is given under a power in primary legislation, the relevant public authority will be the Minister exercising that power.
Kirsty Blackman
Just to clarify, is the logic that the devolved Administrations and the Houses of Parliament can continue to give subsidies in primary legislation, and that is why an exclusion, or a separate provision, is in place relating to them? Is it partly to do with not being able to bind future Parliaments, or is that totally separate from what we are discussing?
Paul Scully
It is more to do with the fact that public authorities have been added as an extra, whereas state aid did not go down that far. The public authority definition at the beginning widens the definition of who can give subsidy control, whereas it is established that the UK Government and the devolved Administrations, including the Scottish Parliament, can continue to give as they do now.
Seema Malhotra
This is a helpful discussion. Further to that point, is it to differentiate—I think the Minister alluded to this—who has the power to grant the subsidy? For example, the Houses of Parliament may not but the Secretary of State or Ministers may. Is that the distinction that we should read here, or am I confusing things?
Paul Scully
Essentially, the things that tend to be given will usually be given with the agreement of the Houses of Parliament. Although it may be the UK Government that award the subsidy, it will clearly be on the back of parliamentary powers that they do so. That is where we are coming from.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
“Enterprise”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause establishes the definition of “enterprise” for the purposes of the Bill. Under the new regime, an enterprise is any person or group of persons under common ownership or common control offering goods or services in a market. Importantly, the definition applies only to the extent that the person is engaged in such activity. It is purposely broad, it is consistent with our international obligations and other UK legal precedents, and it will ensure that the new subsidy control rules apply widely to protect UK competition and investment.
Seema Malhotra
Will the Minister clarify whether that definition extends to social enterprises and co-operatives for the purposes of organisations that may be involved in economic activity? Will those organisations be within scope to potentially receive subsidies from public authorities?
Paul Scully
If a person is not engaged in economic activity, they will not be defined as an enterprise. Generally speaking, a charity or community group is unlikely to carry out economic activity. However, we are not explicitly excluding anyone from the definition of enterprise just because of their legal form. The hon. Lady talks about social enterprises, which are obviously different from charities, because some can be normal companies but do not make profits or have shareholders. However, that is economic activity, so those would be included within the definition.
The test looks at the activity that is proposed to be subsidised, rather than the legal form of the subsidy recipient. One organisation may be considered an enterprise in some contexts and for some activities but not others. One example might be a medical research charity that has a retail arm. Support given to the medical research activity is not a subsidy, because the research is not economic activity, even though the charity’s retail operation may be considered an enterprise.
Kirsty Blackman
I have a couple of questions. I am aware of social enterprises in Aberdeen that make and sell frames or make bread and run cafés and things like that. It sounds as if that would be included within the definition of economic activity, because they are selling things to the general public, even though their main purpose is to ensure that people who are disadvantaged in society are given the opportunity to get work experience and things like that. It would be helpful if the Minister could say whether he intends the clause to cover all economic activity, regardless of who is doing it, but that the subsidy relates only to the arms of those organisations that are undertaking the economic activity; and that the clause applies across the board to charitable organisations and social enterprises as well as normal businesses, so long as the thing they are doing is classed as economic activity. Have I got that right?
Paul Scully
The hon. Lady has got that right. Some charities have a commercial retail arm that are taxed and approached in different ways. For example, Help for Heroes has a retail arm as well as the main fundraising arm. There is clearly no intention for subsidies of cake sales or anything like that—money may be handed over, but that is fundraising—whereas retail involves the selling of things. I am not saying that that specific example will involve in any subsidy, but such an example, where a separate business is aligned to the charity, is where the enterprise comes in that covers the economic activity that we are describing.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Persons under common control
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause elaborates on what is meant by common control for the purpose of identifying an enterprise. It sets out the circumstances where common control arises: where one or more corporate bodies is controlled by one person or a group of persons, or where there are interconnected corporate bodies. An interconnected corporate body is where a subsidiary or subsidiaries exist.
A person, or a group of persons, is treated as having common control when, directly or indirectly, they can control or materially influence the economic activity of another corporate body, which also applies where there is no controlling interest over the corporate body. Interconnected corporate bodies or a group of persons under common control are considered to be a single enterprise for the purpose of the subsidy control regime. The clause will ensure that the rules under the regime are applied fairly, regardless of corporate structures.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments on clause 8. For the purposes of clarity around where public resources may go, will he explain what the clause means if, in a group of companies, one of them is granted a subsidy? Could that subsidy be shared with others in the group? I am not fully clear what the clause means.
Secondly, what if one of the other companies in the group has interests abroad? Is there something in the legislation that prevents public subsidies in the UK going through company structures within the same group to then subsidise activities abroad? I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that—it is genuinely not very clear.
Paul Scully
The hon. Lady gives an interesting example, which I may need to clarify afterwards. However, the essential drive behind the clause is to provide effective definitions so that public authorities can identify the characteristics of an enterprise receiving a subsidy to make sure it complies with the requirements in the first place.
A public authority should not give a subsidy to a business that is a subsidiary of a large parent company without considering that large enterprise as a whole. A subsidy designed to support a microbusiness, for example, would be inappropriate in that kind of situation. The whole group has to be considered to assess the incentives of the recipient and whether the subsidy is an appropriate and proportionate way to address that market failure.
Another example might be the minimal financial assistance exemption. Two companies under common control should not both receive subsidies of £200,000, for example, as minimal financial assistance. That would exceed the threshold of £315,000 for a single enterprise.
The measures must apply regardless of the way an enterprise is structured. The clause gives public authorities the clarity to identify where the subsidy actually ends up and whether it is being used for its intended purpose—rather than, as the hon. Lady says, the possibility of it being moved abroad or to another part of the group, which would not achieve the aims for which the subsidy was given.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for those points. However, there could be an unintended difference between what the Government intend and what the law and guidance, if not clear, could result in. I would be grateful if the Minister could come back in writing to explain, specifically, what the Government’s intentions are for the guidance that may be given to an enterprise receiving a subsidy as to whether, once it has been given, there are controls on where the subsidy could be passed on to. I know that somewhere else in the Bill, it says that if a company’s ownership changes, the subsidy can pass through, but this is a point about clarity and guidance regarding what controls exist once that subsidy is given.
Secondly, on this point about potential ownership of a group or the enterprise, are there any constraints or guidance—or is there an intention of producing any guidance—in relation to companies that may be, for example, foreign-owned but trading here, where some subsidies could end up going into other countries? Is there clarity about how that is potentially going to receive guidance or be regulated to ensure it does not happen, if that is the Government’s intention?
Paul Scully
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions, and I appreciate that clarity is required on this issue. I will give her a fuller answer in writing. What I will not be able to do, though, is pre-empt the guidance, which as I say we will be developing through discussion as we progress after the framework Bill has been approved. However, the definition of a wholly owned subsidiary can already be found in section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006, so again, this is taken from legal precedent.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for that. He is referring to subsection (5), but it would be of benefit to the Committee to receive a response in writing on those broader points.
Paul Scully
I should add, as I said in my original response, that when public authorities are giving the subsidy, it is important to ensure that that subsidy is going to the enterprises for the purposes of the market failure that they are trying to correct.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
The subsidy control principles and the energy and environment principles
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 9 establishes that the subsidy control principles are set out in schedule 1 to the Bill, and that the further principles for public authorities awarding energy and environment subsidies are set out in schedule 2 to the Bill. Those common-sense principles, requiring that subsidies are an appropriate, proportionate means of addressing a specific policy programme, are set out in clear terms in the relevant schedules. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. Labour has no further issues with this clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
The subsidy control principles
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 6, in schedule 1, page 51, line 8, after “concerns” insert “and areas of deprivation”.
This amendment includes areas of deprivation as an example of the equity rationales that subsidies should address.
Under EU state aid rules, subsidies could be, and indeed were, targeted at areas of economic deprivation, significantly aiding struggling regions. Labour recognises the ongoing debate about assisted areas or other ways in which there could be a successor scheme to those rules, in order to support better and more effective targeting and transparency about where public resources are going, and indeed to support the levelling up agenda. We are concerned that this is not explicit in the Bill; it is merely alluded to in guidance. This important principle needs to be explicitly in the Bill for those who might be interpreting legislation in the near future or who want it to be a regime that stands the test of time and has the confidence of all four nations.
As Professor Fothergill highlighted, as the Bill currently stands we could be treating investment in a wealthy part of Guildford on the same basis as a potential investment in a less prosperous part of Grimsby. That seems counterintuitive to the oft-quoted term “levelling up”, which highlights a policy priority for Governments of all persuasions and is a new term for what we have all talked about: increasing equality and making sure there is prosperity in all parts of our country. It is important that we all agree on the need to make sure that public resources are being used to the best effect and to achieve the best outcomes for those areas of greatest need.
Professor Fothergill went on to say:
“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.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 11, Q7.]
I would be grateful for the Minister’s response on that. Does he agree that the Bill should include a stronger mandate for reducing economic inequality? The notes on the Bill’s intention allude to levelling up, and the Government created a specific Department for levelling up. Given how much the Government have been talking about levelling up, I must say it was surprising not to see it more explicitly in the wording of the Bill. Could the Minister respond to that?
We are concerned about the overall principles. I understand that they are derived from agreements within the TCA, but they can be amended. It is not that we do not have the authority to do that. Where, if not here, do the Government intend to include and support the equity rationale that subsidies are supposed to be addressing? We believe that the amendment would make it clear that the new subsidy regime can and should play a role in reducing regional and sub-regional inequality. It is a simple way of addressing the issue within the Bill.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, amendment 6 seeks to include areas of deprivation as an example of the equity rationale that may be addressed through subsidies. Firstly, I would like to use this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady’s commitment to the levelling-up agenda. The Government are clearly committed to ensuring that prosperity and opportunity is shared across all parts of the UK. The domestic subsidy control regime will facilitate this. It will allow public authorities to deliver investment in skills, local infrastructure and new technologies.
Principle A within schedule 1, as well as the wider subsidy control system, has been designed to allow public authorities to address inequality and disadvantage through the use of subsidies. The principle specifies that subsidies should pursue a policy objective that either remedies a market failure or addresses, to quote from schedule 1,
“an equity rationale (such as social difficulties or distributional concerns).”
As currently drafted, schedule 1 clearly covers investment in disadvantaged or deprived areas; as such, the amendment is unnecessary. Through guidance, we can come up with more specific clarity to public authorities, but I do not believe it is helpful to list in the Bill every policy objective that a subsidy may address. As I say, the specific examples will be covered and elaborated on in guidance, which is a more appropriate place to address the practical application of the subsidy control principles. I therefore suggest that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston withdraws the amendment.
Kirsty Blackman
May I ask the Minister for some clarity on that? He says that he expects that more information about principle A will come out in guidance. Does he expect that that will encourage granting bodies to look at reducing inequality in some of the subsidies that they make?
Paul Scully
It will set that out in guidance. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston talked about the evidence session, and Guildford got quite a bad rap, having come up a couple of times as the example. None the less, we want to ensure that we directly address issues of inequality and disparity through the levelling-up agenda. That will come out through guidance and ensure that we address exactly what the hon. Member for Aberdeen North was saying.
Kirsty Blackman
One more try on this. Does the Minister expect that the Government’s levelling-up agenda will be part of the direction of travel in the guidance, so that the guidance will encourage granting authorities to line up with the Government’s levelling-up agenda?
Paul Scully
In terms of levelling up, it has been designed to provide a bespoke and dynamic framework. It allows public authorities to deliver bespoke subsidies that are tailored to their local needs, which will indeed address the UK Government’s priorities, such as levelling up, but within their own areas. Public authorities are best placed to work out how to address the inequality and disadvantage within regions, as well as between regions, so we have developed an approach that ensures that disadvantaged areas have the maximum freedom and reassurance to receive the levelling-up subsidies and best meet the characteristics of the area.
Seema Malhotra
I will make a few remarks and then clarify whether I will push the amendment to a vote. I will respond to some of the points raised, and I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen North for her comments. It is important to ensure that a more explicit intention is incorporated in the wording of the Bill, but I worry that that will not be achieved as explicitly as it ought to be, if it is so squarely in line with the Government’s intentions.
I want to come back on one of the points that the Minister made. We have spoken about the evidence in relation to Guildford and Grimsby, but he makes an important point. Every area has better-off, prosperous parts and others that are worse off, which is why it is important to think about levelling up not just between regions but within them, as he said. Indeed, I know that some wards in my constituency have some of the worst records in the country for children going to university. Some of them have improved, but some London wards can be as poverty stricken as other parts of the country, which is why we need to have a more mature debate about levelling up that looks at some of those issues. What is important is that this will be an ongoing discussion throughout the course of the Committee. We have not fully closed off whether, and how, there should be a successor to the assisted areas map. We take the point about the boundaries not always being clear if we do try and have a map, and I have concerns about that having unintended consequences, such as excluding areas further down the line that may have good reason to be considered for subsides. However, there is an important principle here, and I do not want us to lose it. I will not be pushing this amendment to a vote today, but I do think that it is one that with further discussion and clarity—reviewing some of the evidence—we may want to come back to at a later stage.
Paul Scully
I agree with many of the hon. Member’s remarks, as I am the Minister for London as well. We are talking about addressing areas of inequality within regions, as well as between regions. By having a blunt tool, we can sometimes miss out on those pockets of deprivation, as well as the wider issues—both need to be covered.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment 7, in schedule 1, page 52, line 6, at end insert—
“(c) the United Kingdom reaching its net-zero commitments.”
This amendment adds the impact on the UK’s net-zero commitments as a particular consideration for public authorities before deciding whether to give a subsidy.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 8, in schedule 2, page 52, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) delivering the UK’s net-zero commitments.”
This amendment would ensure that subsidies related to energy and the environment incentivise the beneficiary to help deliver the UK’s net-zero targets.
Seema Malhotra
Thank you for allowing me to speak to the amendment, Mr Sharma. I want to speak about why I think this is so important. The reason for this amendment is that the Bill should prevent subsidies that unnecessarily harm or impede the UK’s work towards net zero. In the Bill as it currently stands, subsidies not related to energy or the environment can meet all of the subsidy control principles, but could work against the Government’s overall goal of moving towards net zero.
To prevent this the Government are seeking to amend principle G of the schedule, in order to state that the subsidy’s beneficial effects must outweigh any negative consequences they may have on the UK’s net zero commitment. This was supported in evidence by Alexander Rose from DWF Group, who noted that all civil servants would be mandated to take account of net zero. Why not extend that thinking to other public authorities and to every single subsidy? Similarly, subsidies related to energy and the environment should not impede the UK’s work towards net zero. More than that, they should actively work towards the UK reaching its targets. We are having this debate and seeing the Bill pass through Committee during COP26; in fact, we are leading into COP26 and we will pick up after it. Does the Minister agree that if the Government want to show they are serious about this, we should be thinking about how to ensure that when public money could be used to support policy objectives, we include the United Kingdom reaching its net zero commitments as part of that?
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I find nothing objectionable in what the hon. Lady is saying or indeed the amendments. However, possibly due to what she has said about the Government’s amendment and what is already in the Bill, I do not know whether what she is proposing is entirely required. Directly underneath where her proposed sub-paragraph (c) would be inserted, principle A in schedule 2, on the aim of subsidies in relation to energy and environment, refers to the aim to deliver
“a secure, affordable and sustainable energy system”,
and, in sub-paragraph (b), the aim to increase
“the level of environmental protection compared to the level that would be achieved in the absence of the subsidy.”
Both are very much in line with, and compatible with, our aim to reach net zero.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. My understanding is that the energy and environment principles would apply to subsidies in relation to energy and the environment. We are talking about a slightly broader principle here, which is that any subsidy granted under the regime should not have a harmful impact on achieving our net zero outcomes. That would seem to be a slightly perverse use of public money when net zero is such an explicit goal and when civil servants will need to be working towards it. Indeed, as Dr Barker outlined on Tuesday,
“the green industrial revolution that we are all seeking to work towards in order to achieve net zero is also something that will require…partnership between business and Government”,
and
“an effective subsidy system can be part of that.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 39, Q52.]
These amendments are simply saying that if we are serious about what achieving net zero will mean, we should not allow a system to be established, at the same time as COP26, that could work against that, and do so using public money.
Kirsty Blackman
For the avoidance of doubt, my colleague and I support amendments 7 and 8, which are both incredibly sensible. As is quite often the case in Bill Committees, I wish I had thought of them earlier and tabled them first.
I agree with the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston about COP26. This is happening now, and it is a moment that we can take advantage of to get towards net zero commitments. COP is coming up and there is a groundswell of public support for trying to make a difference. This is something on which my colleague and I also moved amendments during proceedings on the Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill. We wanted ARIA’s No. 1 priority to be a focus on net zero. We also wanted a commitment from the Government that ARIA would itself operate on a net zero basis, because we are beyond the time for talking about this. In order to meet the UK Government and the Scottish Government’s commitments, we need to be taking action on this, rather than just talking about it.
It is all well and good to have in place the stuff that my neighbouring MP, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, talked about for energy and environment subsidies, but we need that for all subsidies, whether they relate to energy and the environment or anything else. This should run through everything that the Government are doing. For every decision in the Budget, which is being discussed in the main Chamber, we should be asking, “How does this get us towards net zero and reducing our carbon output?”
I just do not think we are there yet. It does not feel like the Government are taking this seriously enough, and it is not just this Government. Governments around the world are not taking this seriously enough. We need to be there now and making that commitment. If the subsidy control regime is intended to work and to stand the test of time, and if we are looking towards those net zero targets, we need that to be in this Bill. At the very least, we need a strong commitment from the Minister that subsidies in relation to not just energy and the environment but other areas will be more favourably looked on, or less likely to be rejected out of hand, if they specifically work towards reaching the UK’s net zero targets, and particularly if they work towards something that is carbon negative. We are not doing enough of those things, so if more of the new policies that come through were carbon negative, it would be much easier for us to get to our net zero target. If the Minister could make some strong commitments on that, it would be hugely welcome, but I will be happy to support the amendments tabled in the name of the Opposition.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for these sittings, Mr Sharma.
I completely agree with everything the hon. Member for Aberdeen North says and with what my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston said in moving the amendment. What is needed from Government is the commitment to hit net zero and the mechanisms to do so. That needs to go right across Government, in everything we do.
I take on board the point the Minister has already made in today’s deliberations that not everything is in the Bill; I understand that and I accept it. However, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North argued extremely well, there is a strong—we would say an essential—case for net zero to be at the heart of the regime put in place by this legislation.
Schedule 2 does not mention transport, agriculture or housing insulation, to name just three examples, so it is not comprehensive as currently drafted. That is why we need to go much further to meet the scale of the challenge in the subsidy control regime that we are debating putting in place. The Budget yesterday did not address net zero, and it is frankly extremely worrying that it did not, especially in the run-up to COP26.
I am afraid the announcements last week did not constitute a plan and were nowhere near meeting the requirement to hit the net zero targets this country is committed to in the timely fashion that is needed, especially in terms of the front-loading we all now understand is essential in all areas except the energy industry. It is needed in transport, in building insulation and in agriculture; it is needed across industry. Unless this is in the Bill, setting out the requirement for net zero to be at the heart of the subsidy regime, I am afraid we as a country, and this Government as a Government, will not be doing what is needed.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Do we need to put net zero down on the subsidy as it is? If the hon. Gentleman remembers our Paris agreement only a few years ago, he knows we agreed to get to net zero by later this century. Now we have moved it forward to 2050, and I hope—I am sure the Government hope—that we will move our net zero agreement even further forward as time progresses. Will this proposal not make the Bill a bit out of date in a few decades’ time, when it should stand for longer?
Bill Esterson
The amendment, because of the way it is phrased, envisages those changes and the increasing urgency. Let us remind ourselves that, on our present track, we are looking at a temperature rise of more than 1.5 °C through the existing commitments and policy decisions not just of this country but of Governments around the world. It is important to acknowledge that we cannot do it on our own, as we are responsible for only 1% of emissions, but when we are trying to show world leadership with the presidency of COP26, it is incumbent on us to show that leadership in everything we do, and we, as Members on this Committee, have an opportunity right here, right now to support making that commitment and putting it into legislation.
Given the way the amendment is crafted, the wording,
“the United Kingdom reaching its net-zero commitments”,
does stand the test of time as and when things change. The challenge the hon. Member for Rother Valley makes is another reminder that we need to bring things further forward and that it has become important to do that over time. At the moment, we have interim dates to hit, with ambitions in 2030, and the Government have made some progress there, but by no means enough to do what is necessary to keep us to 1.5°.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is making some salient points in response to the hon. Member for Rother Valley. However, once the Government eventually hit their net zero targets, will they not want to maintain those targets and not reverse that journey? In such case, the remarks of the hon. Member for Rother Valley would be completely irrelevant.
Bill Esterson
That is a good point. The hon. Gentleman is right that this does not end when we reach net zero—that is the first point. The second point is that if we need a change, we can amend the legislation later. Right now, however, this is the crucial change that the country and the world need to make. I reiterate that we as Members of the UK House of Commons—those of us here today—have an opportunity to make a statement and a commitment and to put this change on the face of the Bill.
Kirsty Blackman
I got so carried away with my attempts to convince the Government to get to net zero as soon as possible that I forgot to ask questions when I stood up previously. It would be useful if the Minister could clarify why there are two schedules. Why does the treatment differ between the two areas? There is a difference in the treatment of subsidies in relation to energy and the environment compared with subsidies relating to any other area, and I do not quite understand the logic of having two different things. One set of principles could have covered everything, including moving toward net zero. If the Minister will explain why there are two separate schedules and why the two areas are being treated differently, that would be incredibly helpful.
Paul Scully
Let me answer that point before I speak to amendment 7. The two schedules and the additional principles are there literally just to adhere to our international obligations.
Hon. Members can rest assured that our new subsidy control regime will support the UK in meeting our net zero target by 2050, first by facilitating strategic and appropriate subsidy interventions with minimal bureaucracy and delay and secondly by ensuring that energy and environment subsidies are assessed against additional principles that promote carbon neutrality and sustainability.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central said that he could not see net zero in the Budget, but the spending review backs up the net zero strategy published the week before. The Budget will fund our strategy, which will then leverage private money and create jobs and opportunities in markets that will drive towards net zero.
Turning to amendment 7 itself, it is unnecessary explicitly to require public authorities on the face of the Bill to consider the negative effects of subsidies on the UK’s net zero commitment as part of their compliance with principle G. Public authorities will clearly need to consider the effects of subsidies in the round before awarding them, but the amendment would give undue prominence to net zero considerations with respect to subsidies that may have entirely unrelated objectives, such as high street regeneration or providing training opportunities for young people.
Kirsty Blackman
Does the Minister agree that this is the most important thing for every single one of us? Whether people are regenerating high streets or doing anything else, they should be ensuring that they are also moving towards net zero.
Paul Scully
I agree that we should be doing so, but what I am saying is that we do not need to do it in a process-driven way. It should be done, in the first place, in the devising and implementation of policy. I do not want to create two separate processes, because that might lead to public authority having to make assessments for every single subsidy that is awarded or made, even when there is no meaningful impact—just look at that bureaucracy. What we need to do is ensure that we enmesh net zero thinking in our policy development at every layer of government, rather than just listening for signals. Clearly, we need to take that leadership at COP26. We realise that this is the time to lead and to act, for all international Governments.
Unfortunately, the Bill will not have completed its parliamentary process by the time everyone leaves Glasgow. None the less, we need to ensure that we set out the strong work that we are doing. We have already announced policies that involve subsidies in some sectors, such as the clean heat grant and the contracts for difference scheme, announced by the Chancellor in the March 2020 Budget, providing up-front capital grants for the installation of low-carbon heat pumps and, in limited circumstances, biomass boilers. Those schemes will help consumers to overcome the higher up-front costs of low-carbon heat and will build the supply chains for it ahead of the introduction of regulations for existing buildings off the gas grid later in the decade. Those schemes—all schemes—will have to meet the terms of the domestic principles, which should also ensure that the money is well targeted and achieves good value for the taxpayer.
We have established the green jobs taskforce, which advises on how Government, industry and the education sector can work alongside other stakeholders to realise the opportunities of a green industrial revolution, supporting green jobs and skills, and ensuring that those opportunities are open to all. The evidence collected by that taskforce and its recommendations are being considered by Government as part of the development of the ongoing net zero strategy, which was published last week. We will develop that.
Those are the clear leadership principles that we should be promoting and pushing out to international colleagues from Governments around the world, who are coming to Glasgow this week and next, ahead of COP26. However, we do not need just this one principle, understandable as it is, in the Bill. Principle G already singles out negative effects on competition or investment within the UK and on international trade and investment. That is appropriate, as such distortions go to the very heart of what the subsidy control regime is for. By definition, a subsidy must have effect on competition, investment and trade, and distortion is common to all subsidies, regardless of what they seek to achieve.
Net zero considerations, however, are not inherent to all subsidies. Some subsidies will of course help businesses to reduce their emissions, but a great number will not have any meaningful or, importantly, measurable impact on the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Amendment 8 would add to schedule 2 a requirement for energy and environment subsidies and subsidy schemes to deliver, or to incentivise the beneficiary in delivering, the UK’s net zero commitments. The intended effect is that a public authority planning to grant an energy or environment subsidy or scheme would not be able to proceed unless it was satisfied that that subsidy or scheme contributed towards net zero commitments.
It may be useful to recap that energy and environment subsidies must be assessed against a number of additional principles, which are set out in schedule 2. Those common-sense principles are designed to ensure, for example, that public authorities consider the need for energy and environmental subsidies to achieve reductions in emissions or otherwise increase the environmental protection relative to the level achieved without subsidy. They also ensure compliance with the UK’s international obligations under the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union.
We share the commitment to the net zero agenda, as I expressed. We believe that subsidies correctly designed and targeted can be a powerful means to achieve that.
Kirsty Blackman
The Minister is doing a good job of explaining what is intended by some of this, putting some meat on it, which is helpful. Will he explain what environmental protection means?
Paul Scully
There is a wide definition of environmental protection beyond net zero, as big and important as that is. The principles in schedule 2 fully support the UK’s priorities on net zero and the wider protection of the environment. The additional requirement to assess the subsidy or scheme against the net zero priorities is therefore unnecessary and may actually discourage public authorities from granting energy and environmental subsidies designed to achieve other valuable aims, such as an affordable energy system or increasing biodiversity. I humbly ask the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to withdraw the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks and all hon. Members who have contributed, including the hon. Members for Aberdeen North and for Aberdeen South. I will push amendment 7 to a vote, and will do the same with amendment 8 later. The wording has been quite carefully constructed. Schedule 1 states:
“Subsidies’ beneficial effects (in terms of achieving their specific policy objective) should outweigh any negative effects, including in particular negative effects on—(a) competition or investment within the United Kingdom; (b) international trade or investment.”
Amendment 7 would add:
“(c) the United Kingdom reaching its net-zero commitments.”
I have not heard from the Minister a strong argument as to why we would not want public authorities granting subsidies using public resources to ensure that beneficial effects outweighed any negative effects on the UK’s achieving its net zero commitments. That principle is significant, and it should be in the Bill, so I will push the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Paul Scully
The schedule sets out the seven general subsidy controls, including how public authorities should consider and assess a policy objective, and make sure a subsidy is proportionate and that it incentivises and leads to a change of behaviour in a beneficiary that would not have happened had they not had the subsidy. It does not include normal business expenses. It provides that alternative policy levers that are likely to cause less distortion should be considered before a subsidy, and that subsidies should be designed in a way that meets the policy objective and minimises the impact on competition and investment within the UK’s internal market.
Finally, principle G requires public authorities to conduct a balancing test to assess the effects on competition and investment in the UK and on international trade or investment, and to determine whether the benefits of a subsidy are greater than the negative effects of providing it. I commend schedule 1 to the Committee.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks. Notwithstanding the debate that we have just had and our ongoing concerns, which we want to return to later in the consideration of the Bill, we support schedule 1.
Kirsty Blackman
I would like to ask a few questions, particularly about principle F in schedule 1, which says:
“Subsidies should be designed to achieve their specific policy objective while minimising any negative effects on competition or investment within the United Kingdom.”
If someone was looking to invest in the United Kingdom, create jobs, start a business or bring a specific arm of a business to a certain place, and Aberdeen were to subsidise that, which would therefore have a negative effect on Cardiff, because Cardiff was not getting the jobs and Aberdeen was, is that excluded as a result of principle F? It concerns me that pretty much every subsidy that could be given will have a potential negative effect on another part of the UK because it would be incentivising investment, or whatever, in one part of the UK.
I am concerned that principle F can be read either as not meaning anything or as something that is too restrictive for what the Government are trying to achieve with what they are doing. I am thinking about what the Government are trying to achieve because a number of Government Back Benchers stood up on Second Reading and said, “This is great, because it means we will be able to get lots more investment and put lots of subsidies into our area.” If that is the Government’s intention, which I think it probably is, I worry that the risk-averse nature of granting authorities means that they will be concerned about doing that, in case they fall foul of the principle. If the Minister gave us a bit more clarity on how the principle is intended to work, that would help granting authorities to make the right decisions in order to subsidise economic development in their areas.
Paul Scully
I thank the hon. Lady for that important question. The answer to her first question is no. It is more about fitting in with the levelling-up agenda, which is what hon. Members talked about on Second Reading—attracting subsidies to an area. For example, we have seen a lot of renewables investment, including offshore wind and the manufacture of equipment, in Teesside and Humber. We have seen the setting up of gigafactories in the north-east and other areas, and such inward investments provide stimulus in those areas. There are natural clusters of businesses in those areas, but it is more in this regard—the distortive effects of, say, moving companies from one area of the UK to another, and adhering to the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which we debated last year. It is about ensuring that that works, rather than being in some sort of race between the devolved Administrations of the nations, or between regions, to attract inward investment.
Kirsty Blackman
If, for example, an offshore wind farm is built off the coast of Teesside, rather than off the coast of Aberdeenshire, because of the subsidy regime that is in place, that is, by its very nature, disadvantageous to Aberdeenshire. That is what I am trying to work out here.
I think I get what the Government are intending: they are trying to stop a subsidy race. That is the intention behind the schedule, but I feel that the schedule does not achieve it. I am concerned about how the provision is worded, because any subsidy will be advantageous to one region and not to another, which is the intention behind subsidies. There could be more clarity on that principle so that it achieves what the Government want and does not preclude local authorities, or any other granting authority, from making decisions that will advantage their areas.
Paul Scully
Essentially, the framework and the clause minimise, but cannot eliminate, distortion. That is the purpose of the Bill.
Andrew Bowie
This is relevant to principle G, which says:
“beneficial effects…should outweigh any negative effects, including…competition or investment within the United Kingdom”.
I cannot see where the hon. Member for Aberdeen North is coming from when she says that more clarity might be good for local authorities and other granting bodies. That is quite clearly addressed in the Bill, so the Government are clearly trying to stop the negative effects she has described.
Paul Scully
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Bill weighs up the benefits versus the disadvantages, and minimises rather than eliminates distortion—we cannot eliminate distortion. We have talked about this a number of times, and we will continue to, but the upcoming guidance will start to flesh out some of the specifics, which it is probably not appropriate to get into now.
Kirsty Blackman
Principle G absolutely does help, but it does not fix the problem. Ensuring that the positive effects outweigh the negative effects is good and grand, but comparing a windfarm in Teesside and a windfarm in Aberdeenshire relates to balance rather than the positive effects outweighing the negative. That just encourages the same investment and the same number of jobs in one place in the United Kingdom rather than in another. That is why I am concerned that G does not exactly fix that issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule 1 accordingly agreed to.
Schedule 2
The energy and environment principles
Amendment proposed: 8, in schedule 2, page 52, line 15, at end insert—
“(c) delivering the UK’s net-zero commitments.”—(Seema Malhotra.)
This amendment would ensure that subsidies related to energy and the environment incentivise the beneficiary to help deliver the UK’s net-zero targets.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Nationality and Borders Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Thursday 28th October 2021
(3 years, 1 month 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 28 October 2021 - (28 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
The usual housekeeping notes: switch off your electronic devices, please, or put them on silent; and no food or drink is allowed in Committee—I do not think there is any, so that is good. Members are encouraged to wear masks, and I remind colleagues that they are worn not for your own protection, but for the protection of others, as a courtesy. Those who have speaking notes, will you please make them available to Hansard at the appropriate time, together with any documents that you are quoting from?
Clause 37
Illegal entry and similar offences
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)
I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 37, page 36, line 4, at end insert—
“(C1A) A person who—
(a) is required under immigration rules not to travel to the United Kingdom without an ETA that is valid for the person’s journey to the United Kingdom, and
(b) knowingly arrives in the United Kingdom without such an ETA,
commits an offence.”
This amendment inserts a new offence into the Immigration Act 1971 of a person knowingly arriving in the United Kingdom without a valid electronic travel authorisation (ETA) in circumstances where they require such an ETA.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 111 to 117.
Amendment 188, in clause 37, page 37, line 17, at end insert—
“(10) Before this section comes into force, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the implications of this section for devolved criminal justice functions and bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, including but not restricted to those of—
(a) the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland;
(b) the Lord Advocate;
(c) the Police Service of Northern Ireland;
(d) Police Scotland;
(e) the Northern Ireland Prison Service;
(f) the Scottish Prison Service;
(g) the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service; and
(h) the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.
(11) A report under subsection (10) must include the following information—
(a) an assessment of the how the functions and bodies listed in (10) will be affected by this section;
(b) the financial implications for those bodies;
(c) the implications for existing devolved criminal justice and related policies;
(d) details of any consultation and engagement with those bodies; and
(e) the Secretary of State’s findings, conclusions and proposed actions.”
This amendment would require the Government to report on the implications of clause 36 for bodies involved in devolved criminal justice functions and to obtain Parliamentary approval for such a report, before the clause enters into force.
Clause stand part.
Government amendment 125.
Clause 60 stand part.
Government amendment 120.
Government new clause 21—Electronic travel authorisations.
Government new clause 22—Liability of carriers.
Tom Pursglove
Amendment 110 will add to the other offences in the clause the additional offence of knowingly arriving in the UK without an electronic travel authorisation where that is required. The current offence of knowingly entering the UK in breach of a deportation order or without leave dates back to the Immigration Act 1971, and is no longer considered entirely apt, given the changes in ways that people seek to come to the UK through irregular routes, and in particular the use of small boats.
Many of the individuals involved are intercepted in UK territorial seas and brought to the UK. They arrive in, but may not technically enter, the UK. However, we need to deter migrants from risking their lives and those of their families by taking such dangerous routes to the UK, and to take back control of our borders. We are committed to strengthening our border security by ensuring that everyone wishing to travel to the UK, except British and Irish citizens, seeks permission to do so before travelling.
The clause introduces new arrival offences to deal with the issue. I reassure the Committee that we do not seek to criminalise genuine refugees who come to the UK to seek asylum, but safe and legal routes can be used for that purpose, without risking lives.
Government amendments 111 to 117 and 125 are consequential amendments; they ensure that where the clause and schedule 5 cross-reference to the offence of arrival in the UK without the required entry clearance, they also refer to the new offence.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Minister has slightly skirted over the most fundamental point in all this, which is that lots of refugees who come to seek asylum in this country will be criminalised by the provision—a good 60% or 70%, even according to the Home Office’s explanatory memorandum. How can he possibly feel comfortable about criminalising them through an offence that could see them imprisoned for up to four years?
Tom Pursglove
Clearly, any such cases would be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service or the relevant prosecuting authorities. They must make a judgment as to whether it is in the public interest to pursue such a prosecution. I will say more about that in due course, but it is important to highlight that point.
Paul Blomfield
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but he may want to reflect on this now, although he might have been about to do so in due course. He referred to the CPS, but in July the CPS confirmed that, following an agreement made by prosecutors, police, Border Force, the National Crime Agency and the Home Office, it will no longer prosecute illegal entry.
Tom Pursglove
As I said—I will come on to this in more detail—it is for the prosecuting authorities to decide whether it is in the public interest to pursue a particular case.
On amendment 188, I reassure the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East that consideration of the issues he has listed is already taking place. I fully recognise that, while immigration offences are a reserved matter, the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland have responsibility for their criminal justice systems, and decisions on prosecutions are independently taken by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland.
My officials have been in contact with the Scottish Government criminal justice division, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the Department of Justice Northern Ireland, and have shared information about potential impacts and costings. The amendment would add an extra and unnecessary layer of parliamentary scrutiny to a process that is under way at official level. It would also have a critical impact on the commencement of the clause; it would add delay, but we need the measures in place to respond to the expected surge in dangerous small boat crossings when the weather improves in spring next year. I urge the hon. Member not to press his amendment.
On clause 37, the UK is experiencing a very serious problem of small boat arrivals; illegal migrants are crossing from the continent in small craft that are often equipped with only an outboard motor. They are unseaworthy and wholly unsuitable for a crossing of a minimum of 21 miles across some of the busiest sea lanes in the world. Many of the vessels break down and are intercepted by UK personnel on the grounds of safety of life at sea. The rescued migrants, including pregnant women and children, are generally brought to Dover.
The maximum sentence of six months does not reflect the seriousness of the offence of entering in breach of a deportation order. Increasing the maximum sentence to five years will disrupt the activities of foreign national offenders involved in criminal networks, including organised immigration crime.
The current offence of knowingly entering the UK without leave is ineffective and does not provide a sufficient deterrent to those wishing to enter the UK illegally by small boat. We accordingly propose increasing the maximum sentence from six months’ to four years’ imprisonment.
We also intend to create a new offence of arriving in the UK without an entry clearance where that is required. While some migrants seek to evade immigration control, for example by landing on a deserted beach, many more now arrive in the UK after being rescued at sea. It would not be right, and would be perverse, to have to let migrants take the risk of completing their journey without assistance, and of landing at a small beach, rather than rescuing them at sea, just because under current legislation, the act of intercepting them and bringing them to the UK could cast doubt on whether the migrants entered unlawfully.
It is worth repeating that we are not seeking to criminalise those who come to the UK genuinely to seek asylum, and who use safe and legal routes to do so. We will be targeting for prosecution those migrants in cases where there are aggravating factors—where they caused danger to themselves or others, including rescuers; where they caused severe disruption to services such as shipping routes, or the closure of the channel tunnel; or where they are criminals who have previously been deported from the UK or persons who have been repeatedly removed as failed asylum seekers. The increased prison penalty will allow appropriate sentences to be given to reflect the seriousness of this behaviour.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister is at his most reassuring when he tells us, basically, “Don’t worry; we are not really going to apply the full provisions of the clause.” The key point is that none of this is in the Bill. I want to remove these measures altogether, but could we at least put some of the restrictions in the Bill? Otherwise, we are putting in statute a law that criminalises the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers coming into the United Kingdom.
Tom Pursglove
I hope I will be able to provide the hon. Member with further reassurance by going on to say that, of course, the decision on whether prosecution is in the public interest rests with the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland. In many cases, we will continue to seek the illegal migrant’s removal, rather than their prosecution.
The amended and new offences will apply to all types of unlawful entry and arrival, rather than being limited to entry via small boats. We should not limit our response to the evasion of proper immigration procedures and controls depending on the method of entry employed. Doing that would risk causing displacement to another, potentially equally dangerous, route. The offences will therefore also apply equally to other means of evasion, such as concealment in a lorry.
We are also amending the offence of assisting unlawful immigration to the UK in breach of immigration law, known as facilitation, to include arrival in the UK. That will ensure that the offence of facilitation also applies to those assisting the new offence of arriving without a valid entry clearance.
Clause 60 is one of the six clauses drafted as marker clauses at introduction. As indicated in the explanatory notes and memorandum for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, it was drafted as such in the interest of transparency—to make clear our intention of bringing forward substantive provisions on electronic travel authorisations. New clauses 21 and 22 are intended to replace clause 60.
Amendment 120 ensures the provisions in new clauses 21 and 22 can be extended to the Crown dependencies by Order in Council, should they wish to introduce their own electronic travel authorisation scheme by amending the Bill’s extent provisions in clause 69. As I noted earlier, the Government are committed to strengthening the security of our border by ensuring that everyone who wishes to travel to the UK—except British and Irish citizens—has permission to do so before they travel. The Government will introduce an electronic travel authorisation scheme—the ETA scheme—to close the current gap in advance permissions, and to enhance our ability to prevent the travel of those who pose a threat to the UK.
At present, non-visa nationals coming to the UK for up to six months as visitors, and in limited other categories, can travel to the UK solely on the basis of their nationality, evidenced by their passport or other travel document. That information is sent to the Government by the majority of carriers as advance passenger information shortly before the individual embarks on their journey. The ETA scheme will allow security checks to be conducted and more informed decisions to be taken at an earlier stage in advance of travel. The introduction of an ETA scheme is in line with the approach that many of our international partners have taken to border security, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
New clause 21 would insert proposed new section 11C into part 1 of the Immigration Act 1971, which will allow the Secretary of State to make immigration rules to administer an ETA scheme. Those rules will include, but are not limited to, who must apply for an ETA, what that application must contain, how long an ETA will be valid for, and when an ETA should be granted, refused, varied or cancelled.
Additionally, new clause 21 also inserts proposed new section 11D into part 1 of the 1971 Act, allowing the Secretary of State to administer an electronic travel authorisation scheme on behalf of a Crown dependency, if requested to do so, in the event that a Crown dependency chooses to operate its own ETA scheme. It also enables the Secretary of State to make regulations to recognise an electronic travel authorisation issued by a Crown dependency as valid for travel to the UK, in line with the UK’s commitment to maintaining the integrity and security of the common travel area.
To enforce the ETA scheme, new clause 22 builds on the existing carriers’ liability scheme by incentivising carriers to check prior to boarding that a traveller holds an ETA—or another form of permission, such as a visa in electronic form—or risk a civil penalty. Such checks are necessary to enforce our requirement for everyone, except British and Irish nationals, to get permission to come to the UK before they travel.
At present, carriers are incentivised to check for the presence of a valid immigration document that satisfactorily establishes identity and nationality or citizenship, and any visa required. New clause 22 incentivises carriers to check that all passengers have the appropriate permission— including by checking with the Home Office, if that permission may be held only in digital form—or risk a penalty. The new clause also provides a statutory excuse against the imposition of a penalty, to cater for circumstances where it has not been possible for the carrier to check for the presence of an ETA, or another form of permission, through no fault of their own.
The Chair
I will call Mr McDonald first, because he has tabled an amendment that is in this group.
Stuart C. McDonald
Thank you very much indeed, Sir Roger.
I will speak in support of amendment 188 and against the clause. To respond to what the Minister said, and to build on one of my interventions, the Committee has to debate the clause as it appears before us, not as the Minister envisages it being implemented. As it stands, the clause is one of the Bill’s low points, as it places in an already bleak Bill an extraordinarily broad criminal offence that will criminalise pretty much everyone who seeks asylum—many of whom are refugees—as well as survivors of trafficking. That will help to strengthen the control that traffickers have over their victims, rather than helping those victims.
It is unbelievable that should a Syrian, a Uyghur, a persecuted Christian convert, an Afghan interpreter, or a victim of the horrific crime of trafficking arrive seeking our protection, instead of being championed, they would be prosecuted and imprisoned by the regime put in place by the clause. Taken alongside the removal of the protections in the convention for asylum seekers in clause 34, this is a hugely retrograde step. It is also, again, utterly against the spirit and the letter of the refugee convention and the convention on trafficking, an issue that the Minister did not touch on.
Tom Pursglove
Notwithstanding what I have already said about the prosecution services taking a case-by-case approach, the hon. Member inquired about aggravating factors not being added to the Bill. The factors for prosecution when someone comes to the UK may change depending on the circumstances. We need to be able to react flexibly, so putting the factors in primary legislation would be too restrictive. I return to the point that I would expect prosecution services to look carefully at individual cases and to take all factors into account, so I would not accept his depiction.
Stuart C. McDonald
I take a small crumb of comfort from the fact that the Minister does seem to be evidencing some discomfort about how the clause is drafted. He is trying to reassure us by saying it will not be implemented as it is set out now, but that is not satisfactory. We parliamentarians are concerned with what is in the Bill. It is fine for the Minister to say that; I do not know how long he will be in office—hopefully many years—but there will be other Immigration Ministers to come, and they may take a completely different approach.
It may be challenging to put restrictions or a statutory defence in the Bill, but the Minister has to try. He must try much harder. We cannot leave such a broad criminal offence in the Bill simply on the basis of reassurances. I am absolutely of the view that the measures should be removed—for the reasons relating to the refugee convention, and that is even before we get to the ethical considerations and the impact the measures will have on asylum seekers and trafficking victims.
What the clause actually says will make it infinitely harder for refugees or trafficking survivors who eventually make it all the way through the horrendous new system to integrate, put down roots and rebuild their lives. There are questions about how the measures would operate in practice; they raise the spectre of families being separated on arrival if one member is accused of committing this criminal offence. How much harder will it be for somebody to get a job in due course if they have this criminal conviction and spend years in prison? UK citizenship will essentially be near impossible for them.
As we have heard repeatedly, particularly from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, all of this will achieve absolutely nothing. As Tony Smith, the borders expert, told us in the Committee’s evidence sessions, use of the criminal justice system just has not worked. For smugglers and traffickers, it absolutely has, but not for their victims.
I have a question on scope. Will the Minister clarify whether someone who arrives with an entry clearance that is invalidated because it turns out that it was applied for on a false basis—for example, somebody who has secured a visit visa, when they are arriving to claim asylum—will have committed a criminal offence under the clause, because the leave to enter was obtained fraudulently? From the wording, I guess that they will, but it would be useful to hear the Minister’s clarification.
On amendment 110, we broadly support the ETA regime and encouraging carriers to ensure that the conditions are met, but we are still not absolutely convinced of the need for yet another criminal offence. Why can the remedy for turning up without an ETA not simply be to require that person to leave, or to send them back again? What group of people are being targeted here who are not already impacted by one of the other offences?
Even the wording on the state of knowledge of the person committing the offence raises questions. It says the person must “knowingly” arrive here without the ETA or entry clearance. The required knowledge seems to relate only to knowledge of arrival without the ETA or entry clearance, and not knowledge of whether he required that ETA or entry clearance. If we put that together with the fact that the measure will apply to people arriving in the UK rather than entering it, there is a danger that this will cover people who rock up in ignorance at airport border security, rather than anyone who is trying to do anything sinister. Simple ignorance and a mistake could lead to years in prison. I might be wrong about that; it would be useful to have clarity. Why is a criminal offence necessary?
Our amendment 188 was tabled to prompt discussion about consultation with the devolved criminal justice systems and the personnel in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Again, it gives me some comfort that the Minister has had some of these discussions—at least, the Home Office has—and there has been the important recognition that decisions about public interest will be for devolved prosecutors. It is important to acknowledge that, and it is welcome.
In short, as clause 37 stands, it sets out a framework for arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning several thousand asylum seekers, refugees and trafficking victims every year. Is there an estimate of what the cost will be, regardless of how it is implemented in practice? What will that do the backlogs in courts struggling to recover from covid, and what would be the impact on prison capacity? Putting all that to one side, the fundamental issue is the impact on asylum seekers, refugees and trafficking victims. The clause, as drafted, will compound the already slow and needlessly painful process of securing protection and add a criminal sanction. It is going to achieve absolutely nothing except more human misery.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
It will not be a shock to hon. Members that I fully support clause 37, which has absolutely the right intention. Ultimately, as we have discussed—we have heard the evidence from His Excellency the Australian high commissioner—if we are to deter people from making this dangerous journey, we should be making sure that the deterrents are strong enough.
We have part of that already: if somebody enters this country illegally, that obviously counts against their asylum claim. Now we are saying that the right thing is that if someone chooses to enter this country illegally, that could lead to a criminal prosecution with a strong prison sentence. That is exactly what the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke want to hear at the end of the day, because 73% voted to leave and wanted to make sure that we took back control of our borders. We are a part of the asylum dispersal scheme already, with over 1,000 currently within the city region. We are happy to welcome them, but we want to see a change.
For example, we would love other parts of Scotland, not just Glasgow, to take on asylum seekers as part of the asylum dispersal scheme. Obviously, Glasgow is fully supportive, but other places voluntarily choose not to take part. We would like Labour-run Islington Borough Council to participate: by the end of 2020, it had not taken a single refugee.
The city of Stoke-on-Trent is expected to bear the burden of a large load and is taken advantage of, because ultimately we are an area that has been forgotten. The Labour party is still checking its Ordnance Survey map to find where the city of Stoke-on-Trent actually is—Captain Hindsight sent out a search party, and it got stuck in North Islington having chai latte and avocado on toast. Meanwhile, Conservative Members are more interested in delivering on the people’s priorities. We are delivering on that in making sure that this provision is strong.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Jonathan Gullis
I would be more than happy to hear if the search party has found Stoke-on-Trent.
Neil Coyle
It is a wonderful image, but there is only one thing I cannot bear to eat and that is avocado—I just cannot bear it.
The hon. Member is talking about the good people of Stoke-on-Trent, but I remember that they voted for a manifesto, which got him elected, that included not cutting our armed forces and not cutting our aid. Can he explain to the people of Stoke-on-Trent why his party has done exactly that, which leads to more people making the crossing?
The Chair
Order. No, I am afraid the hon. Gentleman cannot do so in the context of this Bill. It would not be in order.
Jonathan Gullis
Thank you, Sir Roger. I would love to find a way of answering that question, and by the way the people of Stoke-on-Trent would love to see the foreign aid budget cut entirely, and I fully support that as a long-term measure—
The Chair
Order. The same admonition applies to the hon. Gentleman. Can he please stay within the confines of the Bill?
Jonathan Gullis
I appreciate your patience, Sir Roger, and of course I will.
I will wrap up quickly by saying that clause 37 tells people that if they enter this country illegally, it will count against them. That is exactly what we should be doing, and I look forward to seeing that progress. Ultimately, we have illegal economic migrants making the journey across the English channel from Calais. The French need to do more, and the threat from the Home Secretary of not sending the additional £54 million has clearly worked—suddenly, I have never seen so many videos and photographs of French activity on their shores to try to prevent the small boats from leaving. It is about time that the French stood up and did what was right, because it is British taxpayers’ money that is funding the additional support they need.
This is about stopping the illegal economic migrants who are funding criminality by putting money into the hands of criminal people-smuggling gangs. That is probably funding wider criminality in the United Kingdom, particularly drugs in our community, and therefore it is right that we stop them. Let us not forget that 70% of those making these illegal crossings are men aged between 18 and 35, whereas we want to be protecting women and children. We have done that in Afghanistan and with Syria: the safe and legal routes are the appropriate way of doing it.
Clause 37 is saying to those illegal economic migrants that we need to make sure they go through those safe and legal routes, or, as Baroness Scotland—the former Labour Minister, back in the years when the Labour party was electable—said, they should be claiming asylum in the first safe country they reach. There is nothing wrong with Greece, Italy or France. I am more than happy to holiday there, and I am sure anyone in mainland Europe would be more than happy to make such a place their home.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
It is very interesting to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, but I will not rise to the bait.
Clause 37 is one of the most controversial new provisions in part 3 of the Bill. It expands the existing offence of illegal entry so that it encompasses arrival in the UK without a valid entry clearance. It also increases the maximum penalty for those entering without leave or arriving without a valid entry clearance from six months to four years’ imprisonment. I have a question for the Minister. On Tuesday we debated clause 35, which reduced the penalty for a particularly serious offence from two years’ imprisonment to one year. Is it the Government’s intention to make entry a particularly serious offence for the purposes of the Bill? That is what the clause could do.
In effect, the Government’s proposals criminalise the act of seeking asylum in the UK. The Opposition wholeheartedly oppose the measures and urge the Government to consider the following facts. First, clause 37 breaches article 31 of the refugee convention, which prohibits penalisation for irregular entry or stay when people are seeking asylum. The new offence of unlawful arrival is designed to—and will in practice—penalise refugees based on their mode of travel. That goes against everything that the convention stands for.
Article 31 of the refugee convention says that states
“shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees…where their life or freedom was threatened…provided they present themselves without delay…and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”
Clause 37 clearly violates the non-penalisation clause in the convention and is therefore in breach of the UK’s obligations under international law.
When taken in combination with clause 12, which excludes UK territorial seas from being considered a place of claim, clause 37 has significant implications for access to protection and the risk of refoulement. Under the proposed changes, those who arrive irregularly, including through a safe third country, could be prosecuted and imprisoned for between one and four years. That is because it is not possible to apply for entry clearance for the purpose of claiming asylum in the UK, and yet an asylum seeker must be physically in the UK to make a claim. Bearing that in mind, 90% of those granted asylum in the United Kingdom are from countries whose nationals must hold entry clearance to enter the UK.
Neil Coyle
This is more a point of order than an intervention, Sir Roger. I have been contacted with a correction to the record: Islington has actually taken refugees, contrary to what the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said. Does my hon. Friend congratulate Islington on its record in taking refugees and asylum seekers, contrary to the inaccurate—I was going to say “deceitful”, but I am not sure whether that is parliamentary language—and I am sure accidentally misleading comments from the hon. Gentleman?
Bambos Charalambous
I congratulate all local authorities that take asylum seekers. All local authorities should take their fair share—not just in Stoke-on-Trent or Islington, but those across the country.
In practice, someone with a well-founded fear of persecution arriving in the UK intending to claim asylum will be committing a criminal offence if clause 37 is implemented. Even if they have a visa, they will be committing an offence because their intention to claim asylum will be contrary to the intention for which the entry clearance or visa was issued. We have heard the example of students: if a student entered on a student visa and claimed asylum in the UK, they would be in breach of that visa. The clause will impact tens of thousands of people, leading to people with legitimate cases serving time in prison for these new offences, followed by continued immigration detention under immigration powers. In this context, the Government are proposing to criminalise asylum-seekers based on their journey—which, in all likelihood, was the only viable route available to them.
Secondly, the proposals are unworkable. While criminalising those we should be seeking to protect, the Bill also fails to introduce safe and legal routes to claim asylum. Clause 37 comes amid a glaring lack of lawful routes for claiming asylum in the UK. Although we welcome things like the resettlement programmes, they are not a solution for those claiming asylum because they are so limited. They cover those who are already recognised as having the protection they need.
Tom Pursglove
I will pick up on a few points in concluding our deliberations on the clause.
The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East spoke about costs. We are working with the various UK criminal justice systems and we have shared estimates of costs at official level as part of operationalising the plan. He sought further clarity about that and I hope that has provided reassurance. He also asked about entry clearance invalidation. If the leave is valid on arrival and is subsequently cancelled, no offence would have been committed, but if it is invalidated prior to arrival and the person knows that, the offence would have been committed.
Finally, I reiterate the point about the application of offences in this area. It bears repeating that we are targeting for prosecution those migrants for whom aggravating factors are involved—for example, those causing danger to themselves or others, including rescuers; those causing severe disruption to services such as shipping routes or closure of the channel tunnel; or those who have previously been removed from the UK as failed asylum seekers. The increased prison penalty will allow appropriate sentences to be given to reflect the seriousness of this behaviour.
Stuart C. McDonald
Has the Minister done an analysis of whether there are already criminal offences that cover the scenarios he has just outlined?
Tom Pursglove
We believe that this measure is required so that we can take appropriate action to deal with the sorts of circumstances I have just set out. I have made that clear on several occasions, and Members will have heard what I have said. I fully expect that that will continue to be the case, and that will be made clear at every opportunity.
I go back to the point that prosecuting services must judge cases on a case-by-case basis. They must of course take all the factors relevant to the individual case into account in deciding whether to proceed with it. They must also decide whether that is in the public interest. That is a very clear and established position, and will continue to be the case.
I am comfortable that the proposed approach is the right one to take in addressing the issues I have set out, which are particularly egregious and concerning and which require further action.
Amendment 110 agreed to.
Amendments made: 111, in clause 37, page 36, line 5, leave out “or (C1)” and insert “, (C1) or (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 112, in clause 37, page 36, line 19, leave out “or (C1)” and insert “, (C1) or (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 113, in clause 37, page 36, line 29, after “(C1)” insert “, (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 114, in clause 37, page 37, line 2, after “(C1)” insert “, (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 115, in clause 37, page 37, line 4, after “(C1)” insert “, (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 116, in clause 37, page 37, line 12, after “(C1)” insert “, (C1A)”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Amendment 117, in clause 37, page 37, line 15, after “(C1)” insert “, (C1A)”. —(Tom Pursglove.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 110.
Question put, That clause 37, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Bambos Charalambous
I beg to move amendment 33, in clause 38, page 37, line 22, leave out subsection (2).
This amendment deletes the subsection which removes “and for gain” from section 25A(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971. Currently, under section 25A(1)(a), a person commits an offence if the person knowingly “and for gain” facilitates the arrival in the UK of an individual who the person knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is an asylum seeker. This amendment preserves the status quo.
Following on from clause 37, clause 38 proposes to remove the words “and for gain” from section 25A of the Immigration Act 1971. Presently, under section 25A(1), it is an offence for a person knowingly and for gain to facilitate the arrival or entry, or attempted arrival or entry, of an asylum seeker into the UK. Clause 38 therefore seeks to broaden the section 25A offence to allow the Home Office to charge more people for facilitating the arrival of asylum seekers to the UK. Under the clause, someone acting purely altruistically to help an asylum seeker would be committing a criminal offence. It extends who could be convicted of the offence of knowingly facilitating the entry to the UK of an asylum seeker to individuals acting out of compassion for other people for no financial benefit.
As the Committee will know, the clause has received widespread criticism, and rightly so. I am not, for example, the first to observe that clause 38 would almost certainly have criminalised and prosecuted the likes of Sir Nicholas Winton for his life-saving actions in rescuing hundreds of children on the Kindertransport in 1939. Indeed, in July, when the Bill passed its Second Reading, many highlighted that clause 38 is so draconian that it could criminalise the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and its volunteers for helping those in danger at sea. If they were deemed to be facilitating asylum seekers’ arrival in the UK, they could face life imprisonment—life in prison for saving lives! I ask the Minister and this Committee: when did saving lives become a criminal offence?
These measures will criminalise friends, family members and individuals with humanitarian motives. The Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), attempted to provide reassurance on Second Reading by claiming that the Government have
“no intention in this Bill to criminalise bona fide, genuine rescue operations”.—[Official Report, 20 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 915.]
However, the Bill as it is currently written does not provide any similarly explicit reassurances.
The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium is especially concerned about the clause and its impact on people who provide assistance to vulnerable young people seeking asylum. It is concerned that such measures must in no way serve to deter people from saving the lives of babies and children at sea, with tragic examples demonstrating the cost of there being no safe and legal routes to the UK for families fleeing persecution. The Opposition have repeatedly drawn attention to that in Committee.
For asylum seekers who assist each other in coming to the UK to claim asylum, the implications of this measure are incredibly serious. Clause 38 increases the penalty for this offence to life imprisonment. These increased sentences, as raised by Zoe Gardner of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in one of the Committee’s evidence sessions, risk being used to prosecute asylum seekers themselves, not the smuggling gangs and members of international criminal gangs they are intended for.
For example, according to the National Crime Agency, there is evidence that asylum seekers can often be forced to carry out work without pay for smuggling gangs. In an investigation by The Independent newspaper, migrants reported traffickers taking their money for crossings to the UK, only to then demand that they work for free in order to make the journey, and that work includes being forced to steer vessels during dangerous crossings.
In The Independent investigation, one Yemeni man demonstrated how traffickers are aware that they can criminalise asylum seekers and refugees in this way. He described the power this gives them, in that a smuggler
“told me, ‘I can kill you here, no one will identify me and I will escape.’ He took videos of me and of my friends while we were preparing boats for other journeys. He said, ‘I could now accuse you of being a smuggler, you could be in jail.’ ”
This proves how the persecuted can be coerced and controlled by these criminals, and will in turn in effect become criminals themselves under the punitive policy making of the Home Office.
Of course, the prosecution of victims for the crimes of their perpetrators is something that the refugee convention, drafted 70 years ago, considers. Article 31 of the convention is intended to protect refugees from prosecution for irregular entry because refugees are, by definition, forced into dangerous and risky situations during their flight. This is something the Government are deliberately trying to wash their hands of—and to do what? To pursue a reckless policy that will prosecute those who are demonstrably not criminals, but genuine asylum seekers and refugees.
It is worth considering whether clause 38 is indeed workable. As we know, clause 37 is likely to be unenforceable and clause 38 is equally, if not more, outrageous. In relation to our international law obligations, there does not appear to be any consideration of how this clause and the new expanded criminal offences in clauses 37 and 38 will be compatible with the duty of a ship to attempt to rescue persons in danger at sea. For example, article 98(1) of the United Nations convention of the law of the sea provides that every state shall require ships
“to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost”,
and
“to proceed with all possible speed to the rescue of persons in distress”.
More interestingly in relation to clause 38, paragraph 2.1.10 of the annex to the international convention on maritime search and rescue 1979—the SAR convention—explicitly obliges
“that assistance be provided to any person in distress at sea. They shall do so regardless of the nationality or status of such a person or the circumstances in which that person is found.”
With these rules in mind, it appears that the UK cannot legally prohibit vessels from rescuing asylum seekers at sea, and I urge the Minister to consider the Opposition’s amendment 33, which will preserve the status quo.
Stuart C. McDonald
I wish briefly to associate myself with everything the shadow Minister just said; he covered pretty much all the ground that I would have covered. This ridiculous clause tramples all over our international obligations. I suspect what will happen today, as happened on Second Reading, is that we will be reassured that the clause will be used in a certain way so that the RNLI and others will not be targeted. Maybe I am wrong, which would be good, but the scope of the clause is extraordinary.
If the defence, as it was on Second Reading, is, “We’re not going to go after these people,” that is not good enough. You have to put that on the face of the Bill. We cannot create criminal offences and ask folk to go about breaching those laws and committing crimes in the hope that the Government keep their promise that they will not be prosecuted. It is a fundamental rule of legal principle—[Interruption.] The Minister is shaking his head: if that is not the defence, I look forward to hearing what is.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate and for Halifax for providing the opportunity to explain the difficulties involved in securing convictions for an odious crime that targets and exploits vulnerable people and allows organised criminals to thrive.
Gain can be obtained in many ways, but cannot always be proved to the evidential standard required for a successful prosecution: for example, money transfers made by other family members abroad or made cash in hand, promises of servitude by the asylum seeker or others, or the provision of assistance in the facilitation act, such as by avoiding paying a fee by agreeing to steer a small boat. It is right that all available evidence should be considered and all relevant behaviour taken into account in investigating a serious offence. We are, at present, limited by what is an unrealistic evidential requirement that does not take account of the reality of how international organised crime operates.
In amending the offence, we are mindful of the excellent work of those acting from humanitarian motives both now and in the past. I understand fully hon. Members’ concerns that the wrong people will be drawn into the investigative and judicial process. We are therefore retaining the defence available to organisations whose aim is to assist asylum seekers and who do not charge for their services. I also recognise the bravery of volunteers working for the RNLI and lifeboat crews who undertake vital work in protecting lives at sea.
I will set out my intention to amend this clause on Report to ensure that organisations such as the RNLI, those directed by Her Majesty’s Coastguard, and individuals who fulfil their obligations in rescuing those in distress at sea may continue as they do now. We also intend to ensure that this provision does not prevent those responsible for vessels from complying with their obligations if they discover stowaways on board as they journey to the UK. I understand that some members of the Committee would prefer to have those amendments ready to debate now, but the issues are complex and we must ensure that we do not inadvertently provide loopholes to be exploited by criminal gangs who will look for any means to avoid prosecution.
The effect of amendment 33 is that, by retaining the constraint and having to prove the offence was committed again, we will only rarely be able to respond to and deter those committing the offence and will continue to place an unrealistic burden on our law enforcement officers and prosecutors. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment, although I hope he will be reassured that I intend to table on Report an amendment to address the crux of the issues that he raised. I hope that hon. Members across the House will feel able to support the amendment that I intend to table.
Bambos Charalambous
I heard what the Minister said, but Second Reading was back in July and there has been plenty of time to table an amendment. What could be achieved by his amendment can easily be achieved by voting for this one, so I wish to press our amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 162, in clause 38, page 37, line 23, at end insert—
‘(3) In section 25A(3) of the Immigration Act 1971 (helping asylum seeker to enter United Kingdom), for paragraph (a) substitute—
“(a) aims to—
(i) protect lives at sea, or
(ii) assist asylum-seekers; and””
This amendment would add people working on behalf of organisations that aim to protect lives at sea to those who are exempt for prosecution for helping someone seeking asylum to enter the UK, as long as those organisations do not charge for their services.
In moving this amendment, I remind colleagues of my registered interest in respect of the excellent support that I get from RAMP––the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project––and especially from Heather Staff. I also thank the British Red Cross for its work, with a personal thank you to John Featonby for his advice and support to me and my team.
I guess that the amendment tries to help the Government, because the Minister says that he wants to table an amendment on Report. If he accepts this one, he may not need to. He called me a crafty parliamentarian last week, but there is nothing crafty about this. This is a genuine offer of a ready-made amendment that he can accept. It is a humanitarian exemption that would add people working on behalf of organisations that aim to protect life at sea to those exempt from prosecution for helping someone avoid drowning, as long as those organisations do not charge for their services and are not profit-making. It is exactly along the lines he has just outlined.
Sadly, as things stand, my amendment is necessary because this clause is deeply un-British. It denies our traditions and our heritage––our Christian heritage––of not walking on by. We have touched on Islington, which I believe has 137 asylum-seeking refugees and is a borough sanctuary. My own borough of Southwark had 1,022 in June according to Home Office figures. That number has since escalated massively because of the humiliation of our withdrawal from Afghanistan. But we do not whinge in Southwark. We do not whine about our Christian commitment and moral duty to the people we are supporting. We do not mind our international obligations being upheld. We are proud to be supportive of those in need.
It is extraordinary that the Bill, and this clause in particular, seeks to make UK citizens bad Samaritans. Without my amendment, the clause requires turning a blind eye. It requires people to watch other people die. It is a sickening extension of the culture war. It is in breach of our international obligations and law. The proposed changes risk UK-flagged vessels being pushed into a Kafkaesque Catch-22: assist those in distress and risk criminal liability or do not assist, breach duties of international law and witness the deaths of other people. This risks criminalising voluntary assistance while failing to provide for a humanitarian exemption.
My amendment presses the Government for such an exemption, along the lines that the Minister outlined and says that he wants. Not least, it would honour our international commitments and protect the RNLI and its amazing work across our country. From this Room, we can see the Thames. The busiest RNLI station in the country is here in London. Since 2002, the RNLI has saved more than 300 lives in the Thames, including in my constituency.
The RNLI saved 372 people from drowning in our waters in 2019, and more than 143,000 people since its creation in 1824. That is an astonishing achievement that we should be proud of and support. It is also astonishing that in its 200-year history, it has never been so attacked or vilified, including by the far right, and inflamed by Government narrative and rhetoric. It is with some regret that we seek to amend clause 38, to spell out that those who do their duty and protect lives at sea and in our waters, including when they need to rescue asylum seekers, are not penalised and do not face prison sentences.
The Government say that they want to stop smuggling and penalise smugglers, but if that was the case there would be no need to remove the words “for gain”. Instead, with one swipe, the Government have intentionally—or perhaps not, if anyone wants to be more generous than I—endangered the commitment to save life at sea, here and at other points, putting legislation at odds with our national maritime commitments. It is also deeply dehumanising, in a way that no UK Government have ever systematically attempted in the past. We have only ever seen such things abroad—I do not think I need to list all the countries involved—with catastrophic consequences, in time, for those involved.
To emphasise the humanitarian issues, I want to quote some of those frontline RNLI crew members in the English channel, who put it like this:
“I think what you realise when you get to the migrant boats, when you get to these dinghies, I think what hits you more than anything, irrespective of your own thoughts on this situation is the desperation that they must be in to put themselves in this situation and then you look at them as human beings irrespective of where they have come from, human beings that are in a state of distress that need rescuing, so every other thought goes out of your mind.”
Another said:
“While there are people in small boats in the channel, there is danger. My motivation is to stop anyone drowning and washing up on the beaches. I don’t care what time of day or night it is, a life is a life, and I will continue to give my best to the RNLI to protect as many as we can. I’d like to think that the crew all feel the same. You have to put the politics of it to one side; they are human beings in distress, and they need us. I am grateful that the RNLI support us and that we don’t discriminate against anyone. I am proud of the work that we do and the lives that we have saved. I want us to shout about what we do and the care and empathy that we show.”
He goes on:
“This country is having a crisis of empathy and I love that the RNLI are standing up for our morals and showing what I truly believe is the Britain we should all be proud of.”
That is the Britain that I am also proud of. I believe that the Government have stoked a filthy culture war, and it has got filthy in our waters—due not just to the sewage that they are dumping in it, but the hate that they provoke and the consequences it has had.
Let me talk about the situation as it stands before we get to the amendment that tries to protect the humanitarian organisations involved. Another crew member put it like this:
“Our inshore lifeboat was called to a small inflatable with seven people on board…four adults and three children…They’d broken down…Everybody on the boat [was]…sick, we thought they all needed medical attention...we needed to get them ashore, [and] some of the paramedics…were there to take care of them [and] were able to establish that they had exposure. But when we got there, some members of the public who saw us coming in with two families, little children, four or five years old in this boat, were standing there on the beach”
—I apologise in advance, Sir Roger—
“shouting, ‘Fuck off back to France’ at us as we tried to bring them in”.
This crew member said they had never been met by an angry mob like that before, and it was one of the most upsetting things they had ever seen. That situation is happening right now as a direct result of irresponsible rhetoric and policies.
Another crew member said:
“We’ve had some vile abuse thrown at us. We’ve been accused of all sorts of things. I’ve personally had personal phone calls at the lifeboat station people telling me what they think of me by bringing migrants in, but at the end of the day we are here to save lives at sea and all the time we are here that is what we will carry on doing.”
I pay tribute to the heroism and courage in the face of irresponsibility from this Administration.
Removing the words “for gain” has caused unnecessary distress already, in an already tough job and situation. I urge the Government to reconsider their communications on the Bill—specifically the clause and in relation to my amendment—and on the issue more widely, especially the language used when talking about asylum seekers. It has already led to such horrendous abuse of the RNLI and others, as well as the degrading language around people in need of sanctuary.
The Government are responsible for the hate that asylum seekers and volunteers and professionals at RNLI face. There are also further unintended victims of the childishness on the issue. I speak as a proud member of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. I am fearful that, should my amendment not be accepted, this grubby politics risks a course of action that will drag Her Majesty into the mess that the Government are creating. Without my amendment, if people continue to film and to seek action against the volunteers and the crew, and organisations such as the RNLI, which save lives, the chances of prosecution and prison will increasingly grow, both on an individual basis and with respect to attacks on the organisation itself.
There is a reason for the “R” in RNLI: the president is His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent. He is the Queen’s first cousin, and he succeeded both his father and his mother to become RNLI president in 1969. If the Committee does not agree to the amendment, we risk the astonishing situation—created entirely by the Government—of the Queen facing calls to lock up her own cousin. Those more attuned to British history will know that that would have been more likely under the first Queen Elizabeth than under the current monarch. It is a genuinely ridiculous situation.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, of whom I am very fond, for tabling the amendment. When I referred to him in a previous sitting as a crafty parliamentarian, I meant that in the nicest of ways. I am very fond of him, and I know that he is a canny parliamentarian who is passionate about the issues he raises.
Let me touch on various points that the hon. Gentleman made. The RNLI does, rightly, have a proud royal connection, and long may that continue. Of course, the RNLI, Her Majesty’s Coastguard and others provide an invaluable service in saving lives at sea. We as a Government are conscious of that, and that tradition and that vital service must continue to be upheld. The hon. Gentleman mounted a passionate defence of the monarchy, and I think I speak for the whole Government when I say that we are proud monarchists. Perhaps he might have a word with some of his colleagues about the stance they have traditionally taken in relation to the monarchy over the years, but we have proud support for our monarchy in this country.
I also want to say that the behaviour the hon. Gentleman talked about as being exhibited towards members of the RNLI and volunteers is completely unacceptable and despicable. There is a responsibility on Members across the House to speak with one voice in saying that such behaviour is despicable, and we should condemn it in the strongest terms. I think the Committee is united in that, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will take that message back to the RNLI volunteers he is engaging with in his constituency, because we do speak with one voice in that regard.
On that note, I want to mention the incident off the coast of Harwich during the past few days. Two men were rescued, but, unfortunately, an extensive search and rescue operation had to be called off after a man was reported to have entered the water. That incident highlights yet again the extreme danger of crossing the channel in small boats and the callous disregard for life shown by the criminal gangs responsible for facilitating crossings. I want to place on record my thanks to all those who responded to the incident and who continue to work tirelessly to protect lives at sea while securing our border. Their work is invaluable—it is incredibly important—and I know all Members would wish thanks to be expressed to them for the work they do.
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman’s amendment seeks to protect those who act to save lives at sea, but as I have already set out, it is the Government’s intention to amend the clause on Report to do just that. The only thing I would add—Members have rightly spoken passionately about the importance of the issue—is that I want to be confident that the amendment delivering that is as robust as it needs to be, and that it achieves properly and to the fullest extent the objective I think we all share.
I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to let me take the matter away. What has been said in Committee has been heard. There are already efforts under way to develop this amendment for consideration on Report. I hope that gives the hon. Gentleman the confidence to withdraw his amendment. We will make sure that we table an appropriate amendment on Report, which I like to think Members from across the House will feel able to vote for, and that will deliver on the objective that we all share.
Neil Coyle
I note the Minister’s words and offer, but he has not explained why this amendment specifically does not do the job that he is seeking to do in the later stages. There is no explanation of what the Government would do differently from what is on the table today, so it is unclear why he will not accept the amendment. The Bill was published some months ago, and the Government have had about three months to suggest an amendment. I have already spoken about the current situation and the attacks on the RNLI: people throwing things, people spitting at crews. That will affect its recruitment and damage its reputation and, by association, all those who are patrons or otherwise involved. We need to offer better protection to the RNLI from today and send a clear signal that its work is invaluable and that we respect and honour what it does.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendment 82.
Amendment 144, in schedule 5, page 74, line 30, at end insert—
“provided that the relevant officer may not do any of the things mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) where they would risk the welfare or safety of persons on board the ship.”
This amendment would require officers to assess welfare risk before stopping or boarding a ship, requiring it to be taken elsewhere or requiring it to leave UK waters, and not act if doing so would exacerbate these risks.
Government amendment 83.
Amendment 145, in schedule 5, page 75, line 8, at end insert—
“(7A) The Secretary of State must publish a list of States and relevant territories with which agreement has been reached for the purposes of sub-paragraph (7) within 30 days of the date of Royal Assent to this Act, and the Secretary of State must update that published list from time to time.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish which states or territories she has agreed arrangements with for returning or removing asylum seekers to, within 30 days of Royal Assent.
Amendment 146, in schedule 5, page 76, line 24, at end insert—
“(9) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 148, in schedule 5, page 77, line 18, at end insert—
“(7) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 147, in schedule 5, page 78, line 12, at end insert—
“(10) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 149, in schedule 5, page 78, line 32, at end insert—
“(c) the act was carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to only act with regards to the Human Rights Act.
That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
In response to numbers of migrants using dangerous maritime routes to enter the UK illegally, this Government are committed to providing Border Force with the tools and legislation they need to combat this illegal migration threat more effectively. We need to strengthen and broaden our current powers not only to improve the effectiveness and capability of Border Force’s current maritime interception tactics, but to better equip them for future operational developments, which may be enhanced through agreements with our near border partners.
The clause and schedule will also provide new powers allowing Border Force to return vessels and those on board, when appropriate, to non-UK locations. Finally, the Government will use this clause to provide bespoke seizure and disposal powers intended for Border Force use against the small boats threat specifically. It will provide far more flexible options for the seizure and disposal of the vast majority of unflagged, ownerless vessels that are being used to transport illegal migrants.
I turn to Government amendments 82 and 83. We are seeing an unacceptable rise in dangerous and unnecessary small boat crossings. Our primary focus is on preventing people from embarking on dangerous channel crossings to enter the UK illegally, tackling the criminal gangs responsible and protecting lives. We must send a powerful message that people should not leave the safety of countries such as France or Belgium to enter the UK illegally in an unseaworthy boat, and if they do, they could be taken back.
Stuart C. McDonald
On the question of legality, Government amendment 82 is pretty extraordinary, because it seems to remove a restriction on the power of the Secretary of State so that she is unconstrained by the United Nations convention on the law of the sea; I am just looking at the explanatory note. Is that amendment designed to allow the Secretary of State to break the international law of the sea?
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, and I will come on to it imminently. To finish the point I was making, the Government amendments will remove text from the Bill that is now considered not to be essential to achieving the aim that I have set out.
The UK has ratified, and is therefore fully committed to upholding, the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. The Government are committed to utilising their maritime enforcement tactics in full compliance with international law. The re-statement of that in the clause is therefore unnecessary. It is also unnecessary to state in legislation, where it is already beyond doubt, that Border Force would seek permission from a foreign country before taking a migrant boat back to that country. That statement adds nothing to the powers being created in this part of the Bill.
We want to make it explicit that operating these maritime enforcement powers in UK waters or international waters to simply divert a migrant vessel from UK territorial seas does not require the permission of a foreign state where that vessel may then enter their waters. These amendments will not result in the UK failing to abide by its international obligations, whether that be in the context of the safety of lives at sea or when seeking permission if intending to return migrants to another country, such as France.
I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield Central for what he will no doubt say about amendments 144 to 149. I will start by addressing amendment 144, which proposes to add an additional requirement to the maritime powers where the options available to officers intercepting a vessel at sea are spelled out. In order for the tactics intended for use in the exercise of these powers to be safe and legal, officers will have to carry out risk assessments before and during any exercise of the powers. That requirement will be laid out in operating procedures to ensure we meet our international obligations on safety of life at sea.
As any deployment of the tactics under the powers will be carried out in full accordance with those obligations, the welfare and safety of those on board vessels will be the priority throughout. With international obligations in this context not being a matter for UK legislation, we do not consider it necessary to add the amendment. I also note that any deployment of maritime tactics will be carried out in full compliance with obligations under the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act.
I turn now to amendment 145. The schedule that it would amend deals with new powers allowing Border Force and others to require vessels to be taken to a non-UK port if necessary. There are a number of reasons why we may wish to have the capability to do this, and they are not all related to the return or removal of asylum seekers. For example, any potential future agreement with partners to patrol waters jointly may require rescued or intercepted migrants to be taken back to the country from which they embarked on their maritime journey. As such, we do not consider that the amendment is needed or appropriate in schedule 5, and we are not prepared to commit to providing a running commentary to update on the progress of sometimes sensitive international negotiations.
I understand that the intention of amendments 146 to 148 is to emphasise the need to ensure that account be taken of human rights obligations by appropriately trained officers exercising these maritime powers. However, the amendments are unnecessary and would have no practical impact on the operation of the powers by Border Force officers and others. All operational officers within Border Force receive, and must have passed, appropriate training in order to exercise their duties. In order to be appointed as an immigration officer, an official must successfully complete and pass a foundation course that includes understanding the European convention on human rights as it relates to the Human Rights Act 1998, and their resulting obligations in the context of exercising powers.
Subsidy Control Bill (Fourth sitting)
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 9 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. The schedule lists the additional energy and environmental principles that energy and environment subsidies must be evaluated against, in addition to the subsidy control principles in schedule 1. These common-sense additional principles are designed to ensure, for example, that public authorities consider the need for energy and environment subsidies to achieve reductions in emissions, or otherwise increase the level of environmental protection relative to the lower level achieved without the subsidy. There are also more specific principles in schedule 2, including, for instance, those regarding subsidies for electricity generation adequacy, renewable energy and cogeneration. This schedule is key to complying with our obligations under the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union, and I commend it to the Committee.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I thank the Minister for his remarks on schedule 2. I have no further comments to add—we will be supporting this schedule stand part—other than to allude to the debate we had earlier about making more explicit within the schedule the need to deliver the UK’s net zero commitment, and that subsidies should contribute to that goal. That is an area that I am sure we will come back to when debating later parts of the Bill, but we will support this schedule stand part today.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 10
Subsidy schemes and streamlined subsidy schemes
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 10, page 6, line 30, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
“(a) is made by—
(i) a Minister of the Crown,
(ii) the Welsh Ministers,
(iii) the Scottish Ministers, or
(iv) a Northern Ireland department; and”
This amendment would extend the power to make streamlined subsidy schemes to the Devolved Administrations.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 16, in clause 10, page 6, line 30, after “Crown” insert
“, or other primary public authority, as defined in subsection (3),”.
The purpose of this amendment is to allow the Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and relevant Northern Ireland department, as well as other public authorities, to make streamlined subsidy schemes.
Seema Malhotra
I am pleased to be able to move amendment 9 on behalf of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central. We have proposed the amendment because we recognise that the streamlined subsidy schemes play a significant role in this legislation. Clause 10 defines subsidy schemes and streamlined subsidy schemes: unlike subsidy schemes, streamlined subsidy schemes can be made only by a Minister of the Crown, but they do create a route for certain subsidies to be passed more easily and quickly, and on occasion have the potential to effectively contribute to key policy objectives and targets, which is their purpose.
The question is why the Government have allowed only the Secretary of State to create streamlined schemes. In our view, the restriction not only limits the potential of the Bill, but undermines the important role of the devolved Administrations. Those Administrations are more likely than the Secretary of State to understand what subsidies and schemes may be most beneficial for their respective nations or areas, and by preventing them from being able to create streamlined schemes, the Government are potentially hampering the effectiveness of subsidies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As Daniel Greenberg explained in our evidence session on Tuesday,
“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?”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 61, Q80.]
While Labour understand that power over UK subsidies should ultimately reside in Westminster, preventing the devolved Administrations from creating streamlined schemes undermines their important role in our democratic structure, as well as the responsibilities that they have in their respective nations. It should also be noted that any proposals for streamlined schemes must be laid before Parliament, as set out in subsection (5). Any streamlined subsidy schemes created by the devolved Administrations could be subject to ample parliamentary scrutiny. Labour is therefore seeking to amend the clause to allow Welsh Ministers, Scottish Ministers and Northern Ireland Departments to create streamlined subsidies. We believe that the amendment would help increase the effectiveness of subsidies across the UK while respecting the role of the devolved Administrations. We also support the SNP’s amendment, which I think would have a very similar effect.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to take part in the Committee’s proceedings with you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. I want to say a couple of things. I agree with almost everything that the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston said, apart from the idea that the Secretary of State should have powers over what happens in Scotland, because obviously I believe that Scotland should be independent—but that is probably an argument for another day.
The powers of the Scottish Parliament were voted for democratically in a referendum that showed the Scottish people’s will that a Scottish Parliament should be created. Those powers have been discussed on many occasions, including in subsequent Scotland Acts. The powers of the Scottish Parliament, having been agreed democratically, are part of our democracy, whereas the powers that Westminster has do not seem to have ever been discussed or voted on democratically.
As regards what the Opposition spokesperson said about upholding the democratic nature of the United Kingdom and the democratic powers of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, I think it is really important that the ability to make streamlined subsidy schemes be included. If the Government are going to talk about levelling up, which I am sure they will—they generally do on such matters—they should consider that those devolved bodies, which are elected to represent those areas, have a huge amount of knowledge and are much closer to the places they represent. They should be able to make streamlined subsidy schemes too, because I believe, as many people do, that they would make them better than Westminster is likely to.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Nokes. It is important to recognise what the constitution of the UK says, and that is very clearly that powers and competences are reserved to the United Kingdom Government. We do not have a system of equivalence; there is no equivalence between a devolved Government and the UK Government, because sovereignty rests here. I know that equivalence features in some of the contributions we are hearing, but there is no place for it in our constitution. The devolved powers and competences are very clearly defined, which is absolutely correct. The suggestion that the Secretary of State’s powers should be replicated elsewhere does not fit with our proper constitutional model.
In response to the comment from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North about powers being discussed and voted on, we do of course discuss and vote on powers in the UK Government every time there is a general election, and frequently through sittings like this too, so I am happy that there is extensive consideration of them.
On the point about streamlining, it is important to understand some of the limitations, which are themselves discussed within the devolved Administrations, in particular on the number of elected members. For example, there is currently a discussion within the Welsh Senedd about increasing the number of its Members, and one of the reasons is to improve its ability to scrutinise itself. For all those reasons, I hope that I have made a helpful contribution to the discussion.
Kirsty Blackman
Is the hon. Member’s concern about streamlined subsidy schemes that he does not believe the Welsh Senedd has enough Members to agree to such schemes?
Robin Millar
No, I was observing that there is a discussion taking place within the Senedd about the number of Members, and one of the arguments for increasing that number is about improved scrutiny, because having more Members would allow for greater and more effective scrutiny of internal operation, and therefore any decision made, whether on a streamlined subsidy scheme, funding, grants or whatever, would benefit from that extra scrutiny.
Paul Scully
Streamlined subsidy schemes have an important role to play in supporting public authorities to deliver well-designed subsidies: subsidies that address market failures but minimise the risk of excessive distortion to competition, investment and trade and that are not subject to mandatory or voluntary referral to the subsidy advice unit under the provisions of chapter 1 or part 4. The Government intend that streamlined subsidy schemes will be a pragmatic means of establishing schemes for commonly awarded subsidies, including in areas of UK strategic priority, that all public authorities in the UK would able to use if they wish. They will therefore function best when they apply across the entire UK. The Government will design them so that they are fit to be used in all parts of the UK. In addition, clause 10 sets out the procedural requirements when making a streamlined subsidy scheme, including the requirement that it is laid before Parliament.
The practical effect of the amendment would be to require devolved Administration Ministers to lay streamlined subsidy schemes before the UK Parliament, both when they are made and if they are modified. The appropriateness of that procedure is questionable, given that devolved Ministers are not directly accountable to the UK Parliament.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Can the Minister give an example of a streamlined subsidy scheme?
Paul Scully
The streamlined subsidy schemes will be worked up as we come up to the commencement of the Bill, so I will not set out a list of streamlined moots as yet, but they are there for something that is common and not necessarily devolved in particular areas that needs to be rolled out at speed with minimum interruption to the public authorities. The obvious example––it is not necessarily a streamlined moot––in recent years is the grant scheme that we have had in covid, which came under a lot of pressure from having to ask for exemptions within the European Union to get the framework available there, which meant that we could not roll it out to the extent that we wanted to, as quickly as we wanted to.
Kirsty Blackman
Does the Minister think it possible that some of the streamlined subsidy schemes that will be made are likely to encroach on devolved areas, even though they are being made for the whole UK? If so, does he believe that when a streamlined subsidy scheme is laid before Parliament it should talk about the consultation that has been held with the devolved Administrations responsible and explain why, if they disagree with the scheme, the Government are going ahead anyway?
Paul Scully
Rather than a streamlined scheme encroaching on the devolution settlement, it is important to stress that any public authority in the UK will be free under the Bill to create a subsidy scheme for its own purposes. Schemes have many of the same attributes that streamlined subsidy schemes have in that only the scheme, and not the individual subsidies awarded under it, needs to be assessed under those principles. Schemes offer a similar administratively light touch means of awarding many subsidies that are also open to any and all public authorities, including the devolved Administrations. What we are saying is that the streamlined subsidies are best used when they are available across the UK but schemes are available to the devolved Administrations, to the public authorities and indeed to the UK Government to award. They are more bespoke and tailored. Because of that, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks. Perhaps it is something that I have not seen, but could he clarify where it is specified that streamlined subsidy schemes would need to be UK-wide? I could not see it in the legislation.
Paul Scully
What I was saying was that streamlined subsidy schemes do not need to be UK-wide. We are not putting that on the face of the Bill. They work best and are more effective when they can be rolled out across the UK, because schemes effectively do a very similar thing. It could be more bespoke and more tailored to a local area, economy or whatever the subsidy relates to.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. It feels as if this area is not sufficiently defined. I cannot see why we would not want to have better symmetry of powers between the devolved nation Administrations.
Kevin Hollinrake
Is not a reason that this could distort competition between different parts of the United Kingdom? If an example of a streamlined subsidy scheme is the business rate grants for hospitality, whole parts of the UK—Scotland, for example—could provide a huge amount of support across the hospitality sector, which would unfairly disadvantage the rest of the UK. Is that not an example of how this might be a danger?
Seema Malhotra
I am not sure I fully agree with that. Surely it would mean that it was incompatible with the principles in schedule 1. I think that the principles would preclude that. I come back to the point that at the moment we have an asymmetry of power. I cannot, in the circumstances of streamlined subsidy schemes as they are currently defined, see why that should not be a power that is there for the devolved Administrations. It is important to go further with the amendment, and I would like to put it to a vote.
Kirsty Blackman
Just to come back on what the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said, business rates are already devolved in Scotland. We already have a more generous system of allowances. People at the lower end of income, pay or value of properties pay less than they would in England anyway. So we already have that in place. It does not have to come in as part of a subsidy scheme or streamlined subsidy scheme, as far as I am aware.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston is correct. The Minister seems to be saying that the schemes will apply across the UK, but nothing in the Bill says that this will apply across the UK for any of the streamlined subsidy schemes that come through. The Government could create a streamlined subsidy scheme that applied only in Blackpool, for example. The fact that it is a streamlined subsidy scheme does not mean that it has to apply across the UK.
I did not get a straight answer from the Minister about devolved competencies. Is it intended that the UK Government will make streamlined subsidy schemes that trespass on areas of devolved competency and apply those across the UK? If that is the case, I am even more concerned about this than I already was. If they are going to do that only in reserved areas, that makes sense, but given the Government’s tendency to reduce the power of the Scottish Parliament and the other devolved Administrations, I am not sure that I have a huge amount of trust in the fact that the streamlined subsidy schemes will not trespass on the devolved areas.
Paul Scully
The streamlined schemes are not effectively the most commonly used ones. They are few and far between. The schemes will be far more tailored. They do very similar things and provide similar freedoms in terms of ease of access. A scheme, whether streamlined or not, needs to be assessed against the principles. Every streamlined subsidy scheme will be laid in Parliament after it is made. Any streamlined subsidy scheme that is amended will be laid in Parliament. That will ensure transparency for those schemes. We will publish a number of schemes and lay them before Parliament before the regime is commenced. Public authorities will therefore have sufficient time to understand the parameters of streamlined subsidy schemes before the subsidy control regime commences.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 10, page 6, line 32, at end insert—
“(4A) A streamlined subsidy scheme may be made, in particular, for the purposes of providing support to areas of deprivation.”.
This amendment would clarify that streamlined subsidy schemes may be made for the purposes of supporting areas of deprivation.
I will keep my remarks brief. As I stated earlier, the Bill provides an opportunity to target funding towards areas of deprivation. In our view, that is not made as explicit as it needs to be in the Bill. If we are looking at levelling up, tackling deprivation and equity of outcomes, we would want a streamlined subsidy scheme, in particular for the purposes of providing support to areas of deprivation. We have tabled a similar amendment to schedule 1, but are seeking here to amend subsection (4) of clause 10. The amendment would explicitly clarify that streamlined schemes can be used to support projects to tackle economic deprivation.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, the Government intend streamlined subsidy schemes to be a pragmatic means of establishing schemes for commonly awarded subsidies. That includes subsidies in areas of UK strategic priority that all public authorities in the UK will be able to use if they so wish.
The Government are fully supportive of action to assist areas of deprivation and to facilitate the levelling-up agenda. The new domestic subsidy control regime will give authorities the flexibility to deliver subsidies where they are needed to support economic growth, without facing excessive bureaucracy or lengthy pre-approval processes. We will also publish guidance to make clear how the principles should be applied by public authorities when considering subsidies that advance the levelling-up agenda or promote the economic development of relatively disadvantaged areas.
We would not want to pre-empt work to develop the streamlined subsidy schemes by committing here and now to privilege one specific policy objective over all the others in the Bill. In any case, the Bill does not set limits on the policy objectives that a streamlined subsidy scheme can pursue. Seeking to specify particular objectives in the Bill may lead to the power to create streamlined subsidy schemes being interpreted in an unduly narrow way in the future. I therefore ask the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
I had wanted to press the amendment to a vote, but perhaps I can ask the Minister for further clarification. If, in the further guidance that may be coming on streamlined subsidy schemes, we can return to the question of the objectives and purposes for which those schemes are made, I am happy to withdraw the amendment today and come back to the point in future discussions.
Paul Scully
I am grateful to the hon. Member. It is important that we continue to talk about this issue, so I am happy to discuss it further.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, the clause confirms that public authorities can create a subsidy scheme and that a Minister of the Crown can create a streamlined subsidy scheme. I have talked about the fact that they are a pragmatic means of establishing schemes for commonly awarded subsidies in areas of UK strategic priorities. All public authorities in the UK will be able to use them, if they so wish.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. In relation to the discussions that we have had, and our concerns about some of the areas under clause 10, I will not be proposing that we vote against it standing part. However, there are concerns. If there were some mechanism or means by which we could abstain, we would seek to do so. There are some big gaps in clarity regarding some of the clause’s powers and what they can be used for, and we would like greater definition and scrutiny.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11
Subsidies and schemes of interest or particular interest
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move amendment 11, in clause 11, page 6, line 40, at end insert—
“(1A) Regulations under this section must be made by no later than three months after this Act receives Royal Assent”.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations giving the meaning of “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of interest” and “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of particular interest” no later than three months following Royal Assent.
I am grateful for the opportunity to move amendment 11. I mentioned earlier that this Bill has many issues when it comes to devolution. We want a four-nation settlement to be integral to how the regime is implemented. It has to have the confidence of the whole nation, and it must deliver sustainable outcomes across the whole of the UK, but Professor Fothergill summarised on Tuesday:
“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.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 12, Q8.]
Clause 11 highlights yet another devolution issue. It gives the Secretary of State the power to define schemes of interest, and of particular interest, after the Bill receives Royal Assent. How the Secretary of State chooses to define these areas will have a significant effect on the legislation and its implementation. Given the importance of these definitions, could the Minister explain why the Government have not gone further and included them in primary legislation, instead leaving them up to the Secretary of State? Does he not agree that Parliament should have the opportunity to properly scrutinise such significant definitions at this stage of the Bill?
Does the Minister also recognise that it would therefore be of concern to the devolved Administrations to be excluded from the making of these definitions? Daniel Greenberg expressed on Tuesday how the Bill falls 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”.––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 60, Q80.]
As I have said, the devolved Administrations have an important role to play in the creation and implementation of subsidies in their respective nations. As such, there is an important part for them to play in the process of defining and setting these significant terms.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, amendment 11 would require the Government to make the regulations within three months. The Government fully recognise the importance of establishing clear definitions for the categories in a timely fashion, both to create certainty for public authorities and to set the parameters for the work of the subsidy advice unit.
Kirsty Blackman
To flip that on its head, if the Minister expects and hopes that the regime will be implemented in autumn 2022, will he confirm that he also expects and hopes that the regulations under this clause will be made in advance of the summer recess in 2022 to allow authorities the time to look at them properly and digest them in advance of the scheme coming in?
Paul Scully
Clearly, we want to make sure that the regulations go through due parliamentary process and that colleagues have plenty of time to see them, discuss them and scrutinise them. That is absolutely appropriate. We also want to give businesses time to see what is on the horizon, and to give public authorities—those awarding authorities—time to adjust to the new framework.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks. On the basis that we want to ensure that there is time for scrutiny—and I think he alluded to some assurances that things will move as quickly as possible—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 11, page 7, line 8, at end insert—
“(4) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must seek the consent of the Scottish Ministers, the Welsh Ministers and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.
(5) If consent to the making of the regulations is not given by any of those authorities within the period of one month beginning with the day on which it is sought from that authority, the Secretary of State may make the regulations without that consent.
(6) If regulations are made in reliance on subsection (5), the Secretary of State must make a statement to the House of Commons explaining why the Secretary of State decided to make the regulations without the consent of the authority or authorities concerned.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to seek the consent of the Devolved Administrations before making regulations under this section. Where such consent is not given within one month, the Secretary of State may make the regulations without that consent, but must make a statement to the House of Commons explaining their decision.
It is my pleasure to speak to this amendment. It would require the Secretary of State to seek the consent of the devolved Administrations before making regulations under the clause. As the Minister just mentioned, the Government may wish to bring forward further regulations to make changes under clause 11. We propose that if such consent is not given within one month, the Secretary of State may make the regulations without that consent, in line with other principles here and in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, but must make a statement to the House of Commons explaining that decision.
As I have outlined, we are very concerned that there needs to be a fair and equitable four-nations solution in how this legislation is developed and implemented. That will be an important part of its success and the confidence that people have in it over time. As I have said, the devolved Administrations have an important role to play in the implementation of subsidies, and they should play their part in defining and setting the significant terms in the legislation.
If the Secretary of State is unable to gain the devolved Administrations’ consent—I hope that it will be forthcoming on the basis of there being constructive dialogue between the nations, and those mechanisms being set up in good faith—it is important that that has the scrutiny of the House of Commons, and that the Secretary of State makes a statement to the House explaining what the issues were and why agreement was not reached.
As I have said, the regulations will have an important effect on the subsidy regime. It is bad enough that they are not included in primary legislation, but it is important that dialogue happens to ensure that the best regulations are made under this clause. I hope that the Minister will agree that the definitions need to be set in partnership and in discussion with the devolved Administrations, and that it would be a sign of confidence in the regime to seek that consent.
Kirsty Blackman
I have a couple of points on this amendment, and I want to give it my wholehearted backing. I agree that the devolved Administrations should be consulted on these regulations. I would probably go further and have them not proceed if the devolved Administrations did not agree, but we are where we are.
I am a serving member of the Procedure Committee, and we have discussed this at huge length recently in our report and our look at how the territorial constitution works, and how the devolved Administrations relate. One thing that is brought up regularly is that if the UK Government proceed with something in the absence of legislative consent, there is no clear mechanism for the UK Government to explain to Parliament why the process has happened in advance of legislative consent. For me, it seems like the very least that the UK Government should do if something proceeds without consent.
That is important in relation to legislative consent motions for primary legislation where something trips over into devolved competencies, as we have seen a number of times in recent years. When it comes to these regulations, I think it is really important that the devolved Administrations are in agreement with what happens, because, in the main, they will be guaranteed authorities implementing subsidy schemes in the devolved areas. The Scottish Parliament has authority over the local authorities in Scotland so it will oversee some of their work, particularly when it comes to directing them how to best improve their local areas. If the UK Government are to proceed without the consent of the devolved Administrations, they must come and explain to us why.
I note that the UK Government and Scottish Government, as well as the other Administrations, have regular conversations about how things could go forward, but I feel there is a significant amount of disagreement at the moment in many areas. It would be very good if we could all come to an agreement about what “particular interest” means. If we cannot, I believe that this House should know why the UK Government think that agreement has not been reached, and why they intend to proceed anyway.
Paul Scully
Obviously, the Government welcome the devolved Administrations’ ongoing interest in the Bill, and we continue to engage with them on a regular basis. In coming up with this framework, I think we have had at least 34 official-to-official engagements and 10 or so ministerial-to-ministerial engagements with the devolved Administrations. It is important that we continue that spirit of discussion, because we have to set the right definitions for the subsidies of schemes of interest or particular interest.
Having those appropriate definitions is really important to ensure that the subsidy advice unit is focused on the subsidies and schemes that are most likely significantly to distort competition and investment in the UK, or that may do the same to our trade with other countries. It also means, as we have heard, that regulations made under clause 11 may need to be amended quickly in the event that economic conditions change rapidly, for example. A requirement to seek the consent of the devolved Administrations each time the power is used risks introducing significant delays into the process.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his comments. As the Institute for Government has made clear in its commentary on the Bill,
“a successful system needs buy-in from all parts of the UK…any regulations should be made in consultation with the devolved administrations…government must take a collaborative approach to writing the regulations that will determine how the system will actually work.”
The Minister has made the argument himself, really. In his opening comments, he rightly praised the work that has already taken place, as well as all the conversations—the 34 official-to-official meetings and the 10 Minister-to-Minister meetings—that are happening. That precedent has already been set, and there is clearly a commitment on all sides for that to continue.
The Minister also made the point about urgency, but surely one month is a reasonable timeframe within which to check and consult that we are on the right course, and, if the Governments are still not in agreement, to proceed as the reasonable compromise in our amendment sets out.
Paul Scully
The spirit is certainly there, but I do not want to bind future Administrations to a requirement to respond in emergency situations.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I concur with my hon. Friend. We have seen in the past few years—with British Steel, for example—that the Government have had to move incredibly quickly to get subsidies in place. Adding that one-month period could determine the success or failure of such subsidies in supporting a specific UK industry. Time is of the essence.
Paul Scully
Absolutely. The Government have determined—as we did in debate on the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—that subsidy control is a reserved matter, so it is right that subsidy control policy is made and voted on in Parliament. Clearly, we must ensure that those schemes are scrutinised, and we will continue to engage with the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive, as we have done in drafting the Bill and since its introduction. We are committed to engaging with them regularly and listening to their views during the Bill’s passage and beyond. That includes engagement on the definitions of “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of interest” and “subsidy, or subsidy scheme, of particular interest”. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston to withdraw the amendment.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. I also thank other hon. Members who have contributed, particularly the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, who brought her expertise and experience from the Procedure Committee to the discussion. That was quite helpful as it highlighted a wider issue about better defining how the House can more effectively support the goals of our devolved Administrations and of Westminster in a more coherent way.
This quite measured amendment would
“require the Secretary of State to seek the consent of the devolved Administrations before making regulations under the clause. Where such consent is not given within one month, the Secretary of State”
can go ahead. The amendment deals with making regulations under the clause, and would ensure that the process was working properly.
Kirsty Blackman
Does the shadow Minister agree that because the clause deals specifically with schemes of interest and of particular interest, it is pretty unlikely that a situation will arise whereby an economic failure needs to be addressed in the space of a month, but cannot be addressed because the Government cannot change the definition of “interest” or “particular interest”?
Seema Malhotra
I think the hon. Member is right on this—the definitions would not necessarily change in those circumstances, and some of that is more about the speed of being able to grant a subsidy—but I am not sure I followed the logic of the intervention, although I appreciate that there is a concern there and it is important that we iron out those scenarios. However, I am not sure the intervention is pertinent to the issue being debated now.
I will press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Paul Scully
The clause will enable the Secretary of State to make secondary legislation to define subsidies or subsidy schemes of interest, or of particular interest. We know that some subsidies are more likely than others to pose a risk of distorting international trade or competition within the UK. International trade disputes, including at World Trade Organisation level, may have arisen in particular sectors. As we heard earlier, that is especially common in sectors of long-standing global over-capacity, such as steel. Subsidies to enterprises operating in sectors that have historically faced a higher proportion of disputes may therefore warrant a proportionately higher level of scrutiny before they are given.
The Bill will establish the mechanisms for the referral of those subsidies and schemes to the subsidy advice unit, but it is important that the Government have some flexibility to modify the criteria over time in response to market conditions or the periodic reviews that will be carried out by the SAU to ascertain how the domestic subsidy control regime is working. Both Houses will have the opportunity to debate any regulations in draft to ensure that the criteria for what constitutes “of interest” or “of particular interest” are robust and capture the right subsidies and schemes for additional scrutiny.
Seema Malhotra
I will add nothing further to the comments made during our discussion of the amendments. There are areas that we continue to be concerned about, but we will not oppose the clause standing part.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12
Application of the subsidy control principles
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause is central to the new subsidy control regime. It will impose a duty on public authorities to consider the subsidy control principles before deciding whether to give an individual subsidy or make a subsidy scheme. A public authority cannot go on to give the subsidy or make the scheme unless they are of the view that it is consistent with those principles. That duty does not apply when a subsidy is given under a scheme. That is because the terms of the scheme must be consistent with the principles themselves, and any subsidies must therefore comply with those terms.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. This is an important clause, so we obviously support it standing part of the Bill. I seek his view on a couple of points that came up in relation to earlier clauses regarding how a public authority will confirm that the subsidy is in line with the principles—we talked about that in the debates on clauses 3 and 4 standing part of the Bill—and ensure that the quality of information that is then published reflects the consideration process that the public authority went through.
Earlier, the Minister talked about the expectation that public authorities will keep their own records of how they made assessments that the subsidy being provided would not distort competition, and that there were not ways in which it could have been available in the market on more favourable terms, and so on. It is important from a transparency and public confidence point of view that it be clearer how it would need to be demonstrated, or at least confirmed, by the public authority that it had considered the subsidy control principles and what records might need to be kept should there be a concern at a later date.
Paul Scully
In the first instance, an interested party can request the public authority to provide information demonstrating how it has complied with the duty under clause 76. Under part 5 of the Bill—
Seema Malhotra
I think there will be a further debate to have on the interested parties point. The important thing is what the public authority might be expected to do.
Paul Scully
Absolutely. I was going to say that the interested party can, obviously, make a challenge—commence a judicial review of the decision. The duty to consider and act consistently with the principles does leave room for legitimate judgment by public authorities.
On the question of what standard will be applied when looking at that, should it be judicially reviewed, the Competition Appeal Tribunal will apply the judicial review standard when hearing challenges. None the less, the guidance that is going to be published will provide advice on the practical application of provisions, including the duty to consider and act consistently with the subsidy control principles. That guidance will be published in good time for public authorities and other stakeholders to understand the key requirements of the new regime before it commences.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Application of the energy and environment principles
Kirsty Blackman
I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 13, page 7, line 30, leave out
“in relation to energy and environment”.
This amendment would require public authorities to consider energy and environment principles when giving any subsidies, not just those related to energy and environment.
The reason I tabled the amendment is something that we covered earlier today in relation particularly to net zero and thinking about the obligations that we all have to ensure the protection of the environment. I think it is really important, as the Minister agreed earlier today, that in every policy decision that is being made by every authority, whether it is granting a subsidy or doing anything else, those authorities are considering the environmental principles of that decision.
This proposal would ensure that consideration was given to the energy and environment principles in schedule 2 in relation to every subsidy that was given. That is not too much for us to ask of granting authorities. They are giving subsidies, and we have to remember that the subsidies they are giving represent significant amounts of money. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds; we are not talking about when a local authority gives a grant of 100 quid to a small community council to put up Christmas lights. As we are talking about big sums of money, it is totally reasonable that we expect these public authorities—which do anyway a huge amount of audit, and a huge amount of sense checking of any spend that they do and consideration of any spend that they do— to think about all that spend. They should do so not just in relation to subsidies, but in relation to the energy and environment principles.
I probably would have written schedule 2 slightly differently. I maybe would have had slightly different energy and environment principles, including the Opposition’s suggestions around net zero, but given that those are in the Bill and that schedule 2 is in the Bill, it is totally reasonable for us to say that those authorities should consider the energy and environment in everything they do. That is not explicit or even implicit in schedule 1, in terms of the concerns that authorities have to look at with regard to the principles there. This is hugely important.
Andrew Bowie
Given that we did not accept the hon. Lady’s earlier amendment, does she not worry that this new proposal might weaken the Bill further with regard to what she is talking about—environmental protections?
Kirsty Blackman
I think that, actually, schedule 2 does provide some environmental protections; I am quite comfortable in saying that. It does not do everything I would have wanted it to do. It does not create a requirement to meet the carbon commitments and move towards net zero in the consideration of the principles. However, increasing the level of environmental protection is in there, and it is important that all authorities are thinking about increasing the level of environmental protection in whatever they are doing. Now is the time for the UK Government to make that explicit in relation to everything that everybody is doing, whether it is subsidies or something else. That is why the amendment has been tabled.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the hon. Lady for her explanation of the amendment. We certainly recognise the intention behind it, which was something we looked at and gave thought to. We share the view that climate and environmental considerations should be taken into account in assessing all subsidies, and ensuring that all subsidies are assessed in the context of the UK’s net zero commitments is important. That is a real gap in the Bill—for example, transport subsidies might sit outside the scope of schedule 2, and therefore a public authority might not be required to consider the environmental questions and impact relating to those.
Labour believes that hardwiring the net zero considerations into all subsidy decisions would be better achieved by amending schedule 1, as our amendment would have done. I hope that as we proceed with our debates in the House and the period of COP26, which is just ahead of us, we can return to how we embed that principle in the legislation. These are principles of general relevance, so that is where we see a general requirement to consider net zero sitting a little more comfortably. That is why, while we support the intention behind the amendment, we would prefer to reconsider how we look at embedding the general principle of net zero more widely in the legislation.
Paul Scully
I remind hon. Members that the principles in schedule 2 include general matters such as requiring energy and environmental subsidies to be aimed at, or to incentivise the beneficiary in, delivering a secure, affordable, sustainable energy system, or to increase the level of environmental protection relative to that which would have been achieved in the absence of the subsidy. The schedule also includes a number of more specific principles, covering for example the decarbonisation of emissions linked to industrial activities or subsidies to electricity-intensive users to compensate for rises in electricity costs.
While I recognise the commitment shown by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North to our transition to net zero—subsidies that are correctly devised, designed and targeted can be a powerful means to achieve that—public authorities grant subsidies for many reasons and in connection with many policy objectives.
Kevin Hollinrake
The UK is pretty much a world leader in tackling climate change, second only to Sweden in the Climate Change Performance Index. We must look at this question in the context of what the United Kingdom does, rather than something so specific. Would not the amendment effectively open the door to a lot of judicial challenges on whether subsidies were always in the interest of energy and the environment? Is that not opening the door to a lot of problems in the granting of subsidies?
Paul Scully
It might be. Whether there would be a slew of judicial reviews remains to be seen, but certainly, there is a question whether subsidies for other policy objectives would be awarded in the first place, because it would be too onerous to do so. Let me take the example of subsidies for training young people. There are some valuable economic and societal purposes there, but depending on what we are training the young people for, they do not always necessarily have much connection to the energy and environmental principles.
Expanding the principles in schedule 2 to include all subsidies may discourage public authorities from granting subsidies in pursuit of otherwise valuable aims. We do not want that to happen. The additional principles in schedule 2, which apply to energy and environmental subsidies and to subsidy schemes, fully support the UK’s priorities on both net zero and protecting the environment. I want to ensure, particularly given this morning’s discussion and the fact that we are in the lead up to COP26, that we are championing those priorities and continuing to lean in and show global leadership from the front. In this instance, owing to the reasons I have set out, I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.
Kirsty Blackman
I thank the Minister, the Opposition and the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton for their comments. I agree that this amendment is not the best possible way of achieving our aim, and that other amendments moved this morning—particularly the amendment to schedule 1—would be a better way to go about embedding net zero in our commitments. Unfortunately, the will of the Committee was tested this morning, and schedule 1 went unamended. Hopefully it will be amended on Report, or the Government may choose to change it to include net zero commitments in the principles, but this is where we are in the absence of them doing so.
If we are talking about subsidies to get young people into employment, every local authority, or whoever is granting the subsidy, should ensure that they do so in a way that does not take us away from our net zero targets. That should be part of the decision-making process for every decision we make, whether it is about training young people or building an offshore wind farm. My concern, which was raised by the Opposition this morning, is that that is not embedded in everything the UK Government are doing, and it should be. I tabled this amendment because net zero should run through everything that everybody does, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause establishes that public authorities granting energy and environment subsidies, or establishing schemes to award such subsidies, must assess them against the additional principles in schedule 2.
Seema Malhotra
We support clause 13.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 14
Introductory
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause sets out the purpose in general terms of chapter 2 of part 2 of the Bill, which prohibits several categories of subsidy from being given and establishes requirements on the giving of other categories of subsidy.
Seema Malhotra
We support clause 14.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 15
Unlimited guarantees
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The notes for clause 15 stand part are not in my pack but fortunately, because of technology, which does not require a subsidy, I can tell the Committee that the clause prohibits subsidies in the form of unlimited guarantees of an enterprise’s debts or liabilities if this guarantee is either unlimited in monetary terms or in its duration.
Seema Malhotra
I understand that the clause, as the Minister describes, provides that an unlimited guarantee for the debts or liabilities of an enterprise is prohibited. That does, as I understand it, reflect the commitments in article 12.7 of the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement on subsidies, and article 367 of the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that these commitments are rolled over from the EU and Japan agreements.
Paul Scully
As I said, the clause ensures that we continue to comply with our international obligations, which have included those prohibitions on unlimited guarantees for many years.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16
Export performance
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
We are back to old-fashioned analogue for this part of the Bill Committee. The clause prohibits subsidies that are contingent, whether in law or in fact, on export performance. It permits two types of subsidies to be given for export credit support, including short-term export credit insurance for non-marketable risks, and an export credit, an export credit guarantee or an insurance programme as permitted by the agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures. It also defines key terms and specifies a list of marketable risk countries.
Kirsty Blackman
I have a quick question on subsection (7), which says that a direction given under subsections (4) or (6) must “be laid before Parliament” and
“be published in whatever manner the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
It makes sense that it is laid before Parliament. I am not sure what that means, although I probably should. Does it mean that a written statement on the changes is laid before Parliament? Do the words
“be published in whatever manner the Secretary of State considers appropriate”
mean that it will be published for the public or for granting authorities to see? What method does the Minister think might be considered appropriate? Are we talking about putting it on gov.uk, for example, or about writing to organisations to let them know why the changes have happened?
Paul Scully
The clause basically allows the Secretary of State to give a direction to amend the list in order to respond to any changes in market conditions. That direction must be laid before Parliament and published.
Kirsty Blackman
Specifically on that point, if the Minister does not mind, does “laid before Parliament” mean a written statement or does it mean regulation? I am confused. If he does not have an answer, I would be happy to speak to him later.
Kirsty Blackman
Specifically on the words “must be published”, I would be keen to know how the Government might publish the direction. I am not asking the Minister to tie himself down, but I want clarity that it will be published in such a way that those who are affected by it are likely to see it, rather than it being hidden away somewhere in the back of gov.uk, where they would not trip across it unless by accident.
Paul Scully
I will clarify that, but there is no purpose in hiding it. We want to give certainty to businesses and the public authorities.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. It is quite a long clause. It does not appear to be one that we need to raise real concerns about today, but I would like to raise some points of clarification, because the question is whether there is anything deeper in there that could have other implications.
According to the notes, the clause establishes
“rules around subsidies for goods and services designed to be contingent, whether in law or in fact, on export performance”
which may include, for instance,
“subsidies to cover the price difference between domestic market prices and international market prices. Subsidies of this kind are prohibited unless specific conditions or terms are met, in line with the UK’s international obligations under”
various other pieces of legislation such as the TCA. The clause establishes that
“short-term export credit support, where this support is not in the form of support for marketable risk for buyers in marketable risk countries… is not prohibited.”
In the light of some of the circumstances we are seeing in relation to differences in domestic prices and international market prices, I would be grateful for greater clarity on what the overall clause is there to achieve and whether it will work in the interests of businesses in the UK and support of them.
Paul Scully
The significant distortive effect of export subsidies on our international trade has been recognised for many years, so except for certain types of export credit, export performance subsidies for goods are prohibited under the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures. This Bill obviously complies with that agreement.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17
Use of domestic goods or services
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 17 prohibits subsidies that are contingent on the recipient using domestic goods or services over imported goods or services. Such subsidies are generally known as local content subsidies, and since they benefit domestic businesses, they are generally regarded as being distortive to trade and therefore often result in inefficient outcomes for consumers. Again, local content subsidies for goods are prohibited under the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures.
Subsidies to the audio-visual sector are exempt from that prohibition: it may sometimes be appropriate to give subsidies to that sector that require local content, in light of its contribution to our nation’s cultural objectives. That approach is in line with our international obligations and reflects the approach taken by many of our trading partners, including Canada and New Zealand.
Subsection (3) clarifies that certain types of subsidies should not be considered local content subsidies—for example, when the Government incentivise an enterprise that is not currently based here to locate production in the UK, or to train or employ workers in the UK.
The clause facilitates our international obligations under the terms of the trade and co-operation agreement with the European Union and as a member of the World Trade Organisation, and I commend it to the Committee.
Kirsty Blackman
This is one of the issues that has frustrated me most about the entire Brexit thing: a whole bunch of left-wing Brexiteers thought that these subsidies would be allowed in the event of our leaving the EU and coming out of its state aid system. They thought that we would be able to incentivise local content, and a lot of people in left-wing areas supported Brexit for that reason, but it is expressly prohibited by the WTO and the trade and co-operation agreement. I am just rising to vent my frustrations briefly; I am not going to vote against the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Relocation of activities
Seema Malhotra
I beg to move amendment 13, in clause 18, page 10, line 13, at end insert—
“(3A) This section shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report complying with subsection (3B).
(3B) The report must explain how the prohibition established in this section is consistent with—
(a) reducing deprivation across the United Kingdom; and
(b) the Government’s policy on the establishment of freeports in the United Kingdom”.
This amendment would mean that the prohibition in clause 18 does not come into force until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report explaining how that prohibition is consistent with reducing deprivation across the UK and the Government’s freeports policy.
I am grateful for the opportunity to move this amendment, which would mean that the prohibition in clause 18 would not come into force
“until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report explaining how that prohibition is consistent with reducing deprivation across the UK and the Government’s freeports policy.”
Clause 18 provides that a subsidy is prohibited if it is conditional on relocation from one part of the UK to another, and that the relocation would not occur but for the giving of the subsidy. Subsection (2) clarifies the meaning of an enterprise relocating existing activities: such a relocation occurs where the business carries on activities in one area of the UK before the subsidy is given, and it ceases to carry on those activities in that area after the subsidy has been given and instead carries them on in another area of the United Kingdom. Clause 18 is intended to protect the UK’s internal market and prevent subsidy races between parts of the UK.
The Government’s March 2021 consultation document anticipated clause 18, and suggested that measures could be introduced to prevent the uneconomic relocation of economic activity between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The important word there is “uneconomic”, which is notably missing from what appears to be a slightly blunter instrument in clause 18 as currently drafted. The Government’s consultation cautioned:
“Any additional measures here would need to recognise the value of subsidies which seek to address regional inequalities.”
However, clause 18 does not seem to do that. There is no acknowledgement of the value of subsidies that seek to address regional inequalities. Alexander Rose of DWF Group said on Tuesday that relocations can be highly beneficial to the economy.
Kevin Hollinrake
Is it not quite obvious? We are trying to target new investment to go into those regions, rather than existing investment being transferred from one part of the country to another. Is that not what the clause is trying to say?
Seema Malhotra
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and that is indeed what it is probably trying to do, but the problem is not only that it potentially undermines levelling up; it could also undermine and challenge the Government’s freeport policy. In the Queen’s Speech and the 2021 Budget, the UK Government announced eight new freeports in England, which are intended to promote regional regeneration and job creation and to become hotbeds of innovation. However, it is notable that no mention of freeports was made in the Government’s consultation on subsidy control policy, which closed on 31 March.
Under the Government’s freeport policy, significant subsidies, particularly tax reliefs, move to a particular site. In fact, they are conditional on a relocation. Are these tax reliefs—enhanced capital allowance, enhanced structures in building allowance, business rate relief and relief from national insurance contributions—which are conditional on relocating to a freeport, prohibited or not by clause 18? We heard significant reservations about clause 18 from our expert witnesses on Tuesday. As Jonathan Branton from DWF Group put it:
“Having a prohibition in the Bill, even a badly worded one, is potentially too blunt a tool, which might backfire.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 56, Q77.]
Amendment 13 would mean that the prohibition in clause 18 would not come into force until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report that explains how the provision is consistent with both reducing deprivation across the UK and the Government’s freeport policy. This modest amendment is designed to ensure that the Government have properly considered the impact of the clause 18 prohibition on tackling regional inequality and on the freeport policy. However, we are not convinced at the moment that sufficient thought has been given to that impact.
Beyond our concerns about whether the Government have considered the impact of this provision on their claimed commitment to levelling up across the UK, there are also questions about how public authorities should interpret the clause 18 prohibition. Specifically, the prohibition applies where a subsidy is conditional on moving all or part of the economic activity from one area of the UK to another, but I cannot see where we have had a definition of “area”. Will the Minister explain whether “area” refers to a nation of the United Kingdom, a region, a local authority, a town, a village or any or all of the above? What about a council subsidising a business to move from one part of a local authority to another? There might be perfectly sensible and sound economic and regeneration reasons to do that—for example, to make way for an infrastructure project—but presumably this would be caught by clause 18. Therefore, it is arguably prohibited. Will the Minister clarify the interpretation of the current wording of clause 18?
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend is setting out very clearly the rationale for our amendment. I would add, in response to the comments from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, that this is about incentivising and ensuring that the measure is used in a positive way.
Our concern is that the wording of the clause is a very blunt instrument. It could be interpreted by a business that was looking to invest in either Middlesbrough or Mayfair that already has a base in Mayfair as a disincentive against favouring an investment in Middlesbrough. That would surely fundamentally undermine the Government’s own levelling-up agenda. The amendment would reassure businesses that they can be incentivised to invest in Grimsby rather than Guildford, without it being a binary choice between one or the other—it is much more nuanced.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to put the amendment in those terms—it seeks to bring clarity. The Minister will probably appreciate that these are complicated questions for enterprises that may be in receipt of subsidies for positive reasons that meet the objectives of the regime and public policy goals. Clarity for public authorities in granting those subsidies is also important, ensuring that they are not subject to challenge when they genuinely want to achieve positive outcomes, but would be caught under the fairly blunt definition in clause 18. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Kirsty Blackman
The concerns I raised on principle F of schedule 1 are very similar to the ones being raised here. The Government have an intention here, but the clause will not achieve that intention; it is also too restrictive.
I love this amendment; it feels hugely cheeky. I know it is very serious, but I love the way it is drafted—how sad is that?—and I quite like the way both issues are put together in the same amendment. It makes sense that this measure is included alongside the amendments moved earlier by the Opposition on areas of deprivation. There is also the freeport element. The clause basically rules out freeports and the way the Government have explained they are intended to work, which is massively concerning if that is the Government’s plan.
If, for example, a Government Department was to relocate from Whitehall to Salford—I cannot think which Department might be doing that—and if there is going to be some sort of incentive for them to do that, that relocation would be prohibited. Surely that is something that the Government want; if they did not want it, they would not be doing it. They want Government Departments to be able to relocate to places outside Whitehall and to bring jobs to those areas. I am glad they are doing that, but it now would not be able to provide any subsidies for that to happen. That does not make sense.
If the Government’s stated aim and objective is to try to level up places to ensure more jobs, there is going to have to be some level of relocation. That is going to have to happen. We are going to end up in a situation where the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not have 400 staff here and has 400 staff in Salford instead. Surely that is a good thing, rather than a bad one. It would be helpful if the Government could clarify what is meant here.
I agree with the amendment. I agree with the report. We covered areas of deprivation this morning. The freeport thing, however, is unsolvable unless the Government provide us with more information, whether by the Minister explaining, changes being tabled for future iterations of the Bill—perhaps on Report—or the report asked for by the Opposition being provided.
Paul Scully
I shall cover a few of the points raised. To take the example of a local authority wanting to incentivise a business to move back to its high street or something like that, the Bill would not prevent local authorities from offering subsidies to support regeneration.
As for what constitutes an “area” in the relocation prohibition, it is not a defined term in the Bill. Public authorities will therefore have to apply common sense in their interpretation. The objective is to prevent the relocation of all, or part of, existing economic activity between different areas of the UK, but there will be circumstances in which relocation within an area may occur. For example, where a business has an existing presence in a region and moves within that region, it is unlikely to engage the prohibition. Again, that will come in guidance.
Seema Malhotra
The Minister might say that that will come in guidance, but the scenario that he just outlined does not seem to be consistent with the wording of the clause. Even if the local authority was to agree a move from one end of its area into a high street, and even if all the existing economic activity was relocated, that would not have occurred but for the giving of the subsidy. Activity would be carried on in an area of the United Kingdom different from where it was before. Will the Minister reflect on that? It might be helpful to read that again, even against the scenario he just outlined.
Paul Scully
The regenerative example that I gave would fit, but it will be fleshed out in guidance. Let me come to freeports quickly, because that issue complies with the principles and prohibitions set out in the Bill, including in the clause.
When designating freeports, bidders are required to explain how their choice of tax site locations minimises displacement of economic activity from wider local areas, especially other economically disadvantaged areas. The focus of freeports, however, is to encourage new investment and to create new businesses and jobs, rather than harmful displacement, so tax sites will be designated only once the mitigation of displacement and other factors have been demonstrated by the successful bidder in its tax site. We are confident that the risk of harmful displacement has been minimised.
In summary, the subsidies will not be conditional on the relocation of existing economic activities.
Kirsty Blackman
The Minister has made a good case on subsidies for the purpose of regeneration, but that is not stated in the clause. At no point is it stated that the regenerative ideals or decisions to produce regeneration in an area trump the clause.
Paul Scully
I said that the clause does not prevent local authorities from offering subsidies to support regeneration. None the less, we will supply more support through guidance, because we want to give public authorities the confidence to apply subsidies in that scenario and similar ones.
The purpose of the clause overall is to prohibit wasteful subsidies that serve only to poach economic activity from one area to another. I must say, the ears of the good people of Guildford must be burning after their third mention in a couple of days—
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
What about the good people of Mayfair?
Paul Scully
As Minister for London, I do not think that this is aimed at the good people of Mayfair.
We do not want to prevent levelling-up subsidies that attract investment to disadvantaged areas. The clause achieves that by prohibiting subsidies that explicitly require enterprises to relocate existing economic activities from one area of the UK to another, where that relocation would not have occurred without the subsidy. We have said that. The amendment, however, risks delaying the commencement of the clause, which might allow subsidies to be granted that could poach economic activity from disadvantaged areas.
Stephen Kinnock
I have a brief question. Why would the Government not want to make it a condition? Either the Bill is an empty vessel that will just regulate certain activities or it has a public policy objective. Schedule 1 clearly states that public authorities must explain and assess the policy objective behind the subsidy.
If the policy objective of the Bill is levelling up, why would the Government sometimes not want to actually give public authorities the opportunity and ability to make it a condition of a subsidy for an entity to relocate to another part of the country that will benefit from the investment? I can understand that sometimes it should not happen and sometimes it should, but amendment 18 offers a more nuanced position where it can be explicitly said, “For reasons of levelling up, we are driven by this policy objective and we want the opportunity to incentivise accordingly.”
Paul Scully
Basically because this is a framework Bill. The policy objective of the Bill specifically is not levelling up. It enables levelling up through the framework, but it is the spending and subsidy themselves that are the policy objectives we are talking about. That is why schedule 1 refers to having to explain those policy objectives. Ultimately, this is a framework Bill that allows a permissive approach to subsidy, rather than the opposite—the state aid regime that we had when we were a member of the EU. The Government are fully committed to making sure that the UK subsidy control regime does support disadvantaged areas and facilitates the levelling-up agenda.
As part of the broader consideration that public authorities are required to undertake when assessing a subsidy, the subsidy has to be compliant with the principles within the Bill, and the wider impacts of the subsidy on competition and investments in other parts of the UK must be taken into account. We will publish guidance to make clear how this requirement should be applied by public authorities when considering subsidies that advance the levelling-up agenda or promote the economic development of relatively disadvantaged areas.
I welcome the interest in freeports, which are one of the Government’s flagship programmes to support levelling up and economic recovery. They are there to encourage new investment and create new businesses. The freeports offer follows the subsidy control principles set out in the Bill. They are an example of the UK Government levelling up economic growth across the UK—a strategic interest, which the domestic regime has been designed to reflect.
Kevin Hollinrake
On the Minister’s earlier point about technology needing subsidy, actually touchscreens, GPS and the internet were all developed initially through public funding, both in the US and the UK. Is the clause not trying to prevent companies from gaming the system by trying to pit one local authority or area of the country against another through a bidding race to bring their jobs to a certain part of the country?
Paul Scully
That is exactly right. Look at subsidy control regimes around the world. Witnesses in the evidence sessions focused on America and the subsidy race between various states, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid through this sensible and proportionate measure. Accordingly, we believe that requiring the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on clause 18’s consistency with the Government’s strategic priorities to do with supporting deprived areas and freeports is not necessary. The new UK domestic regime is designed to ensure that disadvantaged areas have maximum freedom and reassurance to receive levelling-up subsidies that best suit the characteristics of the area. I request that the amendment be withdrawn.
Bill Esterson
It is great to see you back in the Chair, Ms Nokes.
Clause 18 is crystal clear about preventing the use of subsidies to enable businesses to move from one location within the UK to another. The example of the high street is crystal clear, as is the example of the freeports. I will come back to the point about promoting new investment in freeports shortly.
The Minister talked about issuing guidance to go with the provision. That is the way the legislation has been crafted, which I think we can all understand. However, guidance will always be open to interpretation, and what takes priority? Is it the primary legislation—the very clear statement set out in clause 18 that a subsidy is prohibited if
“the relocation of those activities would not occur but for the giving of the subsidy”?
How is that overcome by the guidance? That is the point that all Opposition Members who have spoken have tried to get to, whether with the example of the regeneration of high streets or that of freeports.
The Minister talked about the justification for freeports and the support that the Government have given. My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston made the point that freeports were not part of the consultation for the legislation, and they are ruled out by the clause. It could not be much clearer.
On the point about freeports being just about new investment, the evidence base—the report published by the UK Trade Policy Observatory, and the commentary by Adam Marshall when he was director general of the British Chambers of Commerce—shows all too clearly that they are exactly about relocation and displacement, and all the things that the Minister said that they should not be about. His point that they do not deliver displacement from one deprived area to another is undermined by the evidence base provided by the UKTPO and the British Chambers of Commerce.
I am afraid that we have not had an adequate answer from the Minister on how all those circles will be squared, and how the primary legislation of clause 18, which he wants to go through unamended, will not override attempts to use subsidies to support local areas in the examples that we have given him and that he says we should not worry about. I am afraid it comes back to a point that we have made a number of times, and will continue to make, I suspect, through the Committee’s deliberations: specific statements need to be added to the Bill to provide reassurance and to make the framework a much more workable system of subsidy.
Without that, things will be left wide open. As much as the Minister defends the Government’s freeport policy, notwithstanding the analysis that I have given from those experts, and claims that local authorities will be able to sort their high streets, and despite his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon about supporting more deprived areas otherwise, I am afraid that without additional content going in at this stage, or on Report, or in the House of Lords, we will be left in a position where the framework will leave awarding bodies open to judicial review because of the uncertainty and the contradiction that will almost inevitably be left in place between the primary legislation of clause 18 and whatever he puts in guidance.
Seema Malhotra
I listened to the Minister’s response and the contributions to the debate. I remain concerned that the clause is worryingly worded in terms of what could be permissible under it and what might not be. In the light of that, it is important that we press what is a very measured amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, clause 18 prohibits subsidies that explicitly require enterprises to relocate economic activities from one area of the UK to another, where this relocation would not have occurred without the subsidy. I should say that the purpose of the provision is only to prevent subsidies that are explicitly contingent on a relocation—in other words, that the business ceases its economic activities in the previous area. We believe that the approach strikes the right balance: it prohibits some of the most potentially harmful subsidies without preventing levelling-up subsidies that attract investment to disadvantaged areas.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his comments. He has our concerns on the record. We will not oppose the clause, but I think this is an important area. Perhaps I will write to the Minister about this, which I hope will help to make sure the provision is as positive as it can be for the purposes of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19
Rescuing
Bill Esterson
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 19, page 10, line 29, after “exceptional circumstances” insert
“including the protection of critical national infrastructure and industries of strategic national importance,”.
This amendment clarifies that protecting critical national infrastructure and industries of strategic national importance may constitute exceptional circumstances.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 15, in clause 20, page 11, line 15, after “exceptional circumstances” insert
“including the protection of national security and industries of strategic national importance”.
This amendment clarifies that protecting critical national infrastructure and industries of strategic national importance may constitute exceptional circumstances.
Bill Esterson
We broadly support the measures in clause 19 on rescue subsidies, and we want to strengthen the measures by adding, with amendments 14 and 15, the important areas of critical national infrastructure and security.
Clause 19 prohibits subsidies from being given to ailing and insolvent enterprises unless the subsidy would prevent social hardship or severe market failure. In these cases, the subsidy should act only as “temporary liquidity support” to provide the enterprise with time to prepare a restructuring plan. That is exactly the right way to phrase the clause thus far, because we recognise that public money should not be used to prop up failing businesses. We are pleased that the Government are in the right place here.
However, we recognise that the Government have a poor track record on protecting and supporting industries of national importance. I am afraid that the case of the steel industry a few months ago is a prime example. Until 5 pm on the day before the trade remedies were due to expire, the Government had not intervened to overturn the recommendations of the then trade remedies investigation directorate, which right at the end came into operation as the Trade Remedies Authority. Its recommendations were to drop steel safeguards, and it took significant lobbying from the steel sector, individual businesses, trade unions, the Trades Union Congress and Labour Front Benchers to push the Government to realise what a catastrophic mistake it would have been had those safeguards been dropped at that time.
The steel industry outlined how the industry was then lurching from crisis to crisis, and to a degree it still is. Over a number of years, the laissez-faire approach to the production of steel has been at the heart of that. Steel is a crucial national industry: it is critical to our national security and it is critical, or it should be, to our infrastructure production. We should be supporting that industry. That is what our amendments are about, and steel is a very important example. There are other examples of the Conservatives’ reluctance to show an interest in nationally significant businesses, such as the takeover of Morrisons by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice just recently—another business of great importance to national infrastructure.
Andrew Bowie
Will the hon. Gentleman expand on how Morrisons would fit into the definition of “national critical infrastructure”, as set out in amendment 14?
Bill Esterson
Morrisons, as one of the big four supermarkets, is crucial to our national economy. The problem is that the Government do not show enough interest in businesses of such strategic importance.
Andrew Bowie
I thank the hon. Member; he is too kind. The decision to allow Morrisons to be taken over, in the way that it was, was made because it was deemed that that would be good value for shareholders, but also good for the company in general—it would be able to reinvest in its infrastructure here, in the United Kingdom. The decision was actually supporting one of the big four supermarkets to provide jobs and employment for this country. To try to define it in this way and say that the Government should step in when businesses like that are under threat of takeover—even when those takeovers could be to the advantage of that company and to the British people—would be, I think, a retrograde step.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for intervening. I think he is rather missing the point, which I tried to explain the first time around. I am making the point that the Government showed no interest in what was going on with Morrisons, nor the merits of what was happening.
Coming back to steel, the Government have belatedly woken up. Before I was intervened on, I was actually going to say that perhaps there are signs of improvement on this front. The Government have shown some interest in improving things, because there are amendments in the Budget that would give the Secretary of State for International Trade powers to overrule the recommendations of the Trade Remedies Authority. I am therefore mildly hopeful that we are seeing an improvement in policy and approach from the Government on that measure alone.
Stephen Kinnock
My hon. Friend is making some very important points. We have clearly sparked a debate about what constitutes critical national infrastructure and what constitutes businesses that are vital to our national security and our national interest. We can certainly have a debate about businesses operating at the consumer end of the spectrum, but there are other examples. The steel industry is an obvious one, but look at the issues around AstraZeneca and the attempted hostile takeover by Pfizer; look at Arm, or at the way in which private equity is taking over our defence industry. Our country has become the capital of the world for hostile foreign takeovers. We have more than any country in the OECD, and we face a world in which aggressive Chinese-backed investment vehicles and businesses are looking to take over businesses that are potentially coming out of the pandemic distressed and vulnerable.
Stephen Kinnock
National security is at the heart of our magnificent amendment. Let us not carry on being up for sale to everybody.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding some extremely important examples to my point.
Bill Esterson
Not yet; let me answer my hon. Friend first before I take what I am sure will be an incredibly important and insightful intervention, as always—it does not mean he is right. It is extremely important that we take nationally significant businesses seriously, that we have a regime that enables us to support them when appropriate, and that we take on board what is in the national interest. That is the purpose of our amendment. I will take the intervention from the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, even though he is not wearing a mask today—he did partly on Tuesday.
Kevin Hollinrake
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about national infrastructure and inward investment, but would he and the hon. Member for Aberavon not concede that Tata’s investment in the UK steel industry is important? Investments in Jaguar Land Rover, which was a failing business before it was taken over, were important for the UK and they protected and effectively created lots of jobs. If the hon. Member for Sefton Central thinks that foreign direct investment in the UK is bad—I know Morrisons is an important company in Yorkshire—is it also bad that our UK-based private equity businesses invest in other countries?
Bill Esterson
No, not at all. I have no idea at all why the hon. Member thinks that is where my or my hon. Friend’s arguments were going. We are very much in favour of foreign direct investment to this country and investing overseas as well. Indeed, the success of foreign direct investment in the north-east of England under the Thatcher Government has been put at risk by the attitude of this Government towards the Japanese and the rather strained relations, which hopefully are beginning to repair since the UK-Japan deal. However, let us not underestimate the reputational damage that was done by the way some of that was handled.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Conservative Members appreciate what you are trying to say, but the fact that there is a lot of confusion and concern about how you are saying it shows me that the amendment should not stand. Rather than just saying “exceptional”, which covers what we need it to do, we have this definition. Even under “critical national infrastructure”, 13 industries are officially defined by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, none of which is steel. We can argue for steel, but it is not actually listed in the official categories. It just creates confusion. That is why I do not think the amendment works.
The Chair
I remind Members that interventions need to be short, and can we lose the yous, please?
Bill Esterson
Thank you, Ms Nokes. That intervention rather makes the point that I was making in the previous debate about the need for definition in the Bill around what we mean by various terms and the need to avoid leaving things open to chance in guidance and interpretation. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but this is why we need a bit more clarity in primary legislation.
Continuing with the steel industry, not least because we took evidence from UK Steel, if some support is not given in the short term to the UK steel sector to support its decarbonisation and reduce the massive energy costs associated with the industry, we could soon see steel, which is a vital strategic industry for the UK, facing imminent threat. I do not think anybody disagrees on the strategic importance of the steel industry at a national level.
In the evidence sessions, Richard Warren spoke about the costs of renewables and carbon taxes in relation to electricity prices:
“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.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 50, Q72.]
He made the point that it was in the national interest to support the industry. He said:
“Net zero or low-carbon forms of steel production will add anything from 30% to 50% to the costs of steel production”.
On the cost of steel production, he said:
“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.”––[Official Report, Subsidy Control Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 57, Q77.]
That is why we think there is a very strong case for putting this provision into primary legislation.
More widely on the issue of net zero, this point is backed up by the written evidence from the Institute for Government, which says that it is
“sensible to require some additional process to ensure that the subsidy is designed well.”
That was in relation to major infrastructure that could contribute towards net zero. That is what our amendments are trying to achieve, and it is why we think they are so important.
Anything that is in the national interest or the interests of national security demands an additional level of support and attention, including attention to the way it is worded. Again, I am afraid we come back to the point that not having this set out in primary legislation creates weaknesses, and leaves the prospect of challenge and of the regime not operating as well as it should.
Paul Scully
As we have heard, amendment 14 relates to clause 19. The Bill provides that in order to give either a rescuing or a restructuring subsidy, the public authority giving that subsidy must be satisfied either that it contributes to the objective of the public interest by
“avoiding social hardship or preventing a severe market failure”,
or that there are
“exceptional circumstances that justify the subsidy”
despite that test not being met. The amendments would specify that those exceptional circumstances would include the protection of critical national infrastructure, industries of strategic national importance and, in the case of amendment 15, national security.
I fully agree that public authorities should be allowed to grant necessary and appropriate rescue and restructuring subsidies in order to protect critical national infrastructure, national security, and industries of strategic national importance. I am therefore pleased to be able to provide reassurance to the hon. Member that, as it stands, the Bill does so. The reasons are twofold: first, clause 45 contains a general exemption from all subsidy control requirements for the giving of a subsidy with the purpose of national security. Secondly, the conditions set out in clauses 19 and 20 will allow for rescue and restructure subsidies in order to protect critical national infrastructure and industries of strategic national importance. In my view, many hypothetical rescue and restructure subsidies for those purposes could in principle meet the first test in clause 19(4)(a) and clause 20(5)(a) of being in the public interest by
“avoiding social hardship or preventing a severe market failure”.
Where that condition is not met on the facts, but there are other exceptional circumstances in play, clauses 19(4)(b) and 20(5)(b) already provide for exactly that situation, so it is not necessary to attempt an exhaustive list of potential exceptional circumstances that could be relevant to the clause. That would risk unduly influencing public authority behaviour. On the one hand, it risks encouraging inappropriate rescue and restructure subsidies in circumstances that are not genuinely exceptional on the facts, and where they could have excessive harmful effects on domestic competition. On the other hand, it could discourage the use of rescue and restructure subsidies in circumstances that are genuinely exceptional and merit such interventions, but are not specifically listed in the Bill.
The purpose of clauses 19 and 20 is to prevent aimless bail-outs of failing enterprises, while allowing public authorities to provide temporary rescue support for enterprises that it is in the public interest to rescue and restructure. Those subsidies should not be undertaken lightly, in order to maintain a competitive free-market economy and facilitate compliance with our international obligations, including those in the TCA with the EU. As such, I ask the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful to the Minister for drawing the Committee’s attention to where the points covered by our amendments exist elsewhere in the Bill. I have reservations about the strength of those clauses, which I explained in my speech and will not revisit, but there is reference to the protection of national security in the Bill. Whether it is adequate, time will tell. I know that the Minister or a member of his team will bring these measures forward in secondary legislation. We think they are better in primary legislation and that there should be more detail at this stage, but we accept the assurances the Minister has given, and we will not push the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Paul Scully
The clause prohibits rescue subsidies to ailing or insolvent enterprises unless the three specific conditions are met: there must be a credible restructuring plan, the subsidy must be limited to temporary liquidity support, and it must be in the public interest, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Restructuring
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause prohibits restructuring subsidies to ailing or insolvent enterprises unless four specific conditions are met. This clause does not apply to deposit takers or insurance companies. Again, the enterprise must have prepared a restructuring plan and, unless there are exceptional circumstances, a restructuring subsidy must only be offered if it is in the public interest. Restructuring subsidies can only be given to enterprises that are small or medium-sized, and they must also be contingent on an enterprise’s not having received a restructuring subsidy before, or five years having passed since it did, although there are exceptions to that.
Bill Esterson
The Opposition do not oppose this clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 21
Restructuring deposit takers or insurance companies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause sets out specific conditions for subsidies for the purpose of restructuring ailing or insolvent deposit takers or insurance companies.
Bill Esterson
The fact that subsidies should not be given to ailing or insolvent banks, insurance companies or other deposit takers unless certain conditions are met, such as that the subsidy is given on the basis of a restructuring plan that is likely to restore long-term viability, is an eminently sensible measure that we are content to see in the Bill. We also recognise that such companies should receive subsidies only when they have contributed to their restructuring costs from their own resources. We are pleased to see the clause included in the Bill. There are some concerns relating to this clause that I will come to in clause 24, but I think they are better dealt with there.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 22
Liquidating deposit takers or insurance companies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause prohibits subsidies for insolvent deposit takers or insurance companies that are unable to demonstrate credibly that they can be restored to long-term viability, unless they are able to satisfy specific conditions.
Bill Esterson
We are happy to support clause 22.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 22 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 23
Liquidity provision for deposit takers or insurance companies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause sets out specific conditions for subsidies that are for the purpose of supporting liquidity provisions to ailing or insolvent deposit takers or insurance companies.
Bill Esterson
We support clause 23.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 23 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 24
Meaning of “ailing or insolvent”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause defines “ailing or insolvent” in relation to the giving of rescue and recovery subsidies to deposit takers, insurance companies and enterprises. The definition of ailing or insolvent in this Bill incorporates both domestic and international terminology. It combines the existing concept of insolvency in UK law with the wider concept of ailing or insolvent agreed in the TCA. The definition is compliant with our international commitments and has a strong basis in British law. Subsections (1)(b) and (c) use the existing insolvency test in the Insolvency Act 1986. Subsection 1(a) uses the TCA definition of “ailing or insolvent”. An enterprise being unable to pay its debts or the value of its assets being less than its liabilities are British tests for declaring an enterprise “insolvent”. Subsection 1(a) builds on this by extending the tests to include enterprises that are “ailing or insolvent”—those which would go out of business in the short to medium term without subsidies.
Subsection (2) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations on what is meant by
“would almost certainly go out of business in the short to medium term without subsidies”.
While the definition of “insolvency” reflects existing domestic law, “ailing” has no such domestic definition. A narrow power such as this allows the Secretary of State to make further provision on the meaning of ailing, should that be necessary.
Bill Esterson
We recognise the importance of clauses 21 to 27. We have some questions about the definitions of “ailing” and “insolvent”. The definitions of those terms in the Bill are arguably more demanding than those under EU state aid rules, which require an enterprise to be almost certain to go out of business in the short or medium term, and to be unable to pay its debts as they fall due; also, the value of its assets must be less than the amount of its liabilities. Why have the Government chosen broader definitions for ailing and insolvent enterprises than those in the regime that is being replaced?
Alexander Rose from DWF raised concerns that these broader definitions risk harming tech and research-and-development heavy start-ups because they require significant expenditure before they start making profits. As I am sure many Members will know, that can be months, if not years. Can the Minister explain what consideration has been given to these broader definitions where they relate to start-ups that are capital-intensive for significant periods before profits are made? What are the Government going to do with the regime to ensure that start-ups are not harmed by the legislation? I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is sensible to support our innovators and to allow them to take the time to become profitable. It will be interesting to see how he intends to do it. We need to be competitive internationally, which is crucial for an export-led recovery.
The same point applies to scale-ups, a point Rolls-Royce made in its written evidence. It has that concern about start-ups, and quoted some case law from the Supreme Court saying that courts should be careful not to leap to conclusions when asked to apply the test about insolvency, and that allowance should be made for debts when the maturity date is some time in the distance. Is the difference between liabilities that are due in the short term and long-term liabilities and debts picked up in the primary legislation? How is the Minister planning to ensure that a distinction is made between short-term and long-term liabilities?
Interestingly, Rolls-Royce made the point about national security, going back to our earlier debate. In addition to mentioning what we raised before, it asked about dual use. What is the Government’s plan on subsidies where dual use includes national security investment and non-national security investment, which is common in areas such as aerospace?
Paul Scully
The Bill is clear that an ailing or insolvent enterprise is one that would almost go out of business in the short to medium term without subsidies. Importantly, this definition applies only to the giving of rescue and recovery subsidies. I hope my opening remarks help the hon. Gentleman’s understanding of where we go in some of the definitions. Just to repeat: subsection (2) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations on what is meant by
“would almost certainly go out of business in the short to medium term without subsidies”.
While the definition of insolvency reflects existing domestic law, “ailing” has no such domestic definition. Therefore, there is allowance for the Secretary of State to make further provision on the meaning of “ailing”, should that be necessary. We went down that route because the EU’s “undertaking in difficulty” test is disliked by stakeholders, is highly prescriptive and in some cases prevented the giving of subsidies to viable businesses with a longer route to market and profitability. These were businesses such as medical technology firms and start-ups. The definition that we are using has a much more restricted application, but where it does apply it provides greater flexibility while also preventing the use of subsidies to bail out unsustainable companies.
The hon. Gentleman talked about national security exemptions as well. We are going to get on to—
Bill Esterson
Before the Minister moves on, I want to tie down the difference between short-term and long-term liabilities. From my dim and distant accountancy past, there seems to me to be quite a good definition for this from insolvency legislation—from memory. We may have other accountants with us who can confirm or deny that. Does the hon. Gentleman know that that is the kind of distinction that the Secretary of State is likely to make in regulation?
Paul Scully
Largely, we want to use insolvency legislation where it stands, so that will be the starting point of any discussion. Hopefully that has answered that point.
To respond to the security issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, the provisions in clause 45, we will get to, safeguard the UK genuine national security in a way that is fully compliant with our international obligations, including the TCA. It is obviously customary for countries, in international agreements such as free trade agreements, to reserve their right to protect their valid security interests. However, we are going to exercise that properly, and only when there is a genuine national security interest at stake that requires such protection; it cannot be used to seek an economic advantage alone.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 24 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 25
Meaning of “deposit taker”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
This clause defines the meaning of “deposit taker” for the purposes of clauses 19 to 24 of this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 25 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 26
Meaning of “insurance company”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
This clause defines the meaning of “insurance company” for the purposes of clauses 19 to 24 of this Bill. The clause also makes it clear that the meaning of “insurance company” may be amended in future by the Treasury by the affirmative procedure, provided that both the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority are consulted in advance.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 26 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 27
Subsidies for insurers that provide export credit insurance
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
This clause permits subsidies to be given to insurers that provide export credit insurance where two conditions are met. Subsidies that do not meet these conditions are prohibited. These are that an insurer providing export credit insurance for marketable risk countries must provide the insurance on a commercial basis, and that the subsidy is not used to directly or indirectly benefit any of the recipient’s marketable risk insurance business.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of Bill.
Clause 28
Subsidies for air carriers for the operation of routes
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause establishes conditions on subsidies granted to air carriers for the operation of routes. Subsidies not meeting one of those conditions are prohibited by the clause.
Bill Esterson
We recognise that subsidies to an air carrier for the operation of a route should be prohibited unless certain conditions are met, and those conditions are listed. I cannot help noting the irony of the reduction in taxes on travel for short-haul flights, and the fact that one can get a ticket from London to Glasgow for COP26 for £45 on the railway and it is about £145 to fly. That is possibly going slightly beyond the scope, other than to say that again this is not consistent with what the Minister said earlier about the intention of travel, so to speak, on moving towards net zero.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend may be aware that it is part of the application, if someone is going to COP26, to show how they are—
The Chair
Order. May I remind Members of the need to stay on the subject of the Subsidy Control Bill.
Seema Malhotra
The requirements of applying for a pass for COP26—[Laughter.]
Bill Esterson
I think I understood my hon. Friend’s excellent intervention. She was correcting me: actually, one can get a ticket for £25 from London to Glasgow, not £45.
Seema Malhotra
The Government requires that delegates state their method of travel.
Bill Esterson
Yes, there is the irony that the Government are requiring delegates to COP26 to show their method of travel to the conference. I hope that we will see subsidies supporting rail travel. In my constituency, I have been long campaigning for a rail link from the port of Liverpool rather than a new road, and in the run-up to COP26 that would make sense, rather than concentrating on air travel. There is a serious point that we need to use the subsidies to support rail and low-carbon transport, and reduce the reliance on, and support that the Budget gave for, air travel.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 28 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
Services of public economic interest
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause sets out the requirements for giving subsidies for services of public economic interest.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his remarks on clause 29. Similarly to EU provisions on support to services of general economic interest, the clause relates to enterprises that are assigned with a particular task in the public interest. We recognise why the clause is needed, to outline the regulations for subsidies given to SPEIs. Labour recognises that SPEIs differ from enterprises that may normally receive subsidies, and accepts that different regulations should therefore apply to subsidies given to SPEIs. We support the regulations under clause 29. It may be important to note that we do not support the exceptions given to SPEIs under clauses 38 and 41, but that will be discussed at a later date.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 30
Effect of prohibitions etc in relation to subsidy schemes
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
The clause sets out how the prohibitions and other requirements in this chapter apply in relation to subsidy schemes. It ensures that public authorities cannot evade those prohibitions and requirements when establishing a subsidy scheme.
Seema Malhotra
We support clause 30 standing part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 30 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Subsidies or schemes subject to mandatory referral
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Paul Scully
Clause 31 prohibits a subsidy or scheme that a public authority has failed to properly refer to the subsidy advice unit, or which has been given or made before the referral process has been allowed to conclude.
Seema Malhotra
Clause 31 outlines the regulations for mandatory referral of subsidies to the CMA. We support the regulations in the clause, which will be an important part of the operation of the regime, but we will seek to amend clause 54, which will be discussed at a later date.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 31 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Michael Tomlinson.)
Health and Care Bill (Twentieth sitting)
Thursday 28th October 2021
(3 years, 1 month 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 28 October 2021 - (28 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
All the rules and regulations you have all heard four times this week still apply, so we will crack on.
New Clause 29
Health warnings on cigarettes and cigarette papers
“The Secretary of State may by regulations require tobacco manufacturers to print health warnings on individual cigarettes and cigarette rolling papers.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to require manufacturers to print health warnings on individual cigarettes.—(Mary Kelly Foy.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 30—Cigarette pack inserts—
“The Secretary of State may by regulations require tobacco manufacturers to display a health information message on a leaflet inserted in cigarette packaging.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to require manufacturers to insert leaflets containing health information and information about smoking cessation services inside cigarette packaging.
New clause 31—Packaging and labelling of nicotine products—
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the retail packaging and labelling of electronic cigarettes and other novel nicotine products including requirements for health warnings and prohibition of branding elements attractive to children.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit branding on e-cigarette packaging which is appealing to children.
New clause 32—Sale and distribution of nicotine products to children under the age of 18 years—
“(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations prohibit the free distribution of nicotine products to those aged under 18 years, and prohibit the sale of all nicotine products to those under 18.
(2) Regulations under subsection (1) must include an exception for medicines or medical devices indicated for the treatment of persons aged under 18.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit the free distribution or sale of any consumer nicotine product to anyone under 18, while allowing the sale or distribution of nicotine replacement therapy licensed for use by under 18s.
New clause 33—Flavoured tobacco products—
“The Secretary of State may by regulations remove the limitation of the prohibition of flavours in cigarettes or tobacco products to “characterising” flavours, and extend the flavour prohibition to all tobacco products as well as smoking accessories including filter papers, filters and other products designed to flavour tobacco products.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit any flavouring in any tobacco product or smoking accessory.
New clause 34—Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes—
“(1) The Secretary of State may make a scheme (referred to in this section and section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes (supplementary)] as a statutory scheme) for one or more of the following purposes—
(a) regulating the prices which may be charged by any manufacturer or importer of tobacco products for the supply of any tobacco products,
(b) limiting the profits which may accrue to any manufacturer or importer in connection with the manufacture or supply of tobacco products, or
(c) providing for any manufacturer or importer of tobacco products to pay to the Secretary of State an amount calculated by reference to sales or estimated sales of those products (whether on the basis of net prices, average selling prices or otherwise).
(2) A statutory scheme may, in particular, make any provision mentioned in subsections (3) to (6).
(3) The scheme may provide for any amount representing sums charged by any manufacturer or importer to whom the scheme applies, in excess of the limits determined under the scheme, for tobacco products covered by the scheme to be paid by that person to the Secretary of State within a specified period.
(4) The scheme may provide for any amount representing the profits, in excess of the limits determined under the scheme, accruing to any manufacturer or importer to whom the scheme applies in connection with the manufacture or importation of tobacco products covered by the scheme to be paid by that person to the Secretary of State within a specified period.
(5) The scheme may provide for any amount payable in accordance with the scheme by any manufacturer or importer to whom the scheme applies to be paid to the Secretary of State within a specified period.
(6) The scheme may—
(a) prohibit any manufacturer or importer to whom the scheme applies from varying, without the approval of the Secretary of State, any price charged by him for the supply of any tobacco product covered by the scheme, and
(b) provide for any amount representing any variation in contravention of that prohibition in the sums charged by that person for that product to be paid to the Secretary of State within a specified period.”
This new clause and NC35, NC36 and NC37 would enable the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to regulate prices and profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers.
New clause 35—Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes (supplementary)—
“(1) The Secretary of State may make any provision the Secretary of State considers necessary or expedient for the purpose of enabling or facilitating—
(a) the introduction of a statutory scheme under section [Tobacco supplies: Statutory schemes], or
(b) the determination of the provision to be made in a proposed statutory scheme.
(2) The provision may, in particular, require any person to whom such a scheme may apply to—
(a) record and keep information,
(b) provide information to the Secretary of State in electronic form.
(3) The Secretary of State must—
(a) store electronically the information which is submitted in accordance with subsection (2);
(b) ensure that information submitted in accordance with this provision is made publicly available on a website, taking the need to protect trade secrets duly into account.
(4) Where the Secretary of State is preparing to make or vary a statutory scheme, the Secretary of State may make any provision the Secretary of State considers necessary or expedient for transitional or transitory purposes which could be made by such a scheme.”
This new clause and NC34, NC36 and NC37 would enable the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to regulate prices and profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers.
New clause 36—Tobacco supplies: enforcement—
“(1) Regulations may provide for a person who contravenes any provision of regulations or directions under section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] to be liable to pay a penalty to the Secretary of State.
(2) The penalty may be—
(a) a single penalty not exceeding £5 million,
(b) a daily penalty not exceeding £500,000 for every day on which the contravention occurs or continues.
(3) Regulations may provide for any amount required to be paid to the Secretary of State by virtue of section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] (4) or (6)(b) to be increased by an amount not exceeding 50 per cent.
(4) Regulations may provide for any amount payable to the Secretary of State by virtue of provision made under section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] (3), (4), (5) or (6)(b) (including such an amount as increased under subsection (3)) to carry interest at a rate specified or referred to in the regulations.
(5) Provision may be made by regulations for conferring on manufacturers and importers a right of appeal against enforcement decisions taken in respect of them in pursuance of [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes], [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes (supplementary)] and this section.
(6) The provision which may be made by virtue of subsection (5) includes any provision which may be made by model provisions with respect to appeals under section 6 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (c. 40), reading—
(a) the references in subsections (4) and (5) of that section to enforcement action as references to action taken to implement an enforcement decision,
(b) in subsection (5) of that section, the references to interested persons as references to any persons and the reference to any decision to take enforcement action as a reference to any enforcement decision.
(7) In subsections (5) and (6), ‘enforcement decision’ means a decision of the Secretary of State or any other person to—
(a) require a specific manufacturer or importer to provide information to him,
(b) limit, in respect of any specific manufacturer or importer, any price or profit,
(c) refuse to give approval to a price increase made by a specific manufacturer or importer,
(d) require a specific manufacturer or importer to pay any amount (including an amount by way of penalty) to the Secretary of State,
and in this subsection ‘specific’ means specified in the decision.
(8) A requirement or prohibition, or a limit, under section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes], may only be enforced under this section and may not be relied on in any proceedings other than proceedings under this section.
(9) Subsection (8) does not apply to any action by the Secretary of State to recover as a debt any amount required to be paid to the Secretary of State under section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] or this section.
(10) The Secretary of State may by order increase (or further increase) either of the sums mentioned in subsection (2).”
This new clause and NC34, NC35 and NC37 would enable the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to regulate prices and profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers.
New clause 37—Tobacco supplies: controls: (supplementary)—
“(1) Any power conferred on the Secretary of State by section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] and [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes (supplementary)] may be exercised by—
(a) making regulations, or
(b) giving directions to a specific manufacturer or importer.
(2) Regulations under subsection (1)(a) may confer power for the Secretary of State to give directions to a specific manufacturer or importer; and in this subsection ‘specific’ means specified in the direction concerned.
(3) In this section and section [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes] and [Tobacco supplies: statutory schemes (supplementary)] and [Tobacco supplies: enforcement]—
‘tobacco product’ means a product that can be consumed and consists, even partly, of tobacco;
‘manufacturer’ means any person who manufactures tobacco products;
‘importer’ means any person who imports tobacco products into the UK with a view to the product being supplied for consumption in the United Kingdom or through the travel retail sector, and contravention of a provision includes a failure to comply with it.”
This new clause and NC34, NC35 and NC36 would enable the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to regulate prices and profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers.
New clause 38—Age of sale of tobacco—
“The Secretary of State may by regulations substitute the age of 21 for the age of 18 for the sale of tobacco and make consequential amendments to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, the Children and Young Persons (Protection from Tobacco) Act 1991 and the Children and Families Act 2014.”
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to raise the age of sale for tobacco products to 21.
Mary Kelly Foy
The Government’s prevention Green Paper, published in July 2019, included an ambition to make England smoke free by 2030. Admitting that bold action would be needed, the Government promised further proposals in order to finish the job. Two years on, and with less than nine years to go before 2030, we are nowhere near on track to achieve that ambition. Using Government data, projections by Cancer Research UK show that we will miss the target by seven years, and by double that for the poorest in society. Despite the promise of further action on tobacco, there are no measures to tackle smoking in the Bill. That is a major oversight, which my new clauses seek to address.
The new clauses are based on the recommendations included in the latest report from the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, of which I am the vice-chair. They set out a range of complementary measures to deliver the smoke free ambition, which will also significantly increase productivity and reduce pressure on the health and care system. Although the smoke-free 2030 ambition applies specifically to England, all parts of the UK have stated an ambition to end smoking, so I am pleased that members of the Committee from Wales and Scotland support the new clauses.
I will briefly run through the new clauses and why they are necessary additions to the Bill. New clause 29 would give the Secretary of State the power to require tobacco manufacturers to print health warnings on individual cigarettes and cigarette rolling papers. New clause 30 would allow the Secretary of State to require tobacco manufacturers to display a health information message on a leaflet inserted into cigarette packaging, which the Government promised to consider in the prevention Green Paper two years ago. Those are simple, uncontroversial and effective measures that would help deliver the Government’s smoke-free 2030 ambition at minimal cost.
New clauses 31 to 33 would allow the Secretary of State to close loopholes and regulations that allow tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers to market their products to children and to undermine regulations that are designed to protect public health. New clause 31 would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit branding on e-cigarette packaging that appeals to children, such as branding that uses sweet names, cartoon characters and garish colours.
New clause 32 would give the Secretary of State powers to block a shocking loophole in the law that means that, although e-cigarettes cannot be sold to children under 18, they can be given out for free. There is no reason why we cannot seek to rectify that anomaly today. New clause 33 would give the Secretary of State powers to ban all flavouring and not just that defined as characterising. That term is subjective and ill-defined and has allowed tobacco manufacturers to drive a coach and horses through the legislation.
The Government were required by law to review the relevant tobacco regulations to check whether they are fit for purpose, and to publish a report in May 2021, which they have not done. It is time for them to address these egregious loopholes in the regulations, and the Bill is an ideal opportunity to do so. These new clauses are uncontroversial, and would be of clear benefit to child public health. I will therefore seek to divide the Committee on new clauses 31, 32 and possibly 33.
Following on from those new clauses, we must accept that if England is to be smoke free by 2030 we need to stop people starting smoking at the most susceptible age, when they are adolescents and young adults. There is a real and present danger that must be addressed: new figures from a large survey by University College London found a 25% surge in the number of young adults aged 18 to 34 in England who smoked during the first lockdown. New clause 38 would give the Secretary of State powers to raise the age of sale for tobacco products from 18 to 21. That regulatory measure would have the largest impact in reducing the prevalence of smoking among young adults, as demonstrated by what happened in the United States when the age of sale was increased to 21.
Finally, I want to address the issue of funding. The coronavirus pandemic has meant that the need for more investment in public health is greater than ever before. The Government promised to consider a US-style “polluter pays” levy on tobacco manufacturers in the 2019 prevention Green Paper. New clauses 34 to 37 would enable the Secretary of State to regulate prices and the profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers, which could provide funding not only for England, but for the devolved Administrations, with any excess allocated to other vital public health interventions.
I want to express my gratitude to my hon. Friends for supporting these new clauses. I hope the Government will engage with these proposals in a similarly constructive manner with regard to the forthcoming tobacco control plan, ensuring that public health is at the heart of any discussions around smoking and tobacco.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Obviously, smoking has increased during covid, particularly during the lockdowns, which is quite depressing after some of the progress made in recent decades. This array of new clauses tries to tackle the issue from different angles. New clauses 32 and 38 relate to the age at which someone can purchase, along with other point-of-sale policies. Those issues are all under devolved control, so I have not got involved in those. However, the policy decisions around manufacturing, flavourings, packaging and so on are all reserved, and all four nations of the UK would agree that the biggest single favour anyone can do for their own health is to give up smoking.
As older people and people who have smoked for many years sadly succumb to the diseases we know are caused by smoking, such as heart disease, stroke and cancer, it is incumbent on tobacco companies to recruit a new generation. That is what ornate packaging and childish flavourings are clearly aimed at doing, and they are therefore completely counter to the policies of the UK Government and the devolved Governments.
This is an opportunity to stake the point, move forward and take action to prevent the recruitment of young smokers into cigarette smoking, which will inevitably cost the NHS—indeed the four NHSs—more, as they deal with the health issues over a number of decades, than is raised by tobacco duty. The Government need to stop looking at what they earn from cigarettes and focus on minimising their use. That is the Government’s stated policy, and these new clauses would take that forward.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to resume proceedings with you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham for her new clauses and the powerful case she made for them, but also for her leadership in the all-party parliamentary group on smoking and health, alongside the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I know it is a truly impactful APPG and I have always been grateful for my opportunities to go to its sessions to contribute or to listen, as I know Ministers have as well. Reducing smoking and being smoke free by 2030 is a major public health prize. It was a bit disappointing and surprising that there were no tobacco control elements on the face of the Bill, so it is right that we spend a little time trying to change that.
Successive Governments have rightly taken real pride in the reductions in smoking over the past 20 to 25 years. Those reductions have not happened by accident, but through concrete interventions that were sometimes controversial and often challenging at the time, such as the smoking ban, plain packaging and packet warnings—things that we soon afterwards realised were very impactful, and very much the right thing to do. Of course, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire says, we have to view this in the context of covid, and there has perhaps been a bit of backsliding on that progress, but that should drive us not to despair, but to redouble our efforts. I hope we can move things forward in the spirit that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham suggested.
We have to understand that the gains we have made in recent years come with a caveat. Most of the quitting has been done by people from better-off communities, and the benefits have largely accrued to those communities. We are now at the point where smoking accounts for 50% of health inequalities between the poorest and the best-off communities. If we really are serious about levelling up or whatever we want to call it, health is surely a crucial part of that. We know that smoking accounts for half of that difference, so we really ought to be focusing on it.
Reducing smoking ought to be a major project for any Government, because poorer smokers are just as likely to want to quit as their better-off counterparts, and just as able to do so if they have access to good services. However, we have spent a decade cutting those services in general, but particularly in the poorest communities, so high-quality smoking cessation services—which are so effective—have withered on the vine in many of the places that need them the most.
I will now turn to the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, beginning with new clause 29. About one in seven adults smokes. That is about 7 million people, and while health warnings have been displayed on smoking packages for well over a decade, there is evidence that the impact of warnings such as those wane over time. However, the dangers of smoking remain high—between 2016 and 2018, there were 1,167 deaths attributable to smoking in my city of Nottingham alone—so we need to build on the techniques that have worked, with new ones to refresh our under-standing of the dangers of cigarettes to smokers.
There is evidence that dissuasive cigarettes can make smoking less attractive to younger people and non-smokers, and the inclusion of warnings on individual cigarettes, as proposed by new clause 29, is one key way of doing that. Such warnings are already being considered around the world: an in-depth study from France found that warnings on cigarettes increased negative health perceptions, reduced positive smoker image and the perceived pleasure of smoking, decreased the desire to start smoking, and increased the desire to quit. There are therefore signs that such a policy would be impactful.
New clause 30 deals with cigarette pack inserts. Inserting leaflets that contain health information and information about quitting is an effective and cheap way to target existing smokers and help them get support to quit. Those inserts are easy and cheap to implement and, moreover, while the reading of cigarette pack warnings decreases over time, the reading of inserts increases. In Canada, package inserts have been a legal requirement since 2000, and a survey of smokers in Canada found that between one quarter and one third of respondents had read pack inserts at least once in the prior month, and those intending to quit or having recently tried to do so were significantly more likely to have read them. Pack inserts will support and reinforce the impact of other measures that will require more significant investment campaigns to go with them, such as behaviour change campaigns and stop smoking services. They are a really good evidence-based, low-cost addition to such campaigns.
New clause 31 relates to the packaging and labelling of nicotine products. Over the decades, regulation has transformed traditional cigarette packaging, plastering it with warnings and preventing tobacco companies from selling a desirable image of smoking. However, regulations have not kept pace with the less traditional nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. Tobacco companies are still able to sell e-cigarettes adorned with bright colours, cartoon characters and attractive images, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham and the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, and I know that e-cigarette shops in my constituency offer vape liquids branded as vanilla ice cream, slushies and cookie dough, all of which appear targeted at young people, and children in particular.
I am enthusiastic about vaping—it still feels like that is an unfashionable thing to say, but I stand by it. I think vaping is a really good way to help people quit smoking and stay quit, and it is a really important part of a smoke-free 2030. However, it should be regulated properly to help make being smoke free a reality. Data shows that restrictions on the branding of e-cigarettes and refills reduce the appeal of vaping to young people, particularly children, while having little impact on adult smokers’ interest in using these products to quit smoking, so, again, it is cost-free.
Dr Whitford
I assume from the hon. Gentleman’s comments that he shares my concern that although vaping is considerably safer than traditional tobacco, as Public Health England reports on vaping show, vaping products still contain nicotine, which is a vascularly active substance. Therefore, we should still be concerned about non-smoking children being recruited on to vaping. We have no idea what decades of nicotine vaping will do to someone.
Alex Norris
I do share that view, particularly around children. Our preference would be for them to never start. There should not be packages with cartoons and child-friendly descriptors to develop a market among children. I think there would be a high level of consensus on that.
In that spirit, new clause 32 addresses an incredible loophole, which I cannot believe anybody thinks is a good idea. If the Minister is not going to accept new clause 32, I hope he will say when the issue will be resolved. The idea that you cannot sell e-cigarettes to children but that you can give them out as free samples to under-18s is quite hard to understand. It is time for us to get hold of this simple loophole, which goes against the spirit of the legislation, which is designed to protect children against nicotine addiction. I hope we can get some clarity, either because the Minister accepts the new clause or gives us a clear picture that we will see action very soon.
On new clause 33, about flavoured tobacco products, it again feels like the market is not acting in the spirit of the laws that have been passed. Flavoured tobacco is designed to make products more appealing, especially to younger people. In May 2020, we banned the sale of tobacco with a characterising flavour such as vanilla, spices and menthol. However, companies have adapted to this legal change with new innovations that skirt the law and provide smoking experiences that replicate flavoured tobacco. I can go to supermarket websites and find “green” branded cigarettes being sold, with many reviews stating how similar the flavour is to menthol cigarettes. I do not think that is in the spirit of the law.
In the year from May 2020, Japan Tobacco made over £91 million in profits from menthol brands. Clearly, the law has not worked as we want it to. Moreover, between January 2020 and 2021, a survey of smokers showed that the smoking of menthol cigarettes has not declined, despite the apparent ban, so I do not think the law is working. This new clause would do a good job of closing that legal loophole. If the Minister is not minded to accept it, I would be keen to know what the Government intend to do instead, because I cannot believe that they want laws that they passed, in possession of full facts, to be worked around in that way.
I will take new clauses 34 to 37 as a group, because they create the same thing: a tobacco control fund, paid for by manufacturers, combined with the regulation of tobacco companies’ profits. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham said, when the Government announced their smoke-free 2030 ambition, they promised to consider a US-style “polluter pays” levy on the manufacturers, and included an ultimatum for industry to make smoked tobacco obsolete by 2030. My hon. Friend’s APPG has published a very strong option for how to do that. Ministers could lift and shift that very happily and get on with this. There are real benefits to that.
Action on Smoking and Health do some wonderful work, and I am grateful for its support in my work. It estimates that a comprehensive national, regional and local tobacco control programme—in many ways, we have lost that in recent years—to deliver a smoke-free 2030 would cost the UK about £315 million. That would involve adding back lost services. ASH’s estimate for a levy, based on the model the APPG talks about, is £700 million. This could be a “polluter pays” model, and we would have plenty left over to overturn all those poor public health budget cut decisions taken over the last decade. If the spirit of yesterday’s Budget was to try to rewind and erase the lost decade that we have had in this country, this would be a really good place to do that, and I think that is a good deal.
Of course, the EU tobacco tax directive is no longer a blocking factor, so we have complete agency to act in this area and it is in the gift of the Government, so I am very interested to know how far along the Minister or his colleagues are in the consideration, as they said, of this matter, and when we will see some proposals. Similarly, when will we see another tobacco control plan? That is something that everybody, from local government, public services, the private sector, community and voluntary services and all of us in this place, can organise around. The 2030 goal is a common goal. Pretty much everything that we have said in the new clauses are things that we are of one mind on. We can do something really good for the health of the nation, and I hope to find the Minister in action mode on that.
I will finish by referencing new clause 38, also tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, because I do not want it to look like I have ducked the question. It is important that we actively look at that and consider the evidence. I am perhaps not ready to say that it should be in the Bill, but it should be part of an active conversation in this area and part of a tobacco control plan. I think the Minister may be in a similar place on that, because we know that it is an effective part of the armoury. There are loads of really great things to go at in this set of new clauses, and I hope that he feels the same way.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am grateful to the hon. Member for City of Durham for giving us an opportunity to debate the new clauses. I had the privilege and pleasure, I think almost a year and a half or two years ago, when I was standing in for the Public Health Minister, of responding to a debate in the House on this subject—I think she was in Westminster Hall responding to another debate. I therefore had the pleasure of listening to hon. Members speaking about the work of the APPG, and this issue more broadly, on that occasion. It seems like an age ago. I suspect that it was only about a year ago, but that is what the last year and a half has done for many of us.
New clause 29 seeks to provide powers for the Secretary of State to impose a requirement for tobacco manufacturers to print health warnings on individual cigarettes and cigarette rolling papers. That requirement is intended to further strengthen the current public health messaging and encourage smokers to quit. The Government are sympathetic to the aims of the new clause. We strongly support measures to stop people smoking and to educate smokers of its dangers, as we have done through warnings on cigarette packs. However, we believe that we need to conduct some further research and build a more robust evidence base in support of such additional measures before introducing them. If evidence shows that that requirement would not be effective, there is a risk that the power would not be used. As hon. Members will be aware—the hon. Lady was right in the point that she made—health is a devolved matter. Therefore such a measure would need to be considered in partnership with the devolved Administrations.
We are currently in the process of developing our new tobacco control plan. When the hon. Lady winds up the debate on this group of new clauses, she may say, “All well and good, but we’ve been in that place for a while. When will I see it?” I would be surprised were she not to do so. We continue to work on the plan at pace. She will be aware that the events of the last year and a half have, in a number of areas, knocked the existing timelines for producing plans slightly sideways, but we continue to work actively on that. As part of the tobacco control plan that we are working on, we are exploring a broad range of new regulatory measures to support our ambition to be smoke free by 2030. We are reviewing this specific proposal as part of that work, in considering the options for a package of legislative measures.
New clause 30 seeks to provide a power for the Secretary of State to introduce a requirement for manufacturers to insert leaflets containing health information and information about smoking cessation services inside cigarette packaging. We believe that that power is not strictly necessary as the Department could legislate to do that already under the Children and Families Act 2014, as inserts could be required for public health messaging through amendments to the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015. It is also important to note that we already have strong graphic images and warnings of the health harms of smoking on the outside of cigarette packs, and the NHS website provides advice for people seeking to quit smoking. That website address is required on packaging under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016.
The current regulations, the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015, prohibit the use of inserts, as there was limited evidence during the development of those regulations that placing public health messaging inserts inside cigarette packets was more effective than the messaging on the outside of packs. A post-implementation review of SPOT—if I may refer to the regulations in that way to save a little time—is currently under way. It is seeking to assess whether the regulations have met their objectives, and will identify whether there is a need to strengthen them in any way or to revisit any aspect of them, such as the one that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire mentions. We aim to publish the post-implementation review before the end of this year.
If we were to introduce inserts through regulations, we would need to conduct further research on that. We would need to establish the public health benefit, costs to businesses, impact on the environment from litter and practicalities around enforcement, and crucially build a robust evidence base in support of such measures and their efficacy, along with, obviously, public consultation on them. This is something that we will consider as part of the Smokefree 2030 regulatory plans, but we will wait and see what, in the next couple of months, the published post-implementation review says. Health, as I have mentioned, is devolved, so it is something on which we would need to work with our friends and partners in the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations.
New clause 31 seeks to enable legislation that would make provision about the retail packaging and labelling of electronic cigarettes and other novel nicotine products. That would include requirements for health warnings and the prohibition of branding elements that are attractive to children. I pay tribute to the work that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, has done in this space. I know that this is not just an issue of shadow ministerial concern for him, but something in which he has taken an interest as an individual Member of Parliament, so I recognise his expertise and knowledge in this area.
We are currently undertaking a post-implementation review of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 as well. The current regulations include requirements on the packaging and labelling of e-cigarettes, along with restrictions on marketing, and they prohibit advertising on mainstream media such as TV and radio for e-cigarettes. Again, we will publish that review this year.
We want to encourage smokers to quit smoking using nicotine replacement therapy and by switching to less harmful products such as e-cigarettes. I take the point made by the hon. Members for Nottingham North and for Central Ayrshire. I share the shadow Minister’s view that if there is a choice between a conventional cigarette and an e-cigarette, I would much prefer people to be smoking an e-cigarette, because it is less harmful. But I absolutely take the point made by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, who is, as we know, an eminent clinician, that even if it is less harmful, it is still harmful. The ideal would be that people use neither product, but if it is a choice between the two and a question of getting someone to change their habit, I would much prefer to see them using an e-cigarette than a conventional cigarette. I think that there is consensus on that point across the two Front Benches and, indeed, the SNP Front Bench.
However, we need to ensure that our regulatory framework continues to protect young people and non-smokers from using e-cigarettes. That is the point about the degree of harm: although less, it is still there. Regular youth use of e-cigarettes does, on current evidence, remain very low, at about 2% of 11 to 15-year olds. That figure dates back to 2018, so it is slightly dated, but it gives us a useful data point. However, I do not believe that that should induce complacency in any of us. We need to continue looking at the matter very carefully.
Again, the Government are sympathetic to the aims of the new clause and strongly support measures to protect young people. Again, I point to the timing and the need for the post-implementation reviews and for further research and consideration in the light of those when they come forward in the next few months.
New clause 32 seeks to give powers to the Secretary of State to make regulations to prohibit the free distribution or sale of any nicotine products to anyone under 18, with the exception of the sale or distribution of nicotine replacement therapy licensed for use by under-18s. There is already in place, as the shadow Minister alluded to, legislation that prohibits the sale of tobacco and e-cigarettes to under-18s; that includes proxy sales. There are also existing powers in the Children and Families Act 2014 to extend the age-of-sale restrictions to include any nicotine products such as nicotine pouches. Therefore, as he said, the new clause is not needed in relation to sales.
New clause 32 seeks to further protect young people from the distribution of free nicotine products to under-18s, but again, we do not have a firm or robust evidence base at present to suggest that that is a widespread problem. The recent post-implementation review of the Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015, published earlier this year, did not raise that as a concern. I suspect the hon. Member for Nottingham North will say, “Why not get ahead of the game, anyway, with a pragmatic measure?”, and I have some sympathy with that point.
Dr Whitford
With regard to the free provision of e-cigarettes or nicotine substitutes, the provision that could be amended quite simply by referring to where they are being provided through smoking cessation services, as opposed to where someone is buying them and then dishing them out, or is trying to use them to recruit young smokers. Accessing them commercially is quite different from being given them as part of a public health smoking cessation project.
Edward Argar
That is the point I was seeking to make. Smoking cessation services would still continue as normal. The argument from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North—this is where I might diverge from him, not necessarily in intent but in the timing—is that even if we cannot see this as a problem at the moment, we should act now on the basis of principle. His argument is: “Even if it is not happening, why would we let it happen? We should just close the loophole”—I paraphrase, but I think that is his argument. My counter-argument is that it would be appropriate to look at this, but to conduct further research to develop the evidence base further. Beyond that we have—from 2018, for example—more work to do on vaping first. That is essentially the point of difference.
The shadow Minister might say, “I accept that, but I still think we should do it now.” That is ultimately a difference in positions, not a point of principle about needing to look at this. It is about whether to act now or to do further research. That is the only difference, and the research is needed to evaluate the detailed benefits of the new clause. Also, there is the scale of the issue that we might be tackling. I know that the hon. Gentleman is fond of an impact assessment of the costs as well as the benefits. He rightly, as does his colleague on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and you on occasions, Mr Bone—
Edward Argar
Except perhaps the proper conduct of proceedings.
Moving on swiftly, new clause 33 seeks to change the current flavour ban, which would of course be the context in which I was referring to proper conduct proceedings requiring proper documents to be published. The new clause seeks to change the current flavour ban, which is based on characterising flavours in cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco, to one based on flavours for all tobacco products, as well as accessories used to flavour tobacco products.
The Government are committed to protecting the population from the harms of tobacco. Tobacco for smoking that has a detectable flavour—for example, menthol—has been changed to be more appealing to young people and easier to inhale. That can often result in a lifetime of tobacco addiction. Through the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, we have already banned characterising flavours in cigarettes and hand-rolled tobaccos. That means flavours that are noticeable before or during smoking of the product.
Again, the Government are sympathetic to the aims of the new clause, which would prohibit flavours in all tobacco products and accessories, but it is not clear how a ban on flavours would be enforced in practice, as it would include a ban on flavours that do not give a noticeable flavour to the product. Furthermore, it is not clear how this may be a better option than the current regulations, although the hon. Member for City of Durham might wish to address that point in her winding-up speech. As ever, I will reflect carefully on what she says and then discuss it with my colleague, the Public Health Minister. We are currently in the process of developing our new tobacco control plan. We are exploring, as I have said, a broad range of additional regulatory measures to support our Smokefree 2030 ambition.
New clauses 34 to 37—which, with your permission, Mr Bone, I will take in one bundle—seek to provide the Secretary of State with a power to enable the introduction of a scheme on tobacco manufacturers, limiting profitability by regulating prices. Tobacco taxation matters are, it will not surprise hon. Members to hear, a matter for Her Majesty’s Treasury. Although earlier this week I found myself answering an urgent question relating to matters pertinent to Her Majesty’s Treasury, I will not stray into its territory, beyond saying that reducing the affordability of tobacco is one of the most effective measures to trigger smoking cessation. Tax increases are particularly effective among a range of groups of smokers, and therefore this is a key tool in helping to address health disparities and health outcomes associated with smoking.
As part of the annual Budget process, the Treasury will continue the policy of using tax to raise revenues and encourage cessation through high prices on tobacco products. The tobacco industry is already required to make a contribution to public finances, through tobacco duty, VAT and corporation tax. While the Government are open to the idea of the tobacco industry providing additional funds beyond taxation, further consideration of the potential options for and impacts of a scheme, including a robust impact assessment, would be needed. We would also need to consider how such a scheme would be implemented and how it would impact the taxation requirements currently placed on the industry. Such a scheme would likely take a number of years to develop and deliver to ensure that it was effective and robust.
The Department will continue to work with Her Majesty’s Treasury to assess the most effective regulatory means of making the industry pay for the harm that its products cause to our population, to support the Government’s Smokefree 2030 ambition, including exploring a potential future levy. Our ongoing work has contributed to smoking rates falling to their lowest on record, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North said, but there is still much more work to be done to protect people from the harms of tobacco.
Finally, new clause 38 would introduce a power to introduce legislation that would increase the age of sale on tobacco from 18 to 21. We have successfully made many regulatory reforms over the past two decades, and the UK is a global leader in tobacco control. Measures include raising the age of sale from 16 to 18, a tobacco display ban, standardised packaging and a ban on smoking in cars with children, all strengthening the barrier between young people and tobacco products.
The Government remain committed to our ambition to be smoke free by 2030 and to continue to protect the population and future generations from the harms of tobacco. However, the Government would like to review the evidence base of increasing the age of sale to 21 in more detail—I am probably in the same place on that issue as the shadow Minister. We would like to further assess its full impact on public health, the costs of implementation and how it would be enforced by trading standards. We have not consulted publicly on raising the age of sale to 21 to assess public opinion and consider whether it is the right regulatory measure to take forward to protect future generations. I know it is an issue that the APPG and the Royal College of Physicians have recommended we should consider.
We are currently in the process of developing our new tobacco control plan. We will review all the proposals in that context, as well as the well-researched reports that the APPG has put forward. I suspect the hon. Member for City of Durham will still want to push us on a few of these points—if not disagreeing with the sentiment, then possibly with the speed or the timescale. I will listen very carefully to what she says. I encourage her not to press the new clauses, but I suspect I may be out of luck.
Mary Kelly Foy
I welcome the Government’s commitment to publishing the plan and the consideration of some of the recommendations. I hope we will see that very soon. I will not press the majority of the new clauses, but new clauses 31 and 32 are aimed at children and child public health. I do not think we can wait.
We already have examples of vaping companies handing out free vaping products to 16 and 17-year-olds. There is an example of a 17-year-old woman on a market stall. A third party company came along and offered her vaping products in return for her email address, which was suspicious enough anyway. They do not tell the young person that the products have nicotine in them. There are already such examples.
I went online this morning to see whether I could purchase vaping products. The first one that came up was called the Breakfast Club, which tastes like marshmallow-flavoured breakfast charms. It is a shot of nicotine that goes into the refill of a vaping product. The refill is 15 ml, with a space left at the top for the shot. The Breakfast Club “charms”, which come in pink and yellow, are aimed at young people. When I went to buy some, I was asked if I was over 18; I would just have to click “Yes” for it to be delivered to my door tomorrow.
There is evidence that the longer we wait, the more young people will be hooked on nicotine through vaping products. I do not think we need further evidence. How many more young people will be addicted by the time the plan is introduced? I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion, but I will divide the Committee on new clauses 31 and 32.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 31
Packaging and labelling of nicotine products
“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the retail packaging and labelling of electronic cigarettes and other novel nicotine products including requirements for health warnings and prohibition of branding elements attractive to children.”—(Mary Kelly Foy.)
This new clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit branding on e-cigarette packaging which is appealing to children.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 40—Definition of carers—
“(1) The National Health Service Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 275 (Interpretation) insert—
‘“carer” includes carers as defined by Section 10(3) and 10(9) of the Care Act 2014; parents of disabled children with reference to Section 97 of the Children and Families Act 2014; unpaid carers of disabled children as in Section 1 of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995; young carers with reference to Section 96 of the Children and Families Act 2014; and young carers with reference to Section 63 (6) and Section 63 (7) of the Care Act 2014.’”
This new clause inserts a definition of carers into the National Health Service Act 2006 which includes parent carers and young carers as well as adults caring for adults.
Justin Madders
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mr Bone.
The NHS needs to have a core duty to have regard to carers and to promote their health and wellbeing. New clause 39 would put on a statutory footing the requirement for integrated care boards to collect information on carers and their families, and then to use it to develop strategies to promote their health and wellbeing. This is an attempt to ensure a strategic approach to the need for the NHS to demonstrate that it has considered carers in its policies and practice. In other words, all parts of the NHS would have to think carer.
The new clause would avoid situations arising in which carers had been omitted from consideration, for instance in hospital discharges, by ensuring proper care-proofing throughout the entire NHS. We believe that could help integration. Social care sees carers as an equal partner in care and very much part of the system, but sometimes there is a less favourable experience in the health service.
There would also be benefits to the NHS overall, through improved health and wellbeing, improved satisfaction with services, reduced admissions and readmissions, reduced crisis and reduced need. The new clause would avoid the significant omission of carers in recent guidance and improve the general approach to carers. It would also be good for NHS staff, one in three of whom couple working in the NHS with unpaid caring for family members and friends. Research shows increased job satisfaction when employers recognise carers, and the Minister will know how important it is to improve retention rates.
There is definitely an issue here. Surveys have consistently shown a problem, with 55% of carers saying that they agree or strongly agree with the statement, “I feel invisible to the NHS”. They are often providing more than 50 hours of care a week, which is more than a full-time job, and are essential to the NHS, yet that goes unrecognised. There are a range of other statistics on how carers feel about the recognition of their role; 56% agree or agree strongly with the statement, “Health services and professionals do not share information with me, even if it is essential for me to be able to care”. More than half are not involved in decisions on hospital discharge, two thirds of carers do not feel listened to by healthcare professionals about their willingness and ability to care, and a majority are not given enough information and advice when a person they care for is discharged from hospital to care for them safely. Most carers—60%—say that at the point of hospital discharge, they receive insufficient support to protect the health and wellbeing of the patient, or their own health.
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, carers have parity of esteem, and an equal right to receive information and advice and to have their needs considered. The Government accept that that is right for social care, so we think it should apply equally in healthcare. The NHS has very few responsibilities towards carers when compared with the social care sector. Carers were left out of the original Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation decision on vaccination, even though they were in the green book. They were completely left out of the White Paper that underpinned this Bill; they were left out of two versions of the “Discharge to Assess” guidance; and they barely get a mention in integrated care partnership guidance—there is one reference in there to unpaid carers.
Several organisations are keen to support the approach set out in the new clause, including the Patients Association and the MS Society. The new clause would serve as an important marker in laying out the importance of carers, and it would help us work towards proper strategies to ensure that their value is recognised and that they are supported.
Turning to new clause 40, carers are mentioned in clauses 5 and 19, but are not defined anywhere. They could in theory include carers of any age. The new clause seeks to ensure absolute clarity about who the term “carer” refers to: it would refer to unpaid carers only—not volunteers or paid staff, but friends and family, commonly, who provide care. This keeps the definition consistent with other legislation, and includes parents of disabled children and, most importantly, young carers, who are particularly vulnerable to being forgotten. Young carers face more health inequalities than other children of the same age, and that persists into young adulthood. Every GP patient survey has shown that it is essential that it is made clear and explicit in legislation that provisions on carers include young carers.
In conclusion, we want to acknowledge the vital contribution that carers make, which can be quantified as running into billions of pounds. The NHS could not function without the daily support of unpaid carers, and during the pandemic the extra caring responsibilities that carers took on stopped the NHS being completely overwhelmed. These new clauses ensure carers’ needs will be at the heart of NHS decision making and polices. That is why we hope the Minister is sympathetic to them.
Edward Argar
New clauses 39 and 40 focus on carers. First, I join the shadow Minister, as I suspect all hon. Members wish to, in recognising and paying tribute to the enormous amount of work that carers, both formal and informal, do. We want to strengthen the system by which carers are supported, and ensure that those receiving care have choice and control over how they access services.
New clause 39 would create an obligation on integrated care boards to collect information, and understand and respond to the needs of carers with regard to their health and wellbeing. The Bill provides an opportunity to ensure the views of carers are properly embedded in integrated care boards. The Bill confers a duty on integrated care boards to promote the involvement of carers, along with those who access care and support, in decisions relating to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness, and care. There are equivalent provisions for NHS England-commissioned services.
Furthermore, the joint strategic needs assessment, prepared by health and wellbeing boards, will continue to have to consider the needs of carers, and that will shape the strategy developed by the integrated care partnership and the plans of the ICB. That means the services commissioned through these routes in the area where a carer lives will have considered the impact on carers in that community. Carers UK has welcomed the clauses for recognising
“the crucial role carers play day in, day out supporting their relatives’ health”,
and it says the clauses
“give carers more of the visibility they need within health legislation.”
Dr Whitford
Does the Minister recognise the difficulty in getting unpaid carers to recognise that they are unpaid carers? Particularly during covid, couples may have grown into a caring role without ever thinking of themselves as carers, and therefore they do not seek financial or other support. We need a campaign to try and get people to recognise that they are carers. A project that I was involved in when I was back in the NHS in the first wave used the community pharmacy system to interact with carers who were collecting medicines, and helped guide them to the available support.
Edward Argar
I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. There is a huge number of unpaid carers who we know about, and who recognise themselves as carers, but there will be a huge number who, as she says, do not see themselves in that way. They see caring for a loved one as part of their normal life, and as what they do; they do not recognise that they are providing care.
There is also a large, often unidentified, number of child carers. They care for their parents, grandparents and others, but they will not think of it in that way. They just think they are doing their bit to look after mum or dad, or granny or grandad. The hon. Lady is right to highlight the need for all of us—both in government and other Members—to make it as clear as possible that these people are carers and should be able to access support and help. There is support and help available, but people need to understand that they are in that category and are entitled to it. That is a long answer to basically say that I entirely agree with the hon. Lady.
We are not convinced that the provisions of new clause 39 are appropriate for the ICB, as a similar duty to that in the new clause is already held by and imposed on local authorities, so it risks causing duplication. The local authority will be part of the ICB and of the ICP, so we feel that the issue is captured.
Carers already have a legal right to an assessment of their needs from their local authority. Local authorities have a legal duty to meet needs identified through a carer’s assessment where the carer is deemed eligible. In 2019-20—the latest figures I have to hand—376,000 unpaid carers in England were assessed, reviewed, and/or supported. However, the number may well be a lot higher than that figure, which goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire.
We continue to work closely with stakeholders, care organisations and the wider sector to support carers. We will work with care users, providers and other partners to co-develop more detail on our plans for the reform of adult social care. We will publish further detail of our plans for reform in a White Paper later this year, building of course on the strong foundations of integration we are setting in this legislation. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, would have been disappointed or concerned about me if I had not said that, and would have wondered what was going on.
New clause 40 introduces a definition of carer that includes—this goes to the point to which I have just responded—young carers, parent carers and adult carers. It seeks to bring clarity and to ensure that all carers, regardless of their age or their relationship with the person they care for, benefit from the measures in the Bill related to carers. The circumstances and needs of every unpaid carer are unique. Unpaid carers make a vital contribution to the lives of those they care for, and I know that every member of this Committee would want to put on record a tribute to them. It is important that we continue to work to understand carers’ needs and how to best support them, while reflecting the diversity of carers.
I have already discussed the measures in the Bill designed to promote the involvement of carers. “Carers” in this context should include anyone, child or adult, who cares, unpaid, for a friend or family member who, due to a lifelong condition, frailty, illness, disability, serious injury, mental health condition or even addiction, cannot cope without their support. In seeking clarity and inclusion, it is important that we do not inadvertently exclude groups of carers. The legislation as drafted is based on an everyday use of the term “carer”, and this allows for flexibility and the inclusion of all who provide unpaid care, in any shape or form, to a loved one or friend.
I appreciate, and to a large extent share, the shadow Minister’s intention of strengthening the legislation and seeking to bring clarity, so that those who are entitled to support know it, and can claim what they are entitled to. I want to reassure members of the Committee that we have today heard the concerns expressed about carers. I will take that away and carefully consider the issues, and see if we can continue to address them through the wider work of the Department on carers, and our ongoing discussions with organisations, many of which we deal with as constituency MPs, week in and week out, on their work in our constituencies.
For these reasons, I encourage the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston to consider not pressing his new clauses to a Division, but I look forward to hearing from him.
Mary Kelly Foy
For those who do not know, I should say that I was a carer for my severely disabled daughter for 27 years. Maria died six years ago; she suffered with cerebral palsy. I was very fortunate to be in a local authority that recognised the need for respite for carers. I was lucky enough to have a very generous package of six weeks, and that allowed me to engage with public life, have a social life and just recharge my batteries. However, other local authorities do not give such generous packages; it is a postcode lottery. When carers can no longer look after their loved one and that person has to be placed in social care, the cost to the public purse is huge.
On young carers, the issue is not just the caring role of young children. My children were classed as young carers, and the package they had was to enable them to enjoy social activities with other young people. They felt very left out of normal activities, because I was spending most of my time looking after Maria. It is very important that carers recognise that there is help out there, and help has to be consistent. As we know, local authorities have had their budgets cut massively, so what was once perhaps a gold star service for carers is down to a much lesser service.
A lot of carers I knew did not think they were carers and did not really want anything from the state. They said, “We’re just doing it because this is our loved one, and this is what we need to do.” However, the needs, health and wellbeing of unpaid carers are so important if we want them to continue doing the fantastic job that they do.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for relaying her family’s experience. She has articulated far better than I could why it is so important that we support carers, and young carers in particular.
I have listened to what the Minister said about the new clauses. I think he is keen to support this agenda, and there is clearly quite a lot of change happening in the Department over the next few months. We will keep an eye on how the issue of carers sits within that, and how ICPs work in practice, and will not push our new clauses to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 41
Review of implementation of NHS continuing healthcare by integrated care systems
“(1) Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (quality of health and social care) is amended as follows.
(2) After section 46A insert—
‘46B Review and performance assessments: integrated care systems
The Commission must, each year—
(a) conduct a review of the implementation of NHS continuing healthcare by integrated care systems,
(b) assess the performance of these systems following the review, and
(c) publish a report of its assessment.’”—(Justin Madders.)
This new clause would require the review and assessment of NHS continuing healthcare systems.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Justin Madders
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Continuing healthcare ought to be something that we do not need to think about in a truly integrated care system. Hopefully, when the next White Paper comes along, it will address some of our issues with continuing healthcare—no doubt the Minister will tell us whether that is correct.
We all know that continuing healthcare is a huge source of contention between the NHS and local authorities. Arguing about who pays for what is not productive or efficient, and of course it is always the patient who is stuck in the middle. I have numerous examples, as I am sure other hon. Members do, of constituents who have been wrangling, for years after the care was provided, about who is picking up the bill for what. It seems a highly bureaucratic, unfair and at times deeply distressing experience for the families involved.
It has been clear for decades that we are moving into a world where many people will have multiple long-term conditions, with both health and social care needs. The new clause was tabled with that in mind, and with the assistance of the Motor Neurone Disease Association. As one would expect, those with MND often fall into the CHC web. I cannot allow a reference to MND to pass without paying tribute to Rob Burrow and the many other magnificent campaigners who have put the spotlight on the challenges that those diagnosed with MND face. I had the privilege of knowing Rob when he was a professional sportsman, and he has taken equal vigour, determination and courage into this field. He has been an absolute star in campaigning on these issues.
Under the current complex and poorly understood rules, some qualify for free social care—in other words, the NHS pays for it, rather than the local authority—but it is for adults only, and in order to qualify there has to be an assessment by professionals of all a person’s needs. If the needs change, the eligibility can change, and of course there are endless arguments about what the needs are at any particular time. That demonstrates why the integration of care is very important and will probably be more efficient in the long run. Those in receipt of, or possibly eligible for, continuing healthcare should be fully involved in the assessment process and kept informed. Carers, who we have already discussed, and family members should also be consulted. There are the personal experience aspects of the process to look at, as well as the arguments about who pays for what.
The new clause accepts that we cannot fix all these things overnight. It suggests that in some cases someone should be responsible for ensuring that the system works properly in the interests of those with continuing needs. This is all part of the wider application of proper openness, and of transparency being the strongest and best form of good governance.
Clinical commissioning groups have a legal responsibility to meet the assessed health and care needs of every person in their area who is found eligible for continuing healthcare. Their responsibilities are laid out in the national framework and supporting guidance, but I am afraid there is extensive evidence that they do not always fulfil those responsibilities, and that the monitoring of delivery of continuing healthcare is inadequate. In 2018, a Public Accounts Committee inquiry on continuing healthcare found:
“NHS England is not adequately carrying out its responsibility to ensure CCGs are complying with the legal requirement to provide CHC to those that are eligible.”
It also found that
“there are limited assurance processes in place to ensure that eligibility decisions are consistent”,
and that existing measures
“may not go far enough to address the variation in performance”
across CCGs. These findings were echoed in a November 2020 report by the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman, which warned that
“people continue to be seriously let down by failings in the way…healthcare is handled by CCGs.”
Patient organisations, represented collectively through the Continuing Healthcare Alliance, have reported a wide range of significant problems in CHC delivery, including CCGs not adhering to the national framework or associated guidance for assessment and care delivery, leading to significant inconsistency and variation across the country. Not enough data is collected about who receives continuing healthcare and multidisciplinary teams are frequently not used to conduct assessments, which leads to them sometimes being carried out by individuals with no knowledge of that person’s history or their medical condition. Care packages are frequently inadequate to assess needs, particularly when individuals require complex care or specialist care input. There is no effective system or process in place to monitor the quality of delivery across the country, to address that unwarranted variation and to take action when commissioners fail to live up to their legal responsibilities in respect of CHC.
We are seeking to address some of those issues through the new clause. We have what we would describe as an accountability gap, where there is no effective mechanism to monitor delivery of CHC and hold to account those who are meant to be responsible for delivering it. It goes without saying that people in receipt of CHC are sometimes the most vulnerable in the population, by definition, and it is surely unacceptable that a group of individuals continue to be let down by a failing system with no mechanism to identify and address those failings.
We hope that the new clause will address that issue and support better patient experience and outcomes with CHC. I do not intend to press it to a vote, but I would appreciate some responses from the Minister. The issue is not going to go away, so I would like his thoughts about the future of the whole idea of continuing healthcare and how we best monitor and ensure consistency and compliance throughout the country. Any thoughts on how we can make the system better would be most welcome.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and join him in paying tribute to the work of the MND Association and other campaigners who do so much to bring these issues to our attention, both as individual MPs and in debates such as this.
The new clause would impose a new duty on the Care Quality Commission to conduct a review and assess the performance of NHS continuing healthcare, or CHC, by integrated care systems each year. It would also require the CQC to publish a report of its assessment. Again, as with many of the hon. Gentleman’s proposals, I understand and have a degree of sympathy with the intention behind what he seeks to do with the new clause. It is right that clinical commissioning groups, as they are currently called, are held accountable for NHS continuing healthcare within their local health and social care economy. That will also be the case with the national move to integrated care boards, where the board will discharge those duties and be accountable for NHS continuing healthcare as part of its NHS commissioning responsibilities.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for suggesting that the new clause is, in essence, a probing amendment to highlight the issue, because I am not convinced that it is necessarily the most effective way of doing that, although it certainly airs the issue in Committee. I reassure him that the Government share his view about the importance of ensuring adequate oversight in how health and social care services are delivered, including in this space.
First, by way of some reassurance, NHS England has a core role in overseeing ICBs in the exercise of their functions. The Bill requires NHS England to assess the performance of each ICB every year and ICBs are required to provide NHS England with their annual report, which will include oversight of NHS commissioning and thus, in that context, continuing healthcare.
In addition, as Members will be aware, we have debated an amendment to give the CQC a duty to assess integrated care systems at a system level. The intention is for these reviews to provide the public and the system with independent assurance of the work within the ICS and, in particular, the effectiveness of joined-up working and integration. They, too, will be a valuable way to improve the services provided. The scope would include NHS commissioning and NHS continuing healthcare. We also intend for the CQC to work closely with NHS England, which will be conducting its own assessment of integrated care boards. We therefore think that those are the most effective vehicles for that oversight.
However, I share the hon. Gentleman’s view and suspect that we will all, possibly with a degree of regularity, have constituency cases about continuing healthcare payments and whether the system is working efficiently or otherwise. Local healthcare systems must continue to focus on this and seek to do what they can to make the system as smooth and efficient as possible. We believe that the mechanisms in the Bill are an effective way of doing that, but that in no way implies that individual systems should stop looking at ways of continuing to improve that provision and the mechanism by which continuing healthcare funding is delivered to individuals.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for his comments—it seems that the message has been received. Obviously, if the ambitions in the Bill to improve integration, collaboration and joint working are to be delivered, this will be one area where we would expect to see significant improvements. I have no doubt that we will return to this in future, but I beg to ask leave the withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 42
Alcohol product labelling
“The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision to ensure alcoholic drinks, as defined by the Department for Health and Social Care’s Low Alcohol Descriptors Guidance, published in 2018, or in future versions of that guidance, display—
(a) the Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines,
(b) a warning that is intended to inform the public of the danger of alcohol consumption,
(c) a warning that is intended to inform the public of the danger of alcohol consumption when pregnant,
(d) a warning that is intended to inform the public of the direct link between alcohol and cancer,
(e) a full list of ingredients and nutritional information.”—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to introduce secondary legislation on alcohol product labelling.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to bring forth a consultation on introducing calorie labelling on alcohol products, for which we have been calling for some time, but I do not think there is a need to wait for this to be introduced in order for alcohol products to display the chief medical officer’s low-risk drinking guidelines, health warnings, ingredients and nutritional information, which is what the new clause asks for, mirroring what clause 127 does for food.
As it stands, there are no legal requirements for alcohol products to include health warnings, calorie information or even basic information such as ingredients. I am aware of the research by the Portman Group, which says that nearly half choose to do so. However, it is not quite cutting through. Consumers have a right to know what they are consuming and the associated risks, but many people are unaware of the calorie content in alcohol. About 80% of people are unable to identify the number of calories in a large glass of wine. Furthermore, beyond the most obvious risks of drinking alcohol, many people are unaware of the broader risks. Only a quarter of people are aware that alcohol is linked to breast cancer.
Similarly, despite alcohol’s link to worse pregnancy outcomes and serious lifelong impacts on a baby, one in three people are unaware that it is safest not to drink while pregnant, and it is estimated that 41% of women consume alcohol during pregnancy. That is a serious matter, and the issue of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is not well known enough in this country. Especially in communities such as mine, I suspect that it has a profound impact on child development, which I know we will talk about shortly. My predecessor, Graham Allen, was a very strong proponent of a national study into FAS, and I echo his call. I really hope that might be something the Minister addresses, because it would have profound outcomes for child development and some of the care services that we might need in communities such as mine.
The public have a right to know what is in what they drink and eat and to make informed choices. I will not go round the bars snatching bottles of beer or glasses of wine out of people’s hands—I could not credibly do that, but I also have not inclination to do that. However, people should have a free and full understanding of the impacts of drinking alcohol and make their own judgments based on that. A recent survey conducted by YouGov found that 75% of people want the number of units in a product on the label, 61% want calorie information and 53% want the amount of sugar to be displayed. Again, this is what people want. Notwithstanding the research on some of the good things that the industry is doing voluntarily, which I pointed to earlier, we are still in a situation whereby that is not happening enough.
The Alcohol Health Alliance did a review of 424 alcohol product labels in London, the south-east and north-east of England, Wales and Scotland, which revealed that 71% of labels did not include the chief medical officer’s low-risk drinking guidelines. More than one quarter of labels included incorrect or misleading information that was either out of date or from other countries, 72% of labels did not list the ingredients and a majority had no nutritional information. Just 7% of labels displayed full nutritional information including calories, which is what we called for.
Dr Whitford
Many of the labels simply say, “Drink responsibly” or, “Drink aware”, but, as the hon. Gentleman is highlighting, the lack of information on labels introduces quite a complex step of that person having to go and look up the risk of harm or the unit measures. Yet we have just been debating the need to have warnings on cigarettes. Alcohol introduces harm both to the individual and, if they are heavy drinkers, to those around them, and therefore we should be taking this seriously. We have tried to do so in Scotland with measures such as minimum unit pricing, but information to the consumer is the first step.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that intervention. I would certainly not talk down including the very broad messages that the hon. Lady mentions; I know that in an overwhelming number of cases that is available, but, as she says, that is not enough. People are conscious of that message and we should keep reinforcing it, but the jump-off point is, “So what? What am I going to do differently, or what do I need to understand differently?” At the moment, we are not helping them in that process.
This new clause, mirroring clause 127, asks the Secretary of State to introduce secondary legislation to compel the inclusion of this sort of information on products. It is a relatively modest ask, but it promotes informed choice, which in this area would be a very good thing. I do not think we should miss the opportunity to put it in the Bill.
Edward Argar
As has been set out, this new clause would make provision to ensure that alcoholic drinks display the chief medical officer’s low-risk drinking guidelines, a warning intended to inform the public of the danger of alcohol consumption, a warning intended to inform the public of the danger of alcohol consumption particularly when pregnant, a warning intended to inform the public of the direct link between alcohol and cancer, and a full list of ingredients and nutritional information.
First, let me say that alcohol labelling is an important part of the UK Government’s overall work on reducing alcohol harm. We believe that people have a right to accurate information and clear advice about alcohol and its health risks to enable them to make informed choices for themselves about their drinking. However, we feel that the new clause is unnecessary, because the Government are about to launch a consultation on these matters.
As part of our tackling obesity strategy, published in July last year, the Government committed to consulting on whether mandatory calorie labelling should be introduced on all pre-packaged alcohol, as well as alcoholic drinks sold in the out-of-home sector. The Government have worked with the alcohol industry to ensure that labels on pre-packaged alcohol reflect the UK chief medical officer’s low-risk drinking guidelines, and the industry has made some progress towards achieving that.
To make further progress, as part of our public consultation on alcohol calorie labelling we will also seek views on whether provision of the chief medical officer’s low-risk drinking guidelines, which include the various specific warnings that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, such as drinking in pregnancy and the drink-drive warning, should be mandatory or should continue on a voluntary basis. Respondents to the consultation will be able to provide suggestions for additional labelling requirements that they would like the Government to consider, such as nutritional information. As I said, that consultation will be launched shortly.
Clause 127 confers a power on the Secretary of State in England, and on Ministers in the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales, to make improvements to and amend or repeal articles of European Union Regulation 1169/2011. This EU regulation currently prohibits mandatory calorie labelling on pre-packaged alcohol that is 1.2% alcohol by volume and above. The passage of this legislation will therefore enable Governments to introduce changes such as mandatory calorie labelling on pre-packaged alcohol labels through regulations.
If a decision is made to mandate those labelling requirements following the consultation, the Bill will support the Government in being able to make the necessary changes through a new power in the Food Safety Act 1990. Consistent with the Government’s obligation to consult on matters concerning food law, before any regulations are made, a consultation with interested stakeholders must take place. Therefore, as there is a statutory duty to consult on introducing mandatory labelling requirements and as work on improving alcohol labelling is under way, we do not believe that a separate clause in the Bill is necessary at this time. I encourage the shadow Minister to be reassured by what I have said and to consider not pressing his new clause to a vote.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. Any measure, as with that in the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham, again relies on us waiting for consultation. It feels like an awful lot of consultation, which is of course an important part of doing the process right, but we should never confuse it with action. We have spent an awful lot of time in this space, and it feels as if there is a danger that we are into soft-pedalling territory, rather than action territory. Nevertheless, I heard what the Minister said, that it is an active process, so on that basis I will not press for a Division. We will reflect on the issue on the Labour Benches but, widely among those interested in the area, there is a growing sense of impatience. I hope that us giving the Minister and the Government space to continue the process is not confused with us being content that we are going quickly enough—I feel strongly that we are not. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 43
Annual report on alcohol treatment services: assessment of outcomes
“(1) The Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament at the start of each financial year a report on—
(a) the ways in which alcohol treatment providers have been supported in tackling excess mortality, alcohol related hospital admissions, and the burden of disease resulting from alcohol consumption, and
(b) the number of people identified as requiring support who are receiving treatment.
(2) Alongside the publication of the report, the Secretary of State must publish an assessment of the impact of the level of funding for alcohol treatment providers on their ability to deliver a high-quality service that enables patient choice.”—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make an annual statement on how the funding received by alcohol treatment providers has supported their work to improve treatment and reduce harm.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would put a duty on the Secretary of State to make an annual statement on the spend on, and impact of, alcohol treatment services. Each day in the UK, 70 people die of alcohol-related causes. Alcohol is linked to 200 different diseases and injuries and costs the NHS £3.5 billion each year. Good alcohol treatment is essential to support those with alcohol dependence towards recovery. That is important for individuals and for the collective, because it reduces emergency services call-outs, unnecessary hospital admissions and avoidable deaths.
Despite the importance of treatment, even going into the pandemic, only one in five dependent drinkers were believed to be in treatment—that is 80% lacking healthcare. The incomprehensible and frustrating picture in this country in recent years, between 2016 and 2018, is that more than two thirds of local authorities in England cut their alcohol-treatment budgets, and in 17 of them those cuts were greater than 50%.
Having been a local councillor in that period, responsible for public health in my community, I know that no colleague did that because they thought it was the right thing to do for their community; they did it because the public health grant in this country has been run down over the past decade, which has been an absolute tragedy. Those are the sorts of services that we have lost.
A very visible example comes from St Mungo’s—we all know its wonderful work—which estimates that funding cuts have meant that 12,000 fewer rough sleepers accessed support in 2018-19 than would have done had funding remained at 2010 levels. The covid pandemic has only worsened the situation, leading to significant and sustained increases in the rate of unplanned admissions for alcoholic liver disease. This issue is very important now, in the very immediate term. We need to act.
Owing to resource cuts, however, many alcohol treatment providers have been forced to reduce their offer. A lack of outreach resources leads to people with some of the most complex needs missing out on support, while the reduction in capacity means that many of those at the lower levels, where an earlier intervention would be very impactful, miss out as well. Those with greater dependency are not getting specialised treatment or, in some cases, are not getting any treatment at all.
I strongly believe that the Bill needs to address the importance of alcohol treatment in terms of its funding and impact. Requiring the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the ways in which alcohol treatment services have been supported and funded, and on the number of people requiring treatment and how that need is being met, will keep the issue at the forefront.
The Government’s own alcohol strategy states that alcohol treatment services
“offer the most immediate opportunity to reduce alcohol-related admissions and to reduce NHS costs.”
We also know that for every £1 invested in alcohol treatment £3 is yielded in return, rising to £26 over 10 years. Recovery also yields powerful dividends for families and communities affected by addiction, but at the moment we are going the wrong way in terms of our commitment to this issue. What I am asking for in the new clause, and I think it is a relatively modest ask, is for the Secretary of State to have on an annual basis an honest and candid assessment of the situation in this country, and then to account for the activity that is being taken to meet the need. It would be a very powerful statement that the Secretary of State and the Department have a grip of the issue and are committed to it, so I hope to find the Minister in listening mode.
Edward Argar
As ever, I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his exposition of the new clause, which would introduce a duty on the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to publish an annual statement on how the funding received by alcohol treatment providers has supported their work to improve treatment and reduce harm. It would also introduce a duty on the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the impact of the level of funding for alcohol treatment providers on their ability to deliver a high-quality service that enables patient choice. I join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to St Mungo’s for the work that it does, which I think we would all recognise across the House.
We do not think that a new reporting requirement introduced by the new clause is necessary as significant work is already under way in this area. Outcomes for local authority-funded alcohol treatment services are already published via the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ national drug treatment monitoring system. They are monthly and quarterly reports provided at a local authority level, and annual reports at a national level. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities also publishes annual data on estimated numbers of alcohol dependent adults in each local authority in England. Health commissioners can use that resource to estimate the number of adults in their area who need specialist treatment, supporting them to appropriately plan and improve alcohol treatment services.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities provides a number of data tools to support local areas to compare their performance against that of other areas, and against national performance. Those tools include the public health outcomes framework, local alcohol profiles for England, and the spend and outcomes tool. With respect to spending, local authorities are currently required to report on their spend on alcohol harm prevention and alcohol treatment on an annual basis to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Part 2 of Dame Carol Black’s independent review of drugs was published in July 2021 and the Government, in their initial response, published on 27 July 2021, agreed to carry forward its recommendations and publish a new drugs strategy later this year.
The review recommended increased transparency and accountability from local authorities on how funding is spent. Although the subject of the review was drugs, the implementation of that recommendation will apply to both drug and alcohol treatment through mechanisms such as an improved commissioning standard, which is currently in development. I therefore encourage the shadow Minister not to press the new clause to a Division.
Alex Norris
I cannot quite accept that answer from the Minister. I understand the significant work that he talks about, and the different places where data is available. Those things tell us what is going on; they do not tell us why, and what we intend to do about it as a country. As a result, I do not think that is delivering for us, and we see that in the very difficult outcomes. On that basis, I am afraid I will have to press the new clause to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Health and Care Bill (Twenty First sitting)
Thursday 28th October 2021
(3 years, 1 month 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 28 October 2021 - (28 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to resume our consideration with you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. The new clause is in my name and those of my colleagues. If we think about the pandemic and the last 18 months, we will have various views on all sorts of things that have gone on during that period, but I think that one thing that we would be of one mind on is how well our nation’s directors of public health have performed in this crisis. They have been incredible, pulling together the local response and bringing to bear their unique combination of training, relationships and local soft power in order to ensure that the local approaches to dealing with the pandemic in aid of the community have been strong ones. I think we would all say that they have done absolutely superbly.
The new clause seeks to codify a little more formally the place of directors of public health in the system. As we are authoring a new system in the Bill, this is no bad time to do that. The purpose of the new clause is to clarify the roles, powers and duties of directors of public health and to put them on a statutory footing. Whatever structures DPHs sit within, their major role—the reason why as a country we need them and why we invest in them as we do—is that they act as an independent advocate for the health of the population, for system leadership and for the improvement of the system for the population. They are already responsible within their area for a broad range of things, such as measurable health improvement, health protection, public health input, planning, commissioning, reducing inequalities and more. There is a strong reason to put them on a statutory footing. They of course provide an independent advisory function for a wide range of organisations, including the NHS. My local DPH is very good indeed. She often reminds colleagues that she is the system’s DPH rather than just the local authority’s. She may well be hosted by the local authority, but her remit goes much broader, and that is a very good thing. Putting DPHs on a statutory footing would recognise the system leadership role that they have.
The new clause would use a corporation sole model to ensure that directors of public health have scope for independent action; it would ensure that special arrangements are made for them, as officers of the Crown, to bring certain things to the attention of the Attorney General and the chief medical officer, and to ensure public health representation on NHS managing, regulating or commissioning bodies where necessary; and it would guarantee their professional independence in these wider functions. In the vast majority of cases across the country, most of these functions and roles are operating very well indeed, but the new clause would give statutory underpinning to that.
Together, these changes would allow DPHs to have influence across the entire place that they work for and across all policy areas, including budgetary and allocative decisions, and ensure that they have a chance to play their part across all decisions being made in the local community that impact on public health. This proposal would hardwire links between DPHs and the NHS public health workforce who enact public health policy. For place-based officials, having strong links with local and regional NHS employees is not only a benefit but a necessity. It would help to strengthen our response to health inequalities and hence the prevention of ill health—we have spoken at length about that during these proceedings—as well as enhancing relationships for emergencies, which we have seen in recent months.
Where this is done best, it is a strong model. I know that some directors of public health have consultants within their local NHS trust. That is something that the Association of Directors of Public Health is very keen on. If the Bill and the direction of travel are about an integrated system, those kinds of integrators are a very good model of doing that.
These are critical roles. We have seen that in challenging times, but in more general times, as we push on in order to have a healthcare system that is more preventive, that closes inequality gaps and which delivers excellent services to our population, directors of public health will be really key players in it, so I hope that this attempt to put them on a slightly stronger and more consistent footing will be welcome.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair once again, Ms Elliott.
My understanding, in the light of what the shadow Minister has said, is that one of the underlying aims of the new clause is to ensure that the public’s health is at the fore as we reform the health and care system. I have the utmost sympathy with that an aim
The Government recognise the importance of a robust public health system that works to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation and to prevent disease. That is why we have taken decisive steps to reshape our national public health bodies so that we are well equipped to face future challenges. Furthermore, we agree that directors of public health and their teams should have a crucial role at the heart of the new system.
The shadow Minister is absolutely right to say that although directors of public health are hosted by local authorities, they represent the whole system, and we owe them a debt of gratitude. In our past lives, he and I would have worked with DPHs in our local authority contexts, and of course, as Members of Parliament, we have all seen what our local DPHs have had to do over the past year and a half. I suspect that Members who did not know their local DPH have probably got to know them and their work in the community a lot better, which is no bad thing.
This fits naturally with the strategic emphasis on population health that we expect of integrated care systems. Both the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have set out in published policy and guidance documents our expectation of directors of public health having an “official role” in integrated care systems. Officials in the Department are working closely with the Association of Directors of Public Health and others to help describe further the place of these roles, the outcomes that we hope collectively to achieve, and the ways in which they can best add value to the system’s impact on health overall.
Although we entirely understand the motivation behind the new clause, I am not sure that it is strictly necessary. It seeks to clarify the roles, powers and duties of DPHs, but their roles and responsibilities are already clearly and accurately set out in legislation and current guidance. The requirement for the recruitment to the role of director of public health, for example, is already clear on professional qualifications, and the registration and regulation requirements are clearly laid out. The new clause may have the effect of reducing the flexibility of the post, although I am sure that the shadow Minister would say that that concern is unfounded.
Furthermore, the current system already provides independence and influence for directors of public health, and that is strengthened by several provisions in the Bill, which includes, for instance, a duty on ICBs to seek advice from persons with the appropriate expertise on prevention and public health, including directors of public health, complementing the existing duty, in the section 6C regulations of the National Health Service Act 2006, for local authorities to provide the NHS with public health advice.
Additionally, we do not believe it necessary to make directors of public health officers of the NHS, as the Bill already provides opportunities for DPHs to link into and influence NHS bodies in their current guise. Integrated care partnerships, for instance, must develop an integrated care strategy to which integrated care boards must have regard in drawing up their commissioning plans. The intended result is to create a plan to meet the health—including public health—and social care needs of the population within their defined geography. That will provide directors of public health with the opportunity to influence NHS commissioning plans to meet wider public health aims.
It is also possible that the new clause would create a number of undesirable consequences—I suspect that the shadow Minister will allay some of those fears in his response. Rather than bringing clarity, the new clause could create confusion and complexity in a system that is already functioning effectively with a clear understanding of the role and how it operates.
The new clause would put a host of prescriptive new requirements on DPHs, including a requirement for them to be officers of the NHS, NHS consultants in public health, and officers of the Crown, while retaining independence of thought and action.
While we certainly understand the motivation of wanting to knit together the system through an individual post, that approach would add a layer of complexity. I believe that it would be challenging for an individual holding that office to seek to balance those complex responsibilities, accountabilities and potentially competing priorities within various organisations. That would also complicate the lines of accountability
My concern is that the new clause is overly prescriptive about the status and nature of the role, which would go against the overall aims of the Bill in terms of permissiveness. Although we hope and expect that directors of public health will act as a nexus for bringing coherence to the local system’s focus on population health, we are not convinced that this level of prescription over permissiveness is appropriate. That reflects a thread of the debate throughout the passage of the legislation on where the appropriate balance should be struck.
Proposed new paragraphs (e) and (h) would weaken the ties that directors of public health have with local authorities. Since the 2012 reforms, there has been widespread consensus that local authorities are best equipped to deal with a wider range of public health matters for their population’s needs. In that context, I pay tribute to local authorities for their role in tackling the pandemic, including those in elected roles. If I recall correctly, the wife and partner of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, is active as an elected councillor in a local authority. Many Members of this House will have served in that role, too, and will recognise what local authority councillors and officers do in that space.
From their home in local government, DPHs have been able to maintain an independent mindset while playing a critical role in improving and protecting the public’s health. Although it may well evolve in future, that system is working, and we have a strong and solid base that is understood by all system players. I therefore encourage the shadow Minister to continue to work with me and others to make that system work, rather than seeking to press the new clause to a Division.
Alex Norris
I certainly did not intend to add complexity; I was hoping for clarity and consistency. Nevertheless, as the Minister says, those roles are currently functioning effectively, so I will not divide the Committee.
I would say to the Minister and his colleagues, however, that we need a real watching brief on this matter, because assuming that the Bill continues its onward journey and establishes those ICS footprints, there will be a range of different outcomes and organisational cultures. The stronger systems will be those in which the DPHs are at the heart of insight and decision making, and the reverse will be a defining characteristic in systems that are not as good. I certainly hope that we consider the Care Quality Commission reviews that were included in an earlier new clause, and any sector-led improvement, as well as the work those systems do to reflect on what they do and do not do well.
One of the criteria for both streams of improvement ought to be what the DPH does, how central they are, and how sighted they are on decision making. As I have said, in good systems that will be good, and in weak systems it will be weak. Those criteria would be a bellwether of how good the local ICS footprint is. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 45
Duty on integrated care boards to have regard to net zero commitment
“(1) The National Health Service Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 14Z43 (inserted by section 19 of this Act) insert—
“14Z43 Duty to have regard to net zero commitment
When procuring or commissioning goods and services on behalf of the NHS, integrated care boards must have regard to NHS England’s commitment to reach net zero by 2040.””—(Justin Madders.)
This new clause would place a duty on integrated care boards to have regard to NHS England’s commitment to reach net zero by 2040.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I will be brief in speaking to the new clause. What we are seeking to achieve is pretty clear: for integrated care boards procuring or commissioning goods and services on behalf of the NHS to have regard to NHS England’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2040.
We can assume that the Government fully support the commitment made by NHS England. We were all transfixed by the goings-on in Committee yesterday, so we may have missed the part in the Chancellor’s statement about investment in net zero and in the NHS, but perhaps the Minister will say a little more on that. I suspect that although he will accept that ICBs should have regard to the overall commitment, he will say that the new clause is unnecessary as NHS England already has a commitment that will percolate down to ICBs. We would say that NHS England can achieve that target only by working through ICBs, which will, of course, have the ability to commission more than £100 billion-worth of services.
We may end up yet again in the realms of the permissive versus prescriptive debate, but the power of public sector procurement is a massive issue, and there is no bigger part of the public sector than the NHS, which is the responsibility of the Minister’s Department. We should be very much on the front foot in using that to deliver the commitment to net zero.
Of course, we have yet to see what will replace the public contracts regulations in Government procurement as a whole. It is hoped that the same commitment to green issues will be in the mix somewhere, but until we know what that looks like, the new clause presents an opportunity to enshrine in law a commitment that I think most if not all Members want to see delivered.
Edward Argar
There is no doubt that the climate emergency is also a health emergency. Climate change threatens the foundations of good health, with direct and immediate consequences for our patients, the public and the NHS.
The NHS accounts for around 4% to 5% of UK emissions, and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston is right to highlight the critical role the NHS has to play in achieving net zero. Although I have some sympathy with the intention of the new clause, I remind the Committee of the commitment. The commitment to be net zero by 2040 applies only to NHS direct emissions, such as those from building energy and does not apply to supply chain emissions that are the target of the new clause. While ICBs should and will consider the environmental impact of their procurement, that consideration must go wider than the commitment made by NHS England to net zero direct NHS emissions.
To support that work, NHS England is already leading the way on the agenda through a dedicated programme of work, which includes ambitious targets for achieving net zero for the NHS carbon footprint plus by 2045 and for its direct emissions by 2040. We fully welcome and endorse those ambitions. As part of that programme of work, under the 2021-22 NHS standard contract, every trust is expected to have a green plan. As NHS England has made clear in its guidance on green plans, published in June 2021:
“Every trust and every ICS is expected to have a Green Plan approved by that organisation’s board or governing body. For trusts, these should be finalised and submitted to ICSs by 14 January 2022. Each ICS is then asked to develop a consolidated system-wide Green Plan by 31 March 2022, to be peer reviewed regionally and subsequently published.”
On the question of procurement, the NHS is already publicly committed to purchasing only from suppliers who are aligned with its net zero ambitions by 2030. Earlier this year, NHS England set its road map giving further details on the expectations of suppliers to 2030. That work is supported by a broad range of additional action on NHS net zero. NHS England will publish the world’s first net zero health building standard; it will apply to all projects being taken forward through the Government’s new hospital programme, which will see 48 new hospitals built across England by 2030—I can almost see the slightly cynical smile through the hon. Gentleman’s mask.
I know the shadow Minister will argue that the new clause would give impetus to the NHS to move towards net zero in the work it is already doing. I am afraid I am not convinced that it is necessary, given the substantial work already under way. The NHS is already showing its commitment, backed up by clear plans.
Justin Madders
I wonder whether the Minister’s nickname in the Department is Steady Eddie, given his consistent responses to many of my new clauses and amendments—consistent, but not always correct. It is very important that the commitment is delivered. We are clearly going to have a disagreement about the best legislative framework in which to do that, but I am not going to push this to a vote. It is clearly an issue that all Members are very keen to see delivered.
I am sure that we will debate the new build programme on a number of other occasions—we may get beyond how many new hospitals it is and on to some of the wider issues. It is a matter we will come back to on a number of occasions.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 46
Exclusion of NHS bodies from ability to withhold information requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on commercial grounds
“(1) Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (3), insert—
‘(4) Subsection (2) does not apply to information held by NHS England, integrated care boards, NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts except to the extent that subsection (5) applies.
(5) Subsection (2) applies to information held by NHS England, integrated care trusts, NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts relating to another organisation if disclosure of the information would in the opinion of the organisation pose a real and significant risk to the commercial interests of that organisation.’” —(Justin Madders.)
This new clause would prevent NHS bodies from withholding information on commercial grounds unless the information related to another organisation and that organisation considered that its disclosure would pose a real and significant risk to the commercial interests of that organisation.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Justin Madders
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
New clause 46 would amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000. It is a recognition that, as a result of the move to integrated care systems, the whole concept of the NHS being run as individual businesses really ought to go. We have already pointed out in our discussions the apparently contradictory duties placed on NHS bodies in this regard. Some consider themselves as quasi businesses and refuse to disclose their business plans or provide information about their business dealings under the Freedom of Information Act. That makes it difficult for staff to understand the precise nature of proposals. I will come to some examples of that later. I have to say that they take their lead from the Government a bit in that respect. As we are no longer in the era of markets and competition, and NHS bodies no longer have to compete with one another, commissioners really do not need to enter into complicated contractual arrangements. So there is not really the need for them to cite commercial confidentiality as a reason not to comply with FOI inquiries. The interests of trusts, the public and patients should be aligned. They should not be subservient to wider commercial interests.
The Minister may say that this is not an issue, that the NHS is already open and transparent and that everything is sweetness and light in the garden. It certainly should be, but we think there are occasions when that has proven not to be the case. It might also be argued that NHS trusts and foundation trusts have to have some protection from FOI requests so that they can conduct their affairs properly when they are properly engaged in commercial activities such as procurement. That might well be the case, but we can illustrate from the experience of trade union colleagues, especially in the case of contracts for clinical services placed with private providers in the outsourcing of facilities to subcos, that the reality is somewhat different. We often hear that the staff representatives hear that the trust they work for is considering outsourcing some service. Of course, these are the staff who carry out that particular work. Rumours and leaks slip out before there have been any discussions with trade unions, but the trust has already made the decision to outsource and starts talks on TUPE transfers before any real dialogue has taken place.
There is a great deal wrong with that approach, given the requirements that we have talked about previously with regard to the NHS constitution. The point here is that, where management have refused to discuss anything other than the results of a decision that they have already made, staff and trade unions often have to resort to FOI to get answers to the questions they are asking. They put in their FOI request relating to how the trust has made its decision to outsource the service. Then they get the reply, “We’re not going to tell you, because it is commercially confidential.” I think the fear of trusts is not that a commercial interest is endangered but that its reputation is going to be damaged. They are not confident about negotiations with staff representatives and know that the cases that they have built are painfully weak and will not stand up to rigorous external examination.
Staff, understandably, are anxious and curious because they know that their terms and conditions are often tucked away in the business case under the heading “Savings”, which is where the debate really ought to be. That is why we never get to the truth of these things. So it is not really an issue of commercial confidentiality. It is about refusing to be open and transparent about the true intentions. This has been well documented with the subco sagas. In around 20 cases, trusts had decided to form subcos to deliver facilities management services. We could look at all the tax implications of that and the ducking and diving that follows, but we are not going to do that. We need to point out that in those cases the subcos are fully owned by the parent trust. There is no intention for them to procure anything, because that is what forming the subco delivers. There is no information or collection of details on bids from other organisations. There is no commercial competition aspect to this at all. In many cases, trusts are asked by the staff to provide the business case for going down the subco road and the answer they get back is, “Well, we are not giving you that because it is commercially confidential.” The trusts may have at least pretended to look at options, and even scored them, to arrive at the decision they have already made, but why is that process secret? Who would receive a commercial advantage from seeing that information? The trusts might argue that disclosure of the financial case might give the bidders information that they could exploit, but if there is a proper competitive tendering process, that should not be an issue at all. Even if it were, the recourse is to redact the numbers in the one or two places where they are most sensitive. The rest of the business case ought to be disclosed, but that is not what happens.
Let us assume for a moment that the trust has made a strong case, as it will have to do under the new provider selection regime. Will the new regime set out disclosure requirements in respect of business cases and so on? Looking at what NHS trusts do, are they actually put at a disadvantage by having to disclose their business case? We know what will be in those business cases, as the Treasury sets out guidance as to what is required, and most of the cases are about a rationale for change. That should not be a secret, and the old Office for Government Commerce set out guidance that covered how FOI requests were to be dealt with during the various stages of a public procurement. That guidance said clearly that business cases can and should be disclosed.
I will briefly address the wider issue of FOI requests. As the Minister may or may not be aware, I am a regular submitter of FOIs to his Department—indeed, all Government Departments and the wider NHS—and I have to say that over the past few years I have been more disappointed than delighted by the responses I have received. Many are rejected for a variety of reasons. It seems I am not alone in that respect: only this week, openDemocracy issued a new report on FOIs, called “Access Denied”, so I think we can all guess what they found. I will run through a few highlights from that report anyway: it said that 2020 was the “worst year on record” for FOI transparency. The Government exploit legal loopholes to deny access to information and, most controversially, the clearing house that openDemocracy reported on last year does not simply advise Departments on their responses, but plays a much more hands-on role, which includes drafting responses to FOI requests. I do not think that is because they want to help Departments to be as transparent as possible, but because they want to help them to avoid revealing the truth. Transparency and a commitment to the principles of freedom of information start at the top with the Department, and it should be leading on this subject.
On a slightly more positive note, there are better examples. There are trusts that work with their staff and even with the wider public and patients. They have open discussions. They do not hide their case; they make their case. If they have to engage in a tender process, they involve staff in specifications, options appraisals and questions to bidders at every stage of the process. If they can do it, why can’t every trust do it? The answer is that trusts can wriggle out of their obligations by using these loopholes in the Freedom of Information Act request procedure, and nobody is able to challenge that. It is time that changed, which is why I ask the Minister to support this new clause.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend and echo everything he has said. I have spent a great deal of my time in this place looking at the issue of wholly owned companies, trying to stop them from happening and questioning why they are happening. I think I remember sitting opposite the Minister in an Adjournment debate talking about the excitement of VAT rules and tax exemptions, a subject that is beyond the individual ken of most of us, but once we dig into it we find that the mixed messages the Government gave were not very helpful, and that underlying this problem is the culture of secrecy.
We have alluded to why this is so important: we need the openness provided by agenda meetings and locally accountable people—people we can actually talk to about our health services—and setting that culture from the top is really important. Ultimately, this is about patient safety, because once we have a culture in which there is a presumption of denying information and having to jump through hoops to get it, that permeates the entire organisation. That, sadly, is why we continue to revisit problems with patient safety. This issue is therefore really important, and I hope the Minister will look favourably on the new clause.
Edward Argar
I can reassure the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, that I am not aware of how many FOIs he tables, which is possibly as it should be; it suggests that they are handled in the appropriate way by officials, and not by me. I am sure he keeps officials busy with those requests.
I think we can all agree that transparency and openness are of key importance but—this is where the hon. Gentleman and I may diverge slightly in our views—it is also vital that genuinely commercially sensitive information is adequately protected. Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act recognises the balance that needs to be struck. It exempts from disclosure any information that would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person, including the public authority holding the information. It is, however, as he will be aware, a qualified exemption. Merely identifying that the information is commercially sensitive is not enough. The public authority holding the information must weigh up the “genuine public interest” arguments in favour of and against disclosure.
I remind the Committee that there is a robust system in place for testing such decisions. We have an independent commissioner who can scrutinise the decisions, who has the right to see the information in question and who is more than capable of challenging public authorities where he believes that disclosure is in the public interest. Beyond that, of course, those requesting the information have a right of appeal to the tribunal.
There genuinely needs to be a level playing field between public and private contractors, but the new clause would, I fear, place NHS bodies at a disadvantage in some commercial negotiations. It could mean that the NHS was not able to protect its commercially sensitive information, whereas other parties could. I struggle to see how an uneven playing field would benefit the general public and protect taxpayers’ money. I fear that the new clause would also place a significant additional burden on NHS bodies at a time of real strain and, as I have highlighted, there are already remedies in place that meet its stated aim.
I am also concerned about the power the new clause could place in the hands of those conducting commercial negotiations with the NHS. It would be for them, not the public authority, to decide if and when the release of information would pose a real and significant threat. It is difficult to see how the opinion of the organisation could be tested or challenged through the usual route of appeal, as they would not be a public authority within the scope of the Act. The Information Commissioner’s Office would be assessing an NHS body on the basis of judgments reached by a third party. I also point out that
“pose a real and significant risk”
is not a test used elsewhere in the Freedom of Information Act, and so could be open to novel interpretation by the originator of the material. For those reasons, I do not think that the new clause would achieve in a fair way what the hon. Gentleman seeks.
Justin Madders
I am relieved to hear that the Minister is not personally dealing with my FOI requests. I know he is very busy dealing with all the foundation trust applications in his in-tray. He made some fair points about ways in which the new clause might cause unintended consequences, but we wanted to put on record our concern about the way the Freedom of Information Act has been used by some trusts to avoid proper scrutiny. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South said, this is unfortunately part of a pattern in patient safety issues, and that is obviously something we have discussed in this Committee. I will not put the new clause to a vote, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw it.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 49
Protection of the title of “nurse”
“(1) A person may not practise or carry on business under any name, style or title containing the word “nurse” unless that person is registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and entered in sub part 1 or 2 of the register as a Registered Nurse or in the specialist community public health nursing part of the register.
(2) Subsection (1) does not prevent any use of the designation ‘veterinary nurse’, ‘dental nurse’ (for which see section 36K of the Dentists Act 1984) or ‘nursery nurse’.
(3) A person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level four on the standard scale.”—(Justin Madders.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Justin Madders
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This is another Ronseal new clause: it does exactly what it says on the tin—it seeks to create legal protection for the use of the title “nurse”. The title “registered nurse” is protected, but “nurse” is not, meaning that, legally, anyone can call themselves a nurse. Under current legislation, people could operate under that title even if they had no nursing qualifications or experience, or had been struck off. To protect the public, the title should be limited to those, such as registered nurses and dental nurses, who are registered with professional regulators. That would put it on a level with other titles, such as paramedic and physiotherapist, which are limited to those on professional registers.
The issue of the title of nurse not being protected in law has long caused concern to the profession. There are many examples where the title has been abused. We have seen people campaigning for election calling themselves nurses when they were not—I appreciate that that is outside the Minister’s responsibility, but it shows the power of the title, its significance and the risk we are trying to deal with through this new clause.
Earlier this month, an anti-vaccination campaigner who denies the existence of covid-19 told Nursing Times that she planned to continue to call herself a nurse despite having been struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for putting the public at risk of harm. Professor Judith Ellis, chair of the Tropical Health and Education Trust and former interim chair of the NMC, has campaigned for years for protection of the nurse title, and we commend her for her work. She said:
“It is totally unacceptable that when someone in the UK describes themselves as a ‘nurse’, the patient or their relatives have no way of knowing, or indeed checking, if that individual has the knowledge or skills to safely care for them or their loved ones. The title ‘nurse’ needs to be protected.”
Nursing is the most trusted profession in the UK, yet someone ill or vulnerable could trust a person calling themselves a nurse and that person might be nothing of the sort. NHS England’s chief nursing officer, Ruth May, has committed her support to protect the title of nurse in UK law. She said:
“The protection of a professional title provides assurance that someone using that title is competent and safe to practise”,
adding that she is
“committed to doing all we can to strengthen protection of the public.”
I welcome anything the Minister can say about this issue; I do not know whether the Department is considering it, but I have heard rumours that it might be. We have talked on a number of occasions about patient safety, transparency and openness, and this measure would be entirely consistent with those aims. Can the Minister give us some comfort or confidence that we might be able to make some progress on this important issue?
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I rise to support what the shadow Minister said. It has indeed been an area of contention for many years not only that nurses who have been struck off can use the title but that the title is used loosely. We touched on the same issue when we talked about regulation and about aesthetic procedures: when these titles of doctor, and particularly nurse, are used the public have a perception of what that means. They assume it means a registered and regulated practitioner, and therefore the patient is given far too high a degree of trust in the person simply from the use of that title. It should be a protected title.
Edward Argar
As has been set out, the new clause would protect the title of nurse by making it an offence for a person to use that title unless they were registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. I entirely understand the intention behind that; as the shadow Minister and the SNP spokesperson have set out, a title such as that comes at any time, but particularly after the past year and a half, with an expectation of the qualifications and duty of care that sit behind it, and brings with it trust. Therefore, it is extremely important that that trust is not in any way abused. I am sympathetic to the intent behind the new clause; I know it is something my constituency neighbour the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), has also spoken about in recent weeks.
The title of registered nurse is protected in law but, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston rightly says, the title of nurse itself is not, given its use across multiple professions, including dental nurses, school nurses, veterinary nurses and so on. As the interim chief nursing officer for Scotland has pointed out, the impact of any change on other groups currently using the title of nurse outside healthcare settings would need to be carefully considered. Quite rightly, the interim CNO said that there is an issue, but it needs to be carefully considered and calibrated.
I am sympathetic to the principle that protection of the title of nurse would be seen as a positive step by the profession, stakeholders and the public. I am also aware of concerns about the potential for confusion in this regard, as highlighted by the petition brought forward by Alison Leary, and I can see the benefit in providing reassurance and clarity to patients and professionals. Given the complexities inherent in making “nurse” a protected title, we need to do further work and gather further evidence to better understand the case for change and the potential impact on some of those other perfectly legitimate professions that use the title.
Dr Whitford
I recognise that the term is also used as highlighted—for example, “nursery nurse”. However, veterinary nurses and dental nurses are registered professionals, and therefore that is outwith the group we are talking about. I can see that there needs to be discussion around the more social “nursery nurse”. School nurses are also nurses.
Edward Argar
They are, but my point was the difference between registered nurses and just using the title “nurse”. The question is how, in legal terms, we catch that. I accept the hon. Lady’s point that they are all registered nurses. However, we have to make sure that, in drafting, the legislation would not inadvertently catch people who may well be perfectly legitimately registered, as she says, but could potentially be caught if we did not draft or consider the measure carefully.
Dr Whitford
I recognise the importance of drafting, but obviously the new clause is seeking to establish that the title “nurse” could be used only by nurses registered with the NMC, dental nurses and veterinary nurses—so that it could not just be used as a title by someone who is not on the register.
Edward Argar
I go back to the point I made: there are some perfectly legitimate professions—where there is an expectation and understanding of what they do and a respect for what they do—who use that title, as she alluded to. That is why we have to think a little more carefully about how we might do that, and whether it is the most effective way of assuring and enhancing patient safety.
Protection of title is only one part of the protection regime; it is important, of course, but there are other parts. We should also look at prosecutions of protection of title offences, which are extremely rare; we need to look at that in the context of how that might be enforced. Part of the reason for that is the availability of offences such as fraud by false representation that carry more substantial penalties including custodial sentences, which, I suspect, are sometimes the mechanism used to prosecute in such cases. Depending on the context in which the title is used, other legal action could be taken against a person, including criminal proceedings, civil proceedings and employment disciplinary proceedings, particularly where the person used the title to gain work or employment. There is also the opportunity to prosecute employers who hold their staff out to be regulated healthcare professionals when they are not.
To give some succour to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, we are committed to reviewing the protection of titles as part of the ongoing Government review of the regulation of healthcare professionals.
Edward Argar
Just one more sentence, then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman before I sit down.
We need to gather further evidence to better understand the case for change and whether it represents the most effective and enforceable way to promote patient safety. However, I will certainly carefully consider the proposals he has put forward, in that context, as will my colleagues. I have a few sentences left, so I will give way while I can.
Justin Madders
The Minister is sympathetic and has highlighted why the issue needs careful consideration throughout the debate. Are we able to get a formal commitment to public consultation on the issue from the Minister today?
Edward Argar
The shadow Minister pushes me a little further than I can go today. However, what I can say is that I have considerable sympathy with what he has said. I will undertake to look at what he and the right hon. Member for Leicester South have said in the context of that review.
Any subsequent change from that review and from consideration thereof probably sits most effectively, in terms of legislative reform, as part of the reform programme for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, which is most effectively taken forward via secondary legislation under section 60 of the Health Act 1999. In the context of that review, and any secondary legislation flowing from it under section 60, we will look at what he set out in his new clause.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for his positive comments. We were probably pushing our luck with getting a formal commitment from him, but it sounds like we are probably as close as we are going to get to progress on the matter without pushing the new clause formally to a vote. We will keep a close eye on the issue and will, no doubt, come back to it if progress is not made in orderly time. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 50
Access to innovative medicines and medicinal products review
“(1) The Secretary of State must undertake and publish a review of the use by the NHS of innovative medicines and medicinal products.
(2) The review must—
(a) conclude before 31 December 2022;
(b) consider ways to improve the use of innovative medicines and medicinal products within the NHS in England.
(3) The review may consider—
(a) the creation of a specific pathway to assess medicines and medicinal products for rare and less common conditions;
(b) improvements to the way in which patient and clinical experience is accommodated when considering the adoption of new medicines and medicinal products.”—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to carry out a review of the assessment and use of innovative medicines and medicinal products, and to consider how to improve access to medicines and medicinal products for people with rare and less common conditions in particular.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause would put a helpful requirement on the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the assessment and use of innovative medicines and medicinal products, which I believe would be a positive step forward. Medical innovation, including new drugs and cutting-edge treatments, produces life-saving and life-changing results, and those benefits are particularly felt by those with rare and genetic diseases.
Dr Whitford
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman shares my concerns after leaving the European Union about access for clinicians, and indeed their patients, to the European reference network, which helps to provide advice and treatment and has co-ordinated research, through the European Medicines Agency, into these rare, often childhood, diseases? They can be studied much more easily in a population of 500 million than one of 60 million.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that contribution. It is axiomatic that, if we are talking about diseases that affect small populations in this country, growing the field of people who are affected so that we can undertake better research, trials and treatment can only be a good thing. I hope that the Minister might touch on how he is ensuring that we are not disadvantaged in that way. When we add up the nearly 8,000 diseases, we are talking about 3.5 million people—one in 17, so one person on the Committee, basically—who will in their lifetime be affected by a rare disease. So actually they are not so rare at all. It is really important that we are meeting that group of people’s needs, but access to medicines and medical devices remains a problem, which is why such reporting for rare conditions is so important.
At the moment, approved medicines are available for only 5% of rare diseases and, even where licensed treatments exist, patients can face an uphill battle in accessing them on the NHS. I am sure that most of us will have at least one case of a young constituent who desperately needs medicinal cannabis to treat epilepsy. There is a political consensus that this is the right thing to do, and we ought to do it. That has been a settled matter for at least three years now, but frustratingly it is still not getting through, and that is a pattern across rare diseases. Perhaps that points us to the conclusion that the current assessment process is not quite accounting for the unique challenges presented by rare and ultra-rare diseases.
I do not think that the Minister will want to be drawn on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence methods review, because we are in that process. I have spoken in multiple debates about my enthusiasm for NICE, and its processes and expertise, but clearly something is missing. My working theory is around evaluation. Again, if we have a small patient population, the data is noisy and there are higher degrees of uncertainty due to the small sample sizes. That leads us nicely to the point that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire made about trying to grow those pools. At the moment, we are unable to get first-in-class treatments in many cases, which we should want to do something about.
Herein lies the squeeze, as the medicines for rare and ultra-rare diseases are often assessed by processes that were designed for drugs with larger target populations. The statistics are a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, which creates a severe disadvantage. The purpose of the new clause is to get the Secretary of State to report generally on how we are ensuring that we are world leading and meeting population need, and then to drill down within that on how we are ensuring that the system for rarer conditions is fit for purpose. As I say, I am conscious that the methods review is ongoing, but I hope that the Minister might at least give us a sense of the general policy direction in this area, and what we might look to do differently in the future.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for this discussion. I reassure members of the Committee that the Government remain absolutely committed to ensuring that UK patients, including those with rare diseases and less common conditions, have access to the most promising medicines and medicinal products. Hon. Members raised some important points, which I will seek to address in my broader response to the new clause.
The first part of the new clause asks the Secretary of State to undertake and publish a review of the use by the NHS of innovative medicines and medicinal products. We have existing reporting tools at our disposal to monitor that. Indeed, NHS Digital publishes a bi-annual report on the use of innovative medicines by the NHS in England, known as the innovation scorecard. The latest publication from June 2021 shows that uptake of over 70% of the NICE-approved medicines reported in the scorecard has increased over the past 12 months. I can assure the Committee that we are committed to further strengthening these innovation metrics and to improving our understanding of the use of innovative medicines and medicinal products in the NHS.
The accelerated access collaborative—the umbrella organisation overseeing the health ecosystem—is also continuing to develop the AAC scorecard that monitors the impact of the programmes, and is scoping the development of an overarching innovation metric.
In the second part of the proposed new clause we seek a review to consider ways to improve the use of innovative medicines and medicinal products in the NHS in England. As I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, the accelerated access review, an independent review published in 2016, set out detailed recommendations to increase the uptake of proven and cost-effective new treatments and technologies in the NHS. The report identified several strategic barriers to UK health innovation, including fragmentation across the system, alongside a lack of horizon scanning and insufficient commercial flexibility in NHS England.
Following publication of the AAR, the Government, the NHS and partner organisations have worked closely together to increase the use of proven and cost-effective medicines. The Government established the accelerated access collaborative to bring together leaders from across the life sciences sector to tackle the barriers to the adoption of innovations in the NHS. It is delivering real success. Last year alone it helped over 300,000 patients to access proven innovations, resulting in 17,000 fewer hospital admissions and 140,000 fewer days spent in hospital, delivering more than £100 million of savings for the NHS. That is thanks to AAC programmes, such as the rapid uptake products programme, which offers bespoke support to NICE-approved innovations to address the systemic barriers that inhibit their widespread use across the NHS, and the early-stage support programme, which supports categories of new, potentially highly effective products that need support through the regulatory and approvals process.
However, the Government acknowledge that there is more we need to do to tackle unwarranted variation in the uptake of clinically proven and cost-effective treatments. This is why we recently published our ambitious life sciences vision, which was co-developed with industry following extensive engagement with stakeholders from charities, patient interest groups, the NHS and the devolved Administrations. The vision lays out our priorities to improve the use of cost-effective innovation, including new medicines and medicinal products within the NHS, with a particular focus on identifying and addressing any unwarranted variation in uptake. The AAC will continue to be at the forefront of that agenda, and work is under way to consider how to best utilise regional, local and frontline delivery partners to support the adoption and spread of proven innovations.
It is important to note that there are already mechanisms in place to assess and support medicinal products for rare and less common conditions. The innovative licensing and access pathway—ILAP—brings together the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the NHS and the devolved Administrations to provide tailored, joined-up regulatory and access guidance to businesses. The scheme began operating in 2021, and over 50 applications for innovative medicines have been received so far.
NICE also plays an important role in ensuring that patients have access to promising new innovations, including for patients with rare diseases. Through its technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies programmes, NICE makes recommendations for the NHS on whether new medicines represent a clinically effective and cost-effective use of NHS resources. Where NICE makes a positive recommendation, NHS England and Improvement and clinical commissioning groups are under statutory obligations to fund the technology. It is our intention to extend that obligation to integrated care boards.
Patients with rare diseases are already accessing effective innovations through the NICE programmes. For the drugs for rare diseases—known colloquially as orphan drugs—appraised since 2013, 87% of NICE’s technology appraisal recommendations and 100% of its highly specialised technologies programmes recommendations were positive. That is a significant and positive outcome for patients. However, I am aware of the long-standing challenges, which were alluded to by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, where evidence relating to a medical technology is uncertain. That is a particular challenge regarding rare diseases where, as he said, the population is small.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Minister for his full answer. He mentioned reviews around the innovative medicines fund and NICE methods, and it is probably wise for us to let those processes play out before looking at anything else, so I do not intend to press the new clause to a Division. However, I will leave the Minister with some final thoughts on NICE methods.
First, I hope there will be a parliamentary moment for us to engage with that and have those conversations. The process has independence for a very good reason, but we should still have views on its overall direction. I want to flag ahead of that—with a focus on combination therapies, particularly in the cancer space—that we are understanding better every day how different therapies used together can have an incredible aggregate impact on the individual.
I do not think it is breaking any great state secrets to say that the problem is that the way we pay for drugs in this country is an imperfect market. Do not get me wrong; it has found a balance, but one problem is that the treatments are—funnily enough—often priced to what we can afford to pay for. That is fine until we need to combine two different treatments from different providers, when it becomes really challenging to work out how to apportion that. If we are to achieve the innovations that we need, particularly in cancer, we will need a good answer to come out of that review.
I hope that the Minister has a watching brief on that review, and that when NICE has finished, we can have a good conversation about the outcome to ensure that it supports the goals that I think we all have. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 51
Duty on integrated care partnerships to prepare and deliver a Best Start for Life strategy
“(1) The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) After section 116B (substituted by section 20 of this Act) insert—
‘116C Duty on integrated care partnerships to prepare and deliver a Best Start for Life strategy
(1) Each integrated care partnership must—
(a) assess the needs of expectant parents, infants and young children in its area;
(b) prepare and publish a strategy to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities among expectant parents, infants and young children;
(c) consult parents and carers in the area when developing the strategy;
(d) monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy.
(2) Local authorities, NHS bodies and other relevant partners must—
(a) cooperate on delivering the strategy;
(b) have regard to the strategy when exercising their functions.’”—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause would require each Integrated Care Partnership to prepare and deliver a “Best Start for Life” strategy, in cooperation with relevant bodies.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I cannot quite remember on what day this new clause was submitted; it is towards the end of the new clauses but not at the very end, so that probably carbon dates it by 10 days or so. Nevertheless, we had some news in this space from yesterday’s Budget. We are in the strange situation of having seen effective early intervention services, such as Sure Start, take a clobbering for a decade, and then getting paid back pennies on the pound and being supposed to feel grateful for it. We are not. Nevertheless, there needs to be a commitment at all levels of Government and local government—and, in this case, integrated care boards—to have a real focus on early years.
The first 1,001 days of a child’s life, from conception to age two, are crucial. Getting things right in this period can determine what kind of life a child has and their health, wellbeing, cognitive function and psychological make-up. During those early years, a baby’s brain grows rapidly, and it doubles in size within the first year of life. As is so well established, child development is influenced by early experiences and environment, which means that it is so important to ensure that little ones in our communities get what they need—care, nurture and support—while ensuring that they are protected from neglect, harm and stress.
As the Government’s strategy in this space recognises, getting things right impacts not just on the lives of our children, but on our entire society. By ensuring that children get what they need at an early age, we can target some of the big issues that we have talked about for the last two months in this Committee: physical and mental health issues, pressures on the NHS, crime and antisocial behaviour, and drug and substance abuse. So much of that leads back to the early stages in life, and this is a matter of established science. There is no doubt that in this country, we are not very good at doing something about that. Six months or maybe even a year ago—time flies—we had a fantastic Westminster Hall debate, led by the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), who chaired a very good review in this space.
There is barely a leaf’s width of disagreement on this issue between right hon. and hon. Members of all political persuasions. The common diagnosis for why we have not made more progress is that we know that such things save public services money in a generation’s time, but we cannot demonstrate that in a cashable savings way that passes Treasury processes. I am afraid that I did not see anything yesterday to suggest that that fight is yet being won, and I hope the Minister and his colleagues are doing everything in their power to argue for early interventions. Frankly, I would argue that for pretty much all Members present, the bulk of the returns will come when someone else is sitting in our seats and our roles are somebody else’s dreams, but that should not stop us acting, because it is so significantly in the national interest and in the interests of our communities.
There are huge inequalities. The most basic health statistic is that a child born in my city will live for seven fewer years than one born in the City of Westminster—never mind the yawning chasm of almost twice that in healthy life expectancy. That is the result of smaller inequalities that all add up to different life paths: family income, financial stress, smoking and alcohol use, and access to care and services. We know that the 1,001 critical days from conception are the moment to offer really good-quality support. Families receive support from a wide range of services, including maternity, health visiting and early years, and perhaps children’s social care, mental health and paediatrics.
As well as the inequalities, there is complexity. I have mentioned five different organisations with five different uniforms, five different organisational plans and five different organisational cultures. Someone has to pull that together. We have been told throughout proceedings on the Bill that that is exactly what integrated care partnerships are here to do, so let us put a responsibility on them to do so, and to have a plan. I dare say—the Minister might say this himself—that they are more than likely to want to do that themselves, and that would be a very good thing, but I do not think we can allow variance. This should be important for everybody and all footprints should be doing it, so that the first 1,001 days are given priority in new health systems. That would have a significant impact on the long-term health and wellbeing of our country.
Dr Whitford
I rise in support of the new clause. It is important to shift the narrative from what is often a structural focus on the NHS, and catching people when they fall, to looking at wellbeing and population to allow people to be healthier and live higher-quality lives for longer.
The hon. Member for Nottingham North mentioned the slowing down of improvement in life expectancy and the variation in life expectancy, but the bigger issue is the failure to improve healthy life expectancy. The 20 years of unhealthy life expectancy faced by many across the UK, particularly in more deprived areas, put pressure on the NHS, and we have seen that come home to roost over the last decade.
A lot of those health issues, or unhealth issues, are laid down in childhood. I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for health in all policies, which conducted an inquiry into the impact of child poverty. A figure from the Faculty of Public Health that has stayed with me is that the UK loses 1,400 children a year as a direct result of poverty, including by immature birth, small birth weight, foetal alcohol syndrome, fires, road traffic accidents, alcohol and drugs, violence and suicide. That is the number of students in a large secondary school, and if the roof of a large secondary school were collapsing every single year, we would do something about it.
Often, the time to do something about that is in the 1,001 days from conception forward, as the hon. Gentleman said. That means looking at maternal health and nutrition, which is why the early years collaborative in Scotland led to the Best Start grants to mothers and children at birth, on entering nursery and on entering school.
One internationally used measure on the health of our youngest children is infant mortality—death perinatally or in the first year. In 2014, England and Scotland had the same rate of 3.6 per 1,000 live births. In Scotland, we have managed to drive the rate down to 3.2, but in England, it is currently at 3.8. In some poorer areas of the UK, the rate is worse than in parts of the global south and the developing world. That is a brutal statistic.
We talked yesterday about maternal and infant deaths, but this also relates to the attainment gap and other issues faced throughout life by those who struggle in childhood. Investing in early years saves money in the long term. That might be the pitch to the Treasury: if we gave more children a decent start in life, fewer would struggle in the education system, fewer would struggle to get jobs, and fewer would be trapped by addiction or caught in the criminal services system. Instead of picking up the pieces later through the NHS or other public services, surely we should be investing in the best start in life for all our children.
Edward Argar
We believe that the creation of integrated care boards and integrated care partnerships represents a huge opportunity to support and improve the planning and provision of services to ensure that they are more joined up and better meet the needs of expectant parents, parents, infants and young children.
We acknowledge that new clause 51 is intended to ensure that the needs of expectant parents, infants and young children are expressly considered by ICBs and ICPs through the development of a tailored strategy. We are working on bespoke guidance, which will set out the measures ICBs and ICPs should take to ensure that they will deliver for babies, children and young people. That will cover the importance of the ICP integrated care strategies having measurable objectives for babies, children and young people.
The strategy must also set out how assessed needs for the area are to be met. The Department is working with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Department for Education on the drafting of this bespoke guidance, and we will work with stakeholders in the upcoming months on refining the guidance prior to publication.
As per our general approach to the Bill, although we are clear about the statutory functions that will be conferred on ICBs—as they are currently on clinical commissioning groups—including on children’s safeguarding and special educational needs and disabilities, when it comes to implementation, we want to provide local areas with the flexibility to determine what will work best for their systems. We fear that over-prescribing system approaches in the Bill will make it harder for systems to design the approaches that will work best in their areas. That is why we believe the wording, as currently drafted, is appropriate.
Alex Norris
The point that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire made about the UK losing 1,400 children a year is sobering. Whatever comes out of the process that the Minister mentioned must to be different from what we have today, or we will keep repeating that mistake. I shared the hon. Lady’s view about the pitch to the Treasury, but we will have to demonstrate that planning cycles in this country are mature and flexible enough to reflect the fact that not everything can be delivered, and show immediate returns, before the next general election. It is a challenge, and we will have to do better in that space. I am grateful for the Minister’s response, and he addressed my concerns very well. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 52
Plan for implementing recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices review
“The Secretary of State must, within six months, publish a report containing a plan for the implementation in full of the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices review that have hitherto not been implemented.” —(Alex Norris.)
This new clause would require the implementation of any remaining recommendations from the IMMDS report.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
In February 2018, the noble Baroness Cumberlege was asked to carry out the independent medicines and medical devices review into the experiences of people—generally women—who had been treated with Primodos, sodium valproate or pelvic mesh implants. In very many cases, they had to battle for decades to be heard. They were gaslit, belittled and ignored at every turn. Some of the ways in which they were treated were just astonishing, and so upsetting. However, through that report they got their deliverance. They were vindicated: what they said had happened to them had happened to them—even though they had not been believed—and it should not have done. Acknowledging the pain that had been caused to these families was a big start in helping them come to terms with what they had experienced.
The excellent review team set out nine ways in which things would be made better, or at least a little bit easier, for those people now, and to try to prevent future incidents. Those nine recommendations should have been accepted in full. Instead, we have seen from the Government a pattern of accepting things that I suspect they were already keen to do, but otherwise taking the families for a long walk when it comes to the harder and more significant things that the Government clearly do not want to do. In aggregate, it has become a refusal to do right by these families, and that is a really poor decision.
This new clause seeks to attend to that by saying that within six months, the Secretary of State must publish a report containing a plan for the implementation of the recommendations in full. Of the nine, only four are being implemented in full and, frankly, that is not good enough. I am pleased that there has been an apology, and the families were too. I was also pleased to see legislation for a patient safety commissioner. We were lucky that the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021 was in front of us at that time, because it gave us a moment to introduce that and a devices database, which the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire and I pursued during proceedings on that Bill. Those things have a bit further to go, but they were significant, as were the promises of cultural reforms at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. We will wait to see meaningful change there. With the remaining five recommendations, there has been a mixture of in-principle acceptance, partial acceptance and, in some cases, outright denial. I do not think that is good enough, and the new clause seeks to change that.
These are the bits that we are still missing. Recommendation 3 calls for:
“A new independent Redress Agency for those harmed by medicines and medical devices”.
The Government responded that they did not accept that. The problem is that families are therefore left to rely on conventional civil and legal routes. Those are expensive and long, and who do the families sit against in the courtroom? Very big companies with very big legal teams, so there is a significant imbalance. The whole point is that, as recommendation 3 goes on to state:
“The Redress Agency will administer decisions using a non-adversarial process with determinations based on avoidable harm looking at systemic failings, rather than blaming individuals.”
That would have been really significant, but we do not have that. Instead, families are left stuck in the court system for as long as they can stick at it.
Recommendation 4 states:
“Separate schemes should be set up for each intervention—HPTs, valproate and pelvic mesh—to meet the cost of providing additional care and support to those who have experienced avoidable harm and are eligible to claim.”
Again, the Government do not accept that. These families meet exceptionally challenging needs day after day. Some have lost their house; some have had failed relationships; and all struggle with mental health, or certainly distress, as a result of what has happened, and we are not doing enough to help them. This should have been done, if not on day one, at the very first possible moment for support, rather than us expecting them to fall back on the conventional system, as they did. What have they gained by their vindication?
Recommendation 5 states:
“Networks of specialist centres should be set up to provide comprehensive treatment, care and advice for those affected by implanted mesh; and separately for those adversely affected by medications taken during pregnancy.”
The Government accept that only in part; it is particularly with regard to valproate that those affected will not get those centres. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s justification for that. I understand that valproate is different, in the sense that its use is ongoing in certain situations where that remains medically appropriate. However, the lack of specialised knowledge is a real issue. If there is not specialisation, we need a real sense that there is a universal step change in knowledge and experience in this area to give us greater comfort.
Recommendation 8 states:
“Transparency of payments made to clinicians needs to improve. The register of the General Medical Council (GMC) should be expanded to include a list of financial and non-pecuniary interests for all doctors”.
That is very basic. There were relationships between clinicians and big drug companies that were unknown to the families when certain treatments were suggested. The Government accept the recommendation in principle, but will not use the General Medical Council model, preferring to go practice by practice. That is big mistake. Our constituents can go to one easy, obvious place—our website—to find out our exact financial interests if they have concerns or just want to know them. We ought to be able to do the same, through the GMC, when it comes to doctors. Again, there is an unwillingness to move quickly enough to resolve these issues.
Finally, it remains surprising that the Government have not availed themselves of recommendation 9. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response on this point. It states:
“The Government should immediately set up a task force to implement this Review’s recommendations. Its first task should be to set out a timeline for their implementation.”
Of course there should be a taskforce, including families and the broader aspects of the state, to do that. Again, the Government say they accept the recommendation in part, but the reality is that they have no plans to establish an independent taskforce. There is a patient reference group, and we of course support its work, but it is not in control; it is not at the table. The problem is that these things were done to families; they had no agency and no say. The solutions that come out of this cannot follow that same model. Once again, families are having things done to them, rather than being worked with.
I meet representatives of these groups frequently, as I know colleagues do. I like meeting them. These are good people who have been through incredible things and have extraordinary dignity and courage, not to mention that they are brilliant campaigners. They are probably sick of seeing me, and I would rather see them in happier circumstances. When I ask them what is next, they say that they are campaigning again. They campaigned over many years to be listened to, and were proven right in the most absolute terms, but they feel they have to campaign again to get the justice that should flow from that report and from their vindication. What an extraordinary demonstration of how we have let them down. They fought for too long. It is time that we stood up for them and did right by them by implementing the recommendations in full; otherwise we fail them again. I hope to hear of significant progress from the Minister.
Dr Whitford
I support the new clause. For a surgeon, knowing that an operation that they were trained to carry out, and performed in good faith, has caused harm is one of the worst things that can happen. I remember how I felt in the mid-1980s when we began to realise the impact of contaminated blood. It had a huge impact on how I operated. I used special diathermy techniques to avoid blood transfusion in all elective circumstances, and that is something I carried on throughout my time doing breast cancer surgery.
In this case, there may well have been doctors who were dealing with device companies and so on—that regulatory declaration is absolutely needed—but there will be a much greater number of surgeons who were using a device that was licensed and was given to them as the correct, safe device to use.
I find it shocking that although the report was commissioned by the Government, they have accepted fewer than half of its recommendations. The others directly relate to patients who have suffered harm, whether that is the women who had vaginal meshes inserted, or the mothers of children who were harmed by the use of Primodos or sodium valproate.
Sodium valproate is still an excellent anti-epileptic and will not disappear, but it is not a matter for specialist centres. It is so widely used that it is critical that within primary care and on product boxes it is made clear that women who are looking to conceive or who are of child-bearing age should not be left on Epilim; that should be discussed with them right from when they are young teenagers, so they can think about the impact later on.
The recommendations that have not been accepted are not to do with reorganising licensing, or a yellow card system; they are all recommendations that relate to women. That is really disappointing. The redress for them—the setting up of specialist centres to try to repair the damage as far as possible—is what is not being provided. The Government should look at the fact that those are the recommendations they have skirted around and not accepted. These women and the children affected have gone through enough.
Edward Argar
It is quite right that we articulate once again the suffering that was the genesis of the review. The hon. Members for Nottingham North and for Central Ayrshire spoke with passion on the issue. We are talking about procedures that had a dreadful impact on individuals and their families.
The Government recognise the effect that the independent medicines and medical devices safety review, and the lived experiences behind it, has had on all the women and children impacted, and their families. That is why, on the day after the review was published, the Government issued a full and unreserved apology on behalf of the health and care sector for the time it took to listen and respond.
I am grateful to Baroness Cumberlege for all the time and effort she put into her report. As hon. Members will be aware, that sentiment was expressed at the time by the Minister responsible for responding to the report, who is now of course the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The Government published our response to the review on 21 July this year, after carefully considering each of the review’s nine strategic recommendations and the 50 actions for improvement in greater depth. Our response set out an ambitious programme for change that, at its core, is focused on improving patient safety.
The Government accepted the vast majority of the strategic recommendations and actions for improvement. I reassure the Committee that we are committed to making progress on all accepted recommendations at pace. That is why, in our response to the review, we committed to publishing an update on our progress in implementing the accepted recommendations 12 months after the initial response. I know that hon. and right hon. Members from across the House will rightly vigorously continue to hold the Government to account on that. I reassure them that the Government take very seriously our responsibility to implement the accepted recommendations at pace.
Many of the recommendations will introduce large-scale changes to patient safety, and we have a duty to get their implementation right. I hope it will encourage hon. Members to hear that the Government have already made strong progress on implementing many of the accepted recommendations of the review. I will turn to those in more detail, because I think it is important that we update the Committee and the House.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for colleagues’ contributions. The comments of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire presaged what the Minister said: yes, the Government have been able to do the more strategic aspects of this, but they have done half a job. The half they left out relates to people who have fought for so long just to get a little support, and recognition that they have been badly wronged in a way that significantly changed their life. They really do not ask for much—just a bit of support. It is not a nebulous or open-ended ask; it is just for what was in the report, and that does not seem too much to me.
The Government have been in defensive mode for a long period on this issue, but I desperately hope that they do not think they have done the job, because they really have not. I also hope that they do not think these women will go away, because they absolutely will not, and a lot of right hon. and hon. Members in this place want to help them and give them a platform from which their voices will be heard. A good way to act would have been through the new clause. With that in mind, I intend to press it to a Division.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause is a fitting follow-up to new clause 52, in the sense that the theme of the report was that, yes, dreadful things happened, but—as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said—largely with a complete lack of knowledge among clinicians, who were just following the guidelines, as they were supposed to and had been trained to. A common theme beyond that is that this happened to women, and when women tried to express their concerns, the system was not geared up to listen. Instead, the response of the system was to write them off—some of the name calling will probably not amaze us, but it should.
The new clause seeks to ensure explicitly that local care boards take into account the views of women on reproductive health. High-quality reproductive healthcare should be accessible and individualised at each stage of a woman’s life, from puberty and through the years of menstruation to the menopause and beyond. This is something that we will discuss tomorrow through the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). She will put the case well, I have no doubt.
The system should enable women to decide whether, when and how often to have children by informing them about, and providing easy and timely access to, the full range of contraceptive methods. Maintaining good reproductive health and wellbeing has profound and positive long-term effects for women and wider society. However, at the moment, inherent system fractures in the commissioning and delivery of reproductive healthcare services mean that many women are left struggling to access basic reproductive care, including contraception and gynaecological cancer screening.
The impact of the current situation is stark. Almost half of British women have experienced poor sexual and reproductive health, and that figure should give us pause. We know that since the Health and Social Care Act 2012—again, this is something in that Act that we should want to change—reproductive healthcare has been compromised by a lack of strategic prioritisation and prevention, a deeply fragmented commissioning landscape, and of course that ongoing theme of significant cuts to public health, which in this case include a 14% real-terms reduction for sexual and reproductive health services. Again, that has been felt more by poorer communities, and all those factors have resulted in gaps in the reproductive care pathway, creating disconnected and disjointed care for women. For example, in many areas of the country, women are not able to access a fitting for an intrauterine device—one of the most effective contraceptive methods—or cervical smear tests in a similar healthcare setting, meaning that they have to go through multiple invasive exams in different settings. Of course, it is important that those tests take place, but we should seek to make it the easiest process that it can possibly be.
Women approaching the menopause are not able to access treatment for heavy menstrual bleeding at community clinics or GP practices, because many are not commissioned to provide that service or lack the funding or trained staff, resulting in those women being bounced around the system while living with obviously debilitating conditions. This Bill is an important moment to tackle long-standing structural challenges in reproductive healthcare. If we are truly moving towards greater integration and collaboration within the healthcare system, this is a really good chance to implement holistic women’s reproductive healthcare services at a regional and local level. Through listening to women and integrating care around the needs of the individual, rather than the institutions, we can deliver holistic care across the breadth of reproductive healthcare.
I know that there is a broader duty in this Bill for integrated care boards to promote the involvement of their patients and carers in decisions about the provision of health and care services, as well as having regard for inequalities. This new clause builds on that by wiring in engagement with women, because it is not happening. Again, if we just keep doing things in the same way, we will get the same outcome, so this is an opportunity to design a healthcare system for women that listens to women and builds in accountability. That will help ensure that reproductive healthcare pathways fully meet the needs of those who they are meant to serve, which would be a very positive outcome.
Karin Smyth
I rise to support the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North. He is absolutely right that this new clause follows neatly from the previous one, because I am in no doubt that if women were more involved and more listened to and had more power within the healthcare system, the debacle around vaginal mesh would not have got so far, and we would not sadly still be in a state where the recommendations have not been implemented. This is about power, listening, and having a voice in the system with regards to reproductive healthcare planning.
In the Chamber last week, I said regarding my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East’s menopause revolution that when we worked on a women’s health strategy in the late 1980s, we barely mentioned the menopause. We were looking at reproductive rights even then, and for those of us who have followed this issue over a period of 30-odd years, it is deeply worrying to see where we still are. Again, this comes back to very basic patient care. I will certainly be supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East tomorrow to start the menopause revolution, which is going terribly well. We are hoping for serious improvements in healthcare over the coming years, and this new clause highlighting reproductive healthcare planning is really significant for the voice it should give to women at this important stage in their lives.
Edward Argar
It is possibly lucky for the Government that the hon. Member for Swansea East is not on this Committee, because she can be extremely persuasive. In my role at the Ministry of Justice, she managed to get a number of things out of me by persistent campaigning.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate today. Women’s reproductive health remains a priority, and it is vital that women’s voices are listened to, particularly when it comes to their own healthcare. That is why we are developing a new section of the reproductive health strategy, which will of course sit alongside the developing women’s health strategy. They will both seek to address issues relating to women’s reproductive health.
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady may be about to agree with me; she is welcome to do so.
Dr Whitford
When we debated vaginal mesh, Primodos and valproate in the Chamber, one of the big issues that came up—I certainly spoke about it—was the issue within medicine, with doctors. What work will be done with Health Education England and medical schools to ensure that young student doctors, and doctors in early training, recognise this terrible dismissal of women’s concerns about all aspects of their health? The menopause is a classic, but there are many others.
Edward Argar
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that. We need to get across, loud and clear, to our future clinicians almost right from the start—from their training and early education—the message that everyone’s health concerns matter equally, subject, obviously, to clinical decision making. I hope and believe that HEE and others will engage with that process in the context of the women’s health strategy. We do not want it to be a document that just sits on a shelf, or want it to look at issues in a siloed way; it should look at them across the piece. Over many years, there have been strategies on particular aspects of health. In the strategy, we seek to bring together a whole range of factors, so that we can look at how women interact with the healthcare system, and how to meet their needs holistically.
We want to maximise the independence of ICBs, so that they function in the way that best suits the needs of their patients and their organisations. We are therefore keeping their legislative obligations proportionate; that brings us back to a debate that the Committee has had multiple times about the permissive nature of the legislation. I agree that appropriate representation is essential in healthcare planning. I fear that the new clause is overly specific and not necessarily in keeping with the obligations on ICBs set out in clause 19 on general functions.
The Bill already puts obligations on ICBs that will help to ensure that relevant groups are fully represented and consulted in decision making. In particular, ICBs will need to ensure that they have taken appropriate advice from a broad range of those with professional expertise. As the work of ICBs will inevitably cover reproductive health, that requirement ensures that relevant groups are included in this work. Furthermore, as we discussed in the opening sittings of the Committee, local areas will have the flexibility to determine any further membership of the ICB beyond the minimum for which we have legislated. That discretion will allow local areas to ensure appropriate representation.
On working in partnership with the non-profit sector and local community groups, I recognise the essential role that those organisations and groups play, and agree that they should be involved in strategic decision making where appropriate. Each ICB and their partner local authorities will be required to establish an integrated care partnership. We expect the ICP to bring together organisations from across health, social care and public health, and representatives from wider areas where appropriate. That could include organisations from the voluntary and community sector. The ICP will be tasked with promoting partnership arrangements and developing a plan to address the health, social care and public health needs in its area. As that will include reproductive healthcare needs, we would expect relevant local groups to be represented. The ICB and local authorities will have to have regard to that plan when making decisions. That will enable more joined-up planning and provision, both in the NHS and by local authorities, which will enhance the services that people receive.
Existing and proposed duties already address the concerns underlying the new clause and ensure effective public involvement. We have concerns about imposing additional duties on individual services. Our approach enables local NHS bodies, supported by national guidance, to decide how best to involve patients and the public in the planning of commissioning arrangements, and in developing and considering proposals to change them, so we are not convinced that the additions in the new clause in respect of reproductive healthcare are necessary.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South. Many people will be looking with great interest at what happens tomorrow. She spoke about the menopause not having been on the political agenda for such a long time. I think that that has changed, and not before time, so we are all very much looking forward to what will happen.
We have tested the Minister on the permissiveness point quite a lot, so by this, the 22nd sitting of the Committee, I think it is possibly an established fact, and I do not intend to divide the Committee, but I do want to come back on what he said about the sufficiency of the duties as drawn. When we have pushed for individual plans for each ICB—say, on inequalities, on the first 1,001 days and on drugs and health—there has almost been a sense of, “Well, of course these bodies will want to do that. It will be their local decision, but of course the evidence will drive them to do that.” I do not think we can say, on women’s health, that that is an “of course”, because we know that actually, historically, it can be very much an afterthought.
The thought that I might leave colleagues with on this issue is that we are having a growing conversation in this country about misogyny, and one of the things that you will hear men say a lot—I have said this myself, because I mean it—is, “We have to hold one another to account for the things we say and the way we act.” I completely agree with that. In that spirit, we have to understand that if a lot of the basic reproductive healthcare things that we are talking about today happened to men, we would be doing them in McDonald’s drive-thrus. It is as simple as that. Therefore, if we are to have an honest conversation with one another about misogyny in this country, it is that sort of thing that we mean. It is not always about pointing fingers and blaming, or policing jokes, which I think is important; it is actually about saying that services are different because these things do not happen to us and we should be more mindful of that and should want to change. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 54
Enhanced data collection
“(1) The National Health Service Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 14Z43 (inserted by section 19 of this Act) insert—
“14Z43A Duty to develop data collection systems
Integrated care boards must—
(a) develop single whole-system IT systems across the whole of their integrated care system with the explicit purpose of supporting data collection and sharing;
(b) prioritise the use of those data systems for streamlining patient pathways;
(c) establish mandatory standards for patient-initiated follow ups; and
(d) use the data systems developed under paragraph (a) to report on a regular basis performance against improving patient outcomes in line with the standards established under paragraph (c).””—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause requires ICSs to develop digital data collection and sharing systems, and use them to track performance against mandatory standards, with specific regard to patient-initiated follow ups.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, that the clause be read a Second time.
I keep going, Ms Elliott. Again, you can perhaps file this under gluttony for punishment. I do not intend to talk for very long about this new clause. I am sure that the Minister will be able to give us comfort easily on the point of new clause 54. It is just to develop the point about data one last time before our carriages turn into pumpkins.
A specific part of the Bill deals with data, and we had some very good conversations at that point. I will not repeat any of that. I will explain what I am chancing my arm at in new clause 54. I talked previously about systems and the problems with systems talking to one another. Here, we are asking integrated care boards to develop
“single whole-system IT systems”.
That is perhaps at the top end in terms of what should be aspirational and what is in fact achievable, but I do want to pursue the point a little.
Data is critical, as we have said before, in driving improvements. NHS England’s own website talks about the need to use it to improve services and decision making, to identify trends and patterns, to draw comparisons, to predict future events and outcomes and to evaluate services. But to do that, we have to have some sense of consistency. I will not repeat the arguments around the General Data Protection Regulation—we had those at length—but that shows the challenges if we do not get it right.
Going down to ICS level, if we are going to have a system that really does harness all the information, we need systems that talk to one another. Therefore, the prescription in proposed new subsection (a) is that it is a single system. As I have said, that is the stretch target. What I am hoping to get from the Minister is a sense of where he thinks this will land. Is it the same organisations using the same systems but trying to find a new way to do them, or will there be some new, novel approach to how we support footprints to do that? It is an established fact that data is going to be really important to local systems, so we want to give them the fairest wind to make the best use of it that they can.
Dr Whitford
On new clause 54, I just want to speak to proposed new subsection (d)—the use of data to assess performance against outcomes. Between 2009 and 2019, there was really no significant national audit of quality of breast cancer services in England, even though some of that audit had been carried out in previous years. Part of that was due to the fracturing of the system from the social care Act. There might be only one breast unit within an area, and quality was left to commissioners. How can commissioners measure whether a local breast unit is treating people properly or achieving the aspired-to targets?
In Scotland, 19 of the commonest cancers are audited; I was involved in developing the breast cancer standards in 2000, and they have been updated many times since. They are assessed annually with an annual peer review conference, where clinicians will openly discuss the challenges they face and therefore will share the solutions many of them have come up with. The clinical things that we know will affect the survival and outcomes of our women in the future are all set as national benchmarks. It is important that, while data would be collected locally, it is benchmarked against national standards.
The Getting It Right First Time project was restarted in England a few years ago but, to my knowledge, although the Getting It Right First Time for breast cancer report was completed at the end of 2019, I have not seen it published. That appeared to be due to the election in December 2019; perhaps the Minister can clarify whether the breast cancer GIRFT report has now been published, when it might be published and what other GIRFT reports have come out.
The problem is that, even if that report were published now, two years after its completion, it would largely be based on data from 2018, and therefore clinicians would shrug their shoulders and say, “Out of date.” It is important that data is used in a timeous manner to audit as quickly as possible, so that the audit loop can be closed and services improved. Having led on this process in Scotland, I saw the change in standards between 2001, when we began the first assessment, and 2005, and it is an incredibly satisfying, not frightening, thing for clinicians to see year on year the quality of care delivered by their unit driven up. There must be national standards, but local audit.
Edward Argar
This new clause would create an obligation on ICBs to develop system-wide data-sharing IT systems. It would also require them to set and report on targets linked to outputs from this system. I recognise the importance of effective IT systems for the efficient delivery of services and for holding systems to account. However, we must set that against seeking to maximise the independence of ICBs to function in a manner that best suits the needs of their patients and organisations.
The obligations set out in the Bill are designed to establish a framework which ensures that ICBs fulfil their functions properly, while granting them as much discretion as possible in how they do so. The provisions in the Bill strike the balance between conferring the necessary duties and functions on ICBs to operate safely and effectively, and avoiding being overly prescriptive in any specific area. By placing too many statutory duties on ICBs, the risk is that innovation and locally led solutions may be stymied and focus may be taken away from their primary function of arranging for the provision of health services.
Of course, ICBs should be committed to improving patient pathways. However, we believe the duties already set out in the Bill are sufficient to ensure this happens. Further to the requirements set out in the Bill, there are already specific relevant provisions elsewhere in legislation. Section 251B of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 places a duty on certain health or social care organisations, which would include ICBs, to share information about an individual with certain persons where this will facilitate the provision of health services or care to the individual and is in the individual’s best interests.
In addition, there is significant work already under way on data strategy, which will have a direct impact on ICBs. The data strategy “Data Saves Lives: Reshaping health and social care with data” sets out commitments to transform the way that data is used across the health and care system, giving patients control of their health data and enabling staff to save more lives through improved care and treatment. It recognises that ICBs will help the NHS to join up data and delivery more seamlessly, working side by side with local government, third sector partners, and the wider health and care system to address long-term challenges, and sets out that each ICB will be expected to use digital and data to drive systems working, connect health and care providers, improve outcomes and put the citizen at the heart of their own care.
The data strategy was published in draft for engagement in June and a final version will be published by the end of the year. It sets out a range of commitments to ensure that health and care professionals have the data they need to provide the best possible care, that local and national decision makers are supported with data, and that data for adult social care are improved. It also includes commitments on every ICB having shared care records in place, and commitments in relation to data sharing between NHS organisations and supporting the underpinning infrastructure in order to ease data sharing.
Alex Norris
This is not something that we will be able to resolve with top-down prescription, but I have made the point that I hope we will do everything we can at a national level to model best practice, to demonstrate best practice and to give our local systems access to best-practice systems, because that will be very important. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 56
Domestic violence training for GPs
“(1) The National Health Service Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 83B (inserted by paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 of this Act) insert—
“83C Duty concerning domestic violence and abuse
(none) Integrated care boards must ensure that specialist domestic violence and abuse training, support and referral programmes are universally available to all general practitioners.””—(Alex Norris.)
This new clause adds a requirement for specialist domestic violence and abuse programmes to be available universally throughout general practice.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alex Norris
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Domestic abuse is an issue of significant interest across this place. We know that two women a week are killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales alone. As we mentioned the other day, a quarter of women will experience domestic abuse in the course of their lifetime, which has devastating effects. It impacts on both the physical and mental health of survivors and their children, and it has a terrible cost in general to everybody, including a financial cost.
New clause 56 would impose a duty at a local level to ensure that GPs have access to specialist domestic violence and abuse training. It is something that would be very welcome, and we are proposing a duty for integrated care boards to provide that. GPs are a credible point of contact for people in violent relationships. Some 80% of women in a violent relationship seek help from health services first. In some cases, that is their only contact. Training for GPs is vital to ensure that such contact is of the best possible quality. A study of women in violent relationships in the Netherlands found that 50% of women who did not speak to their GP about the matter would have done so if the GP had been in a position to approach it. Moreover, 50% of the women who did talk to their GP did so because they hoped to be referred on, so they wanted to have a high-quality conversation with someone who knew the system.
From my time prior to this place and my experience in Nottingham, I have a lot of enthusiasm for the IRIS programme—the identification and referral to improve safety programme. A trial carried out by Bristol University found that the training programme led to up to six times more women receiving the help they needed, and that it boosted the number of referrals to specialist domestic violence agencies. After IRIS training, GPs reported being better able to assess domestic violence risks and a greater awareness of services, while 99% of service users felt listened to and 87% felt safer.
The evidence is that such training works. This is of course not the way in which we should write a new clause, but I am saying that IRIS should be universal or something like it. I would leave the “something like it” to the provider market and to commissioners but, in general, the principle is that all GPs should have training so that they can understand and act on domestic abuse and have the right resources to provide support and make skilful onward referrals, so that the system can wrap its arms around an individual who is trying to get out of an abusive situation. That would be exceptionally important for such women, and I hope the Minister will have some thoughts about how we can get to a universal, IRIS-like level of engagement with our GPs.
Edward Argar
The new clause would require ICBs to provide specialist domestic violence and abuse training, support and referral programmes to all GPs, with the aim of strengthening the health response to domestic abuse and improving links between the NHS and voluntary sector support for victims. We have concerns about the new clause, which is why we cannot accept it, but I hope that I can set out to the shadow Minister my reasoning.
Domestic abuse, as we discussed yesterday when considering another proposed new clause, is a terrible crime, and it can have a devastating impact on victims and survivors. It is also important that we remember that children are often just as much victims as the victims themselves, through the experiences that they have of domestic abuse and domestic violence. The Government are clear that there is absolutely no excuse for abuse. Tackling domestic abuse and supporting victims, survivors and their children is a key priority for Government, now more than ever.
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and the forthcoming domestic abuse strategy will help to provide a whole-system approach to protect and support victims and their children. The measures in the 2021 Act seek to promote awareness by introducing a statutory definition of domestic abuse, and to recognise children, as I alluded to, as victims in their own right, in order to protect and support both, tackle perpetrators, transform the justice response, and drive consistency and better performance in the response to domestic abuse.
The 2021 Act also sets out the convening of local domestic abuse partnership boards, with healthcare representation. We recognise the key role that healthcare services play within a whole-system approach to tackling domestic violence. Healthcare services must identify signs of risk and harm, enable victims and survivors to come forward, and provide timely integrated care and support. We know how important it is that statutory agencies and professionals properly understand and react to domestic abuse. However, I hope that I can reassure the Committee that placing in the Bill a formal duty on ICBs to ensure that specialist domestic violence and abuse training, support and referral programmes are universally available to all GPs is not necessary.
General practice is delivered by multidisciplinary teams, rather than just GPs, and existing Care Quality Commission registration requirements include a review of practices’ safeguarding processes. In addition, NHSEI’s ICS people guidance sets an expectation that ICBs will foster learning and continuing professional development. Going further, the Bill, in proposed new section 14Z41 of the National Health Service Act 2006, imposes a duty that each ICB
“must, in exercising its functions, have regard to the need to promote education and training for the persons mentioned in section 1F(1)”
of the 2006 Act.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Again, I break the convention that Whips do not speak, because this issue is close to my heart. I listened carefully to the discussions yesterday, and to what the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, and the Minister have said on the new clause, but if we looked at domestic abuse as a disease or virus, given the fact that it kills women, it kills people in their homes, and has mental and economic impacts that affect people’s overall health, we would certainly ensure that GPs were trained on it. Why can we not do the same thing with domestic abuse?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. In part, the reason is because this is sadly not a well drafted new clause. It is very narrowly drafted to GPs, not recognising the multidisciplinary nature of how healthcare is delivered in GP practices. I suspect that we all have correspondence from constituents—whether happy or unhappy—going to doctor associates, practice nurses and others. That is one of my key concerns, but let me articulate a little more what is already being done. I see where she is coming from. As I mentioned yesterday, I was the Minister with responsibility for victims of domestic violence, and of crime in general, when I was in the Ministry of Justice, so it is something that I am very familiar with. It is about raising awareness not just with GPs, but within the police and a range of agencies. My challenge, just before she intervened, was partly about the way the new clause is drawn, but let me articulate a little further our views on it. I am keen to do so before the business possibly collapses early in the House, and we have to adjourn in order that I can respond to the Adjournment debate.
Section 1F of the 2006 Act defines a wide group of people, covering persons who are employed, or who are considering becoming employed, in an activity that involves or is connected with the provision of services as part of the health service in England. That duty on ICBs would already cover general practitioners, but it goes wider. I appreciate that the new clause goes beyond training, so I will also discuss the support and referral elements that the hon. Member for Nottingham North talked about.
The NHS provides care and support to victims of domestic abuse through a range of healthcare services. This response is centred around ensuring that healthcare professionals are trained to spot the signs of domestic abuse and those at risk; to make safe and sensitive enquiry of the issue; to know where to refer people to get further support, and to know when and how to share information appropriately with colleagues and other organisations.
All NHS staff must undertake annual mandatory safeguarding training, which includes focus on domestic abuse. NHS England, NHS Improvement and Health Education England are reviewing mandatory safeguarding training for all health professionals to ensure that they are fully equipped with the key skills, knowledge and principles to protect all citizens. The Government published an online domestic abuse resource for health professionals and have developed a number of training modules with the Institute of Health Professionals, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of General Practitioners.
From 2018 to 2020, the Department managed £2 million of funding for the domestic abuse pathfinder programme, which created a model health response for survivors of domestic violence and abuse in acute, community and mental health services. The pathfinder toolkit was published in 2020 as the result of emerging promising practice at our pilot sites, coupled with the expertise of the pathfinder consortium of specialist domestic abuse organisations, to encourage best practice across the health system. Pathfinder has given us a model for our response to domestic abuse in healthcare. It is a model for integrated, joined-up and trauma-informed care and support, with healthcare settings and the voluntary sector working together.
As the shadow Minister mentioned, the Department of Health and Social Care has also funded the IRIS programme, to which I pay tribute. IRIS is a training, referral and advocacy model to support clinicians in better supporting patients who are affected by domestic violence and abuse, and to increase the awareness of domestic violence and abuse within general practice. IRIS is recognised by the DHSC as good practice, and via the National Institute for Health Research we funded a study that demonstrated the effectiveness of the IRIS programme at scale. I am delighted to note that the study won the 2020 Royal College of General Practitioners research paper of the year award.
I am proud that the Government have championed the building of that evidence base. I believe that it would not be best or appropriate, however, for the legislation to require local health and care systems to adopt specific programmes. Indeed, such detailed requirements would reduce local health and care partners’ flexibility to meet the needs of their local populations or to engage with particular local organisations and expertise in delivering their programmes.
Beyond ICBs, I see a huge opportunity for integrated care partnerships to support improved services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and other forms of harm, through better partnership working and joint planning of services. The Government have also developed a cross-Government strategy for tackling violence against women and girls, and will develop a cross-Government domestic abuse strategy.
As committed to in the tackling violence against women and girls strategy, the DHSC will continue to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to promote evidence-based approaches to tackling violence and abuse through guidance and engagement with the new system.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I am more than happy to wait for the domestic abuse strategy, but I really hope that such measures will feature in it, and that when the strategy goes around various Departments for their comments, the Minister will make a commitment—
Edward Argar
May I make the offer to the hon. Gentleman that I or the relevant Minister leading on this—whoever is more appropriate—will engage directly with him?
Alex Norris
That is very welcome, and in that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 57
Cancer strategy
“Within 12 months the Secretary of State must—
(a) publish a new cancer strategy; and
(b) either designate a minister or appoint a national lead with responsibility for enacting its implementation.” —(Alex Norris.)
This new clause requires the publication of a new cancer strategy, with a minister or other person made responsible for its delivery.
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 64—Cancer treatment data reporting—
“(1) Beginning within 6 months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish each month data on—
(a) the number of patients awaiting treatment for cancer,
(b) the number of patients with a cancer diagnosis, and
(c) what NHS’s previous estimate was of the number of patients who would have a cancer diagnosis at that point in time.
(2) Six months after the publication of the first report under subsection (1), and every six months thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish a report on the action being taken to reduce the number of patients awaiting treatment for cancer.”
Alex Norris
I am conscious of other business, so if I am interrupted, I will not take it as rudeness.
Alex Norris
New clauses 57 and 64 both relate to cancer. It is not quite possible to quantify the damage done by cancer in this country because we end up just throwing big numbers around. In the UK, there are 375,000 new cases and 166,000 cancer deaths each year. Each of those numbers represents a person with a devastated family. I lost my father to cancer in my infancy—35 years ago in January—and that loss is something that lives with a family for the rest of their lives.
We know that one in two people born after 1960 will be diagnosed with cancer. Our investment in cancer services is £5 billion a year, but the cost dwarfs that, at over £18 billion. Nearly 40% of cancers are preventable. Happily—this is something we should be proud of in this country—the developments that we are making in medical and technological areas mean that cancers are increasingly survivable, with the survival rate doubling in the last four decades. Better diagnosis and treatments mean that nearly 50% of those diagnosed with cancer in England and Wales now survive for 10 or more years, and there is no reason for that to stop increasing.
Edward Argar
New clause 57 seeks to commission, as the shadow Minister has said, a new cancer strategy and to designate a Minister or appoint a national lead with responsibility for enacting its implementation. The Government’s current cancer strategy is incorporated in the NHS long-term plan, published in 2019. That plan sets out ambitions that by 2028 the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 will rise from around 54% to 75% of cancer patients, and 55,000 more people each year will survive their cancer for at least five years after diagnosis. The shadow Minister is right to highlight the importance of the issue as something that touches everyone in some way, directly or indirectly. In the midst of the pandemic last year, I lost my uncle to cancer, and I suspect families all over the country are experiencing something similar among their family and friends. That is in the nature of the disease that we are talking about.
The NHS long-term plan contains a series of commitments to support the ambition. It focuses primarily on fast and early diagnosis, raising greater awareness of the symptoms of cancer, lowering the threshold for referral by GPs, accelerating access to diagnosis and treatment, and maximising the number of cancers that we can identify through screening. That ambition was intentionally set at a stretching level. Achieving it requires material progress in all of the long-term plan’s activities as well as successful innovation. The covid-19 pandemic has made the ambition even more challenging because of the additional pressure it has put on the NHS. It is still too early to assess the extent of the pandemic’s effect on that ambition in the long term. We remain absolutely committed to the need to prioritise earlier diagnosis to improve cancer outcomes. This ambition was strongly supported by the many cancer charities that worked with us to agree the priorities for the NHS cancer programme, and I pay tribute to them all.
I understand the intention behind the new clause. The covid-19 pandemic affected all NHS services in creating an environment unforeseen at the time by the long-term plan. In response to the pandemic, NHS England and NHS Improvement set up the cancer recovery taskforce, which provided advice and guidance on the national strategy for the recovery of cancer services. It monitored progress against the aims of restoring demand, reducing waiting times and ensuring sufficient capacity for cancer diagnosis and treatment. The taskforce published the cancer recovery plan in December last year, which fed into NHS operational and planning guidance outlining how the NHS would return to its pre-pandemic cancer performance within the long-term plan. It is thanks to the taskforce and forward planning that the CQC’s “State of Care 2020/21” report says that cancer services have achieved the best response and recovery, generally closing the gap in access on pre-pandemic levels more than any other area, although it notes that this still leaves a large backlog, which the recovery plan is focused on tackling.
The long-term plan commits NHS England and NHS Improvement to speed up the path from innovation to business as usual, spreading proven new techniques and technologies and reducing variations. I therefore consider the new clause, while it covers an important issue and quite rightly draws it to the attention of the Committee, not strictly necessary, because an ambitious cancer plan is already embedded in the long-term plan, with clear plans in place to support the recovery of cancer services from the pandemic specifically. We are fully committed to the actions within these plans and to seeing the long-term plan to its conclusion.
Dr Whitford
The Minister has not mentioned the workforce, specifically in radiology, which is very much the central specialty in diagnosing cancer. The data show that, once someone has been recognised as a cancer patient, they are still being treated relatively quickly—as he highlights, there is a shorter gap—but the problem is actually diagnosing someone, and the radiology workforce has a drastic shortage.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is distinguished in this field herself, from her previous career. She quite rightly highlights the importance of the workforce. Since 2010, in both radiology and radiography, there have been significant percentage increases in the workforce of those specialist professions. However, she is right to highlight that, while we have seen a significant percentage increase, in absolute terms we still need to do more to grow those professions. We have plans in place to do that, but that is a slow task; it can, in some cases, take up to 10 or 12 years to become an experienced specialist in that field.
On those increases since 2010, the Government would argue that we put measures in place, but it is also important to recognise that the previous Labour Government were working on this as well, hence the pull-through; those radiologists and radiographers did not magically appear immediately after 2010. There were programmes in place before and after that, so it is right that we recognise the contribution of the Opposition when they were in Government.
Finally, the new clause also seeks to place a Minister or national leader in charge of that new cancer plan. My ministerial role includes responsibility for elective recovery and recovery from the pandemic—our plan to tackle those waiting lists. As the shadow Minister knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), the former Under-Secretary of State for Health, who briefly sat on this Committee, had responsibility for cancer services specifically, as does the new Under-Secretary. Dame Cally Palmer is the national lead as the national cancer director at NHS England and NHS Improvement. She has a distinguished career as chief executive of the Royal Marsden Hospital in parallel. We are jointly responsible for the current cancer plan. It is therefore unnecessary to include that new duty when we already have those accountabilities.
I will move on briefly to new clause 64, which we are considering with new clause 57. It seeks to legislate for an additional duty on the Secretary of State to publish data on cancer waiting lists, cancer diagnoses and action being taken to reduce the number of patients waiting for cancer treatment in England. Again, I understand the intention behind the new clause. Cancer is one of the greatest challenges to people’s health, as we set out. I would like to highlight first the fact that the Government are already delivering on the request for monthly publication of cancer performance data. Ensuring transparency of data is a priority. Each month, we publish official statistics on waiting list data, including the number of patients who began cancer treatment and waited longer than 62 days for treatment. NHS England also publishes monthly management data on the number of people currently waiting longer than 62 days for diagnosis or treatment. The new clause calls for data that is very similar to what is already published, and we therefore consider that it would be duplicative.
Secondly, on the request to publish predictions—that is not something that is currently done. Doing so would likely result in unhelpful poor-quality assumptions or modelling that could lead to expectations or an understanding that is not reflected in the reality of the data that comes through. While we look at all data sources internally, it would not be in the best interests of scrutiny and, potentially, patients to publish poor-quality predictions with a limited confidence factor.
Thirdly, there is no evidence of need. Following the success of campaigns such as Help Us, Help You, we have seen the public seek medical attention for symptoms that might be cancer, while cancer referrals from GPs have been at record levels since March. At the same time, the NHS has been delivering high-quality and innovative solutions to improve cancer care and treatment. We have announced funding for elective recovery, including cancer services, of £2 billion this year and £8 billion over the next three years, which will increase activity and deliver millions more checks, scans, procedures and treatments. We will continue to publish and review the monthly official statistics to monitor progress.
Finally, on the request for the Secretary of State to publish a report every six months on the actions taken to reduce the number of patients awaiting cancer treatment, I should state that the NHS has already undertaken extensive work to reduce the number of patients waiting for treatment and to continue progress in delivering the long-term plan ambitions for cancer. We will publish the elective recovery delivery plan later this year, which will set out how the NHS will deliver increased elective capacity and how cancer patients will be prioritised for access.
Furthermore, the NHS cancer programme already regularly reports on progress through both NHSEI and DHSC governance structures, through publication of monthly data on cancer waiting times and through regular communications products. We would therefore argue that the new clause is duplicative. While I assure the Committee that we are taking urgent action to reduce cancer waiting lists, we consider the new clause to be unnecessary.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that answer, which reflects the current difference in public policy between the Government and the Opposition. At oral questions to the Health Secretary, I always ask and will continue to ask whether the Government’s position is that the current plans and status will be sufficient to meet the challenges and the backlog—we think they are not. While the system was overheated before the pandemic, it has been distressed by the last 18 months. We do not think that asking that system to meet both emergent and old problems will work. However, that is probably a point for oral questions and future debates, rather than this Public Bill Committee. On that basis, I will withdraw the clause.
As we are coming to the end of the debate, I might gently say to the Minister, on his point that the Government do not make predictions because they might be unhelpful in the future, that it feels as if, every time he goes on the news, the Health Secretary puts waiting lists up by another million in an extraordinary attempt to manage expectations. Was it 13 million last time? It just goes up and up. I do not think it is quite fair to say that Ministers do not do that—the Health Secretary, at least, certainly does. Nevertheless, that is no reason not to withdraw the clause, and I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Steve Double.)
Nationality and Borders Bill (Twelfth sitting)
Thursday 28th October 2021
(3 years, 1 month 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 28 October 2021 - (28 Oct 2021)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 4 / Noes: 7 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Government Amendment 82.
Amendment 144, in schedule 5, page 74, line 30, at end insert—
“provided that the relevant officer may not do any of the things mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) where they would risk the welfare or safety of persons on board the ship.”
This amendment would require officers to assess welfare risk before stopping or boarding a ship, requiring it to be taken elsewhere or requiring it to leave UK waters, and not act if doing so would exacerbate these risks.
Government amendment 83.
Amendment 145, in schedule 5, page 75, line 8, at end insert—
“(7A) The Secretary of State must publish a list of States and relevant territories with which agreement has been reached for the purposes of sub-paragraph (7) within 30 days of the date of Royal Assent to this Act, and the Secretary of State must update that published list from time to time.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish which states or territories she has agreed arrangements with for returning or removing asylum seekers to, within 30 days of Royal Assent.
Amendment 146, in schedule 5, page 76, line 24, at end insert—
“(9) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 148, in schedule 5, page 77, line 18, at end insert—
“(7) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 147, in schedule 5, page 78, line 12, at end insert—
“(10) A relevant officer may only exercise powers under this paragraph if they have passed relevant training, including training on the requirement to exercise powers under this paragraph in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to have passed relevant training before acting under these powers, and only acts with regards to the Human Rights Act.
Amendment 149, in schedule 5, page 78, line 32, at end insert—
“(c) the act was carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998.”
This amendment would require the relevant officer to only act with regards to the Human Rights Act.
That schedule 5 be the Fifth schedule to the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)
In terms of schedule 5, let me just say that clause 42 is one of the six drafted as placeholder clauses, as indicated in the explanatory notes and memorandum for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It was drafted as such in the interests of transparency, to make clear our intention to bring forward substantive provisions on working in the territorial seas. The placeholder clause is now to be replaced by new clause 20.
The Government’s clear position has always been that permission to work is needed for all foreign nationals intending to work in the United Kingdom landmass—that includes all UK waters. New clause 20 will bring legislative clarity: migrant workers wishing to work in the territorial seas or internal waters of the UK will need permission to do so. To obtain that permission, they will need to apply for a visa under the points-based system in the same way as when coming to work on the UK landmass.
New clause 20 will clarify the legal framework, but will not change the existing position that migrant workers need permission to work in UK waters. As such, the new clause does not invent a policy change and its effect should be negligible. The new clause does not impact on those engaging in innocent passage or crew who are covered by section 8 of the Immigration Act 1971.
Government amendments 126 to 128 are minor and technical. They are intended to ensure that the regime I have just talked about can be enforced.
The Chair
Order. Apologies, but I think you have strayed into the debate on schedule 5, which includes Government amendments 126, 127 and 128 and clause 43 stand part. I appreciate that there are a lot of different moving parts.
Tom Pursglove
I apologise if that is so, Ms McDonagh. The groupings on the selection list are not clear, because they are talking about schedule 5. I am happy to leave that there and return to it separately in a moment.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Despite the Minister’s request, I would like to speak to amendments 144 to 149, which seek to address a couple of pretty serious issues: the immorality and the impracticality of the Government’s approach to the policy of pushback.
As regards Australia, the United Nations special rapporteur expressed real concern that the policy could intentionally put lives at risk. We have also seen the reports on those who lost their lives as a result of pushbacks in the Mediterranean. Clearly, the Government do not want to risk death or injury. Ministers have told us repeatedly that the objective of the legislation is to prevent drowning in the channel. Amendment 144 therefore seeks simply to put that commitment in the Bill.
I heard the Minister’s comments earlier, but a constant theme throughout our debate over the past few days has been that we identify real problems with the Bill and the Minister says, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll sort it out.” We are trying to say, “If we’re in the same place on the issue, let’s sort it out by putting something on the face of the Bill.” Amendment 144 would do that by requiring officers not to act under powers granted by proposed new paragraph B1(2) if they risked the welfare of those on board. It would simply ensure that an officer who wants to stop a ship, board it or require it to be taken elsewhere in the UK or internationally and detained or to leave UK waters must first consider the implications for those on board. Given that we are in the same place in our intentions, I hope the Minister can accept amendment 144.
Amendment 145 addresses the issue of practicality. Clause 41 is disturbing enough in itself, but it also reflects a wider problem with the Bill. The Government are trying to talk tough and grab headlines but with proposals that are actually undeliverable and that will not solve the problem of people smuggling that we all agree needs to be tackled. We have discussed offshoring and third country returns on previous clauses, and here we are again. Amendment 145 seeks to press the Govt on the issue.
In schedule 5, proposed new paragraph B1(7) makes it clear that the Government can proceed with the policy of pushback only where the relevant territory
“is willing to receive the ship.”
So where are the agreements? Amendment 145 would require the Home Secretary simply to publish a list of states with which she has secured agreement under sub-paragraph (7) to send ships with asylum seekers to, and to do so within 30 days of Royal Assent. That is not 30 days from today; that is 30 days from Royal Assent. That is a considerable amount of time. The Government have put a lot of thought into the Bill apparently, although there seem to be a lot of last-minute amendments. The Minister has said repeatedly that he does not want to provide a running commentary on negotiations. Let me reassure him: we do not want a running commentary. We just want some indication that there are agreements, or agreements in the pipeline, but there absolutely do not seem to be any. That is key.
The Government have so far failed to secure any agreements for returning asylum seekers. Instead, they encourage rumours that they are so close to securing an agreement with one country or another, but every country that has been mentioned has slammed those rumours. Rwanda said it had no agreement with Denmark, whose Government have been condemned by the African Union —an entire continent—in the strongest terms possible. The African Union said that offshore processing amounted to “responsibility and burden shifting” and criticised European attempts to extend border control to African shores as “xenophobic and completely unacceptable.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark pointed out, the UK Government were rebuffed by Albania. The Albanian Foreign Minister told the press:
“Albania will proudly host 4,000 Afghan refugees based on its good will, but will never be a hub of anti-immigration policies of bigger and richer countries. We have instructed our Embassy in the UK to demand the retraction of this fake news.”
There are not just no agreements, but the Government are managing to offend countries around the world by implying that they are prepared to enter into agreements when they are clearly not. How many other countries are the Government deciding to burn bridges with over this issue? When will they come clean on this empty rhetoric?
Amendment 145 is intended to be helpful. We want to see transparency and, at the end of this process, to give the Government the opportunity, which they have so far failed to take, to publish the agreements they have secured. I hope that by accepting the amendment the Minister can prove us wrong in our doubts about the Government’s work in this area, and that he will agree that this information should be published well before the Bill takes effect.
Amendments 146 to 149 seek to ensure that officers adhere to the Human Rights Act 1998 and have completed relevant training before searching asylum seekers. These amendments relate to officials carrying out searches of people during maritime enforcement for documents, evidence of crime and other purposes. They seek to ensure that those officials have received training that is relevant to the task, and at all times are adhering to the Human Rights Act 1998.
As we have discussed many times in Committee, those fleeing persecution and danger to build new lives in the UK are likely to be victims of violence and trauma. They are vulnerable, and personal searches in particular could be extremely difficult or upsetting. Schedule 5 allows for officials to search a person, but forbids them to
“remove any clothing in public other than an outer coat, jacket or gloves.”
That is welcome as a bare minimum, but there is no stipulation or description of what can be done in searches in private, so this amendment seeks to ensure that the Home Office designs and delivers training to officers to ensure they are sensitive to the needs of the vulnerable people they may search. Additionally, it would ensure that all those searches are conducted with consideration given to the Human Rights Act and the right to a private life, to encourage the use of these powers only in extreme circumstances and when absolutely necessary.
Again, I draw the Minister’s attention to the lived experience of those who have come to our shores. In 2015, Women for Refugee Women published a report, “I Am Human”, which details the impact of searches on those who have experienced sexual violence. The searches triggered mental health problems, flashbacks and traumatic memories because people felt handled and scared by the process. When addressing my earlier amendments, the Minister sought to reassure me on these points too, saying that the Government would of course be compliant with the Human Rights Act and would take account of all the issues I am raising—fine. So why not put that commitment on the face of the Bill?
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow my friend, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central. When there are no safe and legal routes —or very few, as we have discovered throughout our many debates in this Committee—refugees will travel by unsafe means. We leave them no other choice. An estimated 40,000 refugees and other migrants died between 2014 and 2020 in the process of moving between countries, so as you said during a previous Bill Committee sitting, Ms McDonagh, we all of course want these dangerous crossings stopped.
We need to establish a network of the safe and legal routes the Government keep claiming the Bill is all about. But if it was about safe and legal routes, the Government would not be spending so much time, energy and money on introducing this so-called pushback policy for vessels found in the English channel. In the Bill, they refer to ships, but they have stretched the definition of what a ship is beyond recognition: it is now anything that appears to float. I feel the need to emphasise that for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North—I see his ears pricking up at the mention of the word “Stoke”. Given his comment that he is happy to holiday in Greece, and that refugees should therefore just stay there, he clearly thinks people are arriving here on cruise ships. He really ought to look into this issue a bit more before he casts another vote or speaks another word. The Bill specifically talks about
“any other structure (whether with or without means of propulsion)”.
That is because people are making these perilous journeys on the flimsiest of vessels, so desperate are they.
Let us not sanitise things by talking about the pushing back of boats, ships or vessels of any description. Let us call it what it is: a policy of pushing back people—human beings. That is who we are pushing back. Who are these people? They are not, as the Home Secretary disgracefully claimed yesterday, economic migrants who just want to stay in UK hotels. Several very well-respected refugee organisations have spoken to me this morning to express their anger over those words, because as the Home Secretary knows, it is not true. The Home Office itself, over which she presides, accepted that 98% of those who arrived on boats in 2019 were asylum seekers, so I repeat: it is not true.
Who are these people, then? Migrant Voice and Amnesty International, in their evidence to their Committee, said that they are often babies; children; pregnant women; people who are ill; people with physical or mental incapacities; people suffering the traumas of past slavery, torture, or the frightening journeys they are on or have taken; or people who are afraid. Guess what? Young men, with the exception of being pregnant, can also be all of those things. It is clear that it takes just one person to panic or misunderstand an instruction for lives to be in jeopardy—the lives of all those aforementioned people.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, and I am delighted that she is using the word “Stoke-on-Trent”. It is wonderful to hear it mentioned by hon. Members from across the House, and I hope that we will spend much more time talking about the city of Stoke-on-Trent.
I will discuss clause 41 and schedule 5. As we heard from His Excellency the Australian High Commissioner in the evidence session, pushback was one of a range of methods used to deter people from making the dangerous journey. There is no single approach that works on its own, and the clause adds to the raft of measures already in place. We already have in the Bill increased prison sentences and the idea that if someone enters the country illegally, it will count against their application. The clause says that if someone makes an illegal entry or attempts to do so, there could be pushback.
Of course, we acknowledge that pushbacks are not simple; they are dangerous and need to be thought through carefully. In the current legislation, pushbacks can already take place, as the Home Office has announced. There is a small legal window for that to happen, and it is up to the commander on the boat to make a decision on whether a pushback is safe to do. I believe that we should give confidence to commanders to know that this country has their back when they fulfil their duty to the people who elected the Government, and who therefore wanted the Bill delivered.
Ultimately, we know that Monsieur Macron was terrified by the threat of money not ending up in his pocket. The idea was that the French were so busy not doing their job and allowing boats to make the dangerous journey—some people in my patch would even have said that the French were aiding such crossings. It is not for me to say whether that is true—I am sure there are questions that could be answered—but, ultimately, we know it is election year in France. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk mentioned earlier today in the main Chamber that the French were seizing British maritime boats over fishing, but they are not seeking to do enough when it comes to illegal economic migrants making the dangerous journey across the English channel. We are asking that boats are pushed back to a safe place.
Let us not forget that His Excellency the Australian High Commissioner said that when the Australians were using the method of pushback, they were using military vessels to stop what they described as rickety wooden boats. We would be doing it with rubber dinghies in some cases, which means that, in his opinion, there is not as much danger to the pushback as what was undertaken by the Australian navy. That is from someone who has actually lived that experience and gone through it, and he is obviously an extinguished lawyer who understands the legal implications. Ultimately, the Government are ensuring that we add more strings to the bow in order to deter people from making illegal crossings and to try to stop people risking their lives.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I think the hon. Gentleman meant “distinguished”. To clarify the record, will he take this opportunity to correct his mistake this morning and perhaps even issue an apology to Islington Council, which he so sadly besmirched?
Jonathan Gullis
I do not believe that is in scope of the clause, but I will not apologise to Islington Council. I made it very clear that, by the end of 2020, it had not taken any refugees. Obviously, Stoke-on-Trent had taken far more. The statistics back up what I am saying, and I am more than happy to have exchanges with the hon. Gentleman on the Floor of the House at another time, if he wishes.
Anne McLaughlin
I do not know the hon. Gentleman’s circumstances; he could have 10 kids or none. We have already established that most asylum seekers have no idea where they are going. They do not decide where they are going based on the immigration and asylum policies of the country where they end up, but imagine if they did. If the hon. Gentleman was one of them and was told, “If you go through that country, you will possibly end up in jail, but if you don’t leave your country right now, you are going to end up dead,” which would he choose for his family?
Jonathan Gullis
I have one daughter and a son on the way in early February, which I am pleased to announce to the House. What a lucky father I am going to be. The hon. Lady said it—there is nothing dangerous about France, Italy or Greece. People’s lives are not at risk. They may well be in Afghanistan or Syria. People will have left those countries and made that dangerous journey, which they should not have done because there are safe and legal routes to the UK. Other countries across mainland Europe could look to us as an example. They can claim asylum in those countries and not risk their lives by crossing the channel from France to the United Kingdom.
As I said, 70% of people making that illegal crossing are men between the age of 18 and 35. Predominantly, women and children are not coming with them but staying in those dangerous countries, which is why what we did with Afghanistan and Syria was so brilliant—we took women and children from a terrorist regime that I have no time for whatsoever, who treat women as second-class citizens and force certain children into slavery. We need to ensure that those women and children are protected.
I therefore believe that we should give commanders the confidence to do that again if they believe it to be safe. It is the commanders who will make that decision, and I have full faith that they will do so knowing the law, and the legal system in this country will have their back. Most importantly, they will take into account the condition of the waters at the time and the passengers onboard, so they can decide what is safe. The French can then do what they are meant to do when boats are in French territorial waters—stick to the obligations they sign up to for the money they get from British taxpayers and take those people back.
The people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke are so angry about what is going on that they want us to pick people up and take them straight back to Calais. I am sympathetic to their viewpoint, and that is one way to deter. This is a legal opportunity for us and the right one for the Government.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North. He has shown a real insight into seafaring from Stoke-on-Trent, which we all know is a coastal town.
It will come as no surprise that we will vote against clause 41 and schedule 5. Both plan to extend and enhance the new maritime enforcement powers beyond the UK territorial waters into international waters. They seek powers to stop, board, divert and detain foreign ships and ships without nationality.
The overarching goal of clause 41 is to push back asylum seekers, and for Government to redefine ships in legal terms, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North East mentioned. They broaden that definition to include fragile and insecure vessels that cross the English channel. At present, the definition of “ship” includes every description of vessel, including hovercraft, used in navigation. That definition is to be supplemented so that “ship” also includes any other structure, with or without means of propulsion, constructed or used to carry persons, goods, plant or machinery by water. To be more precise, it is referencing the small boats that cross the English channel.
The clause would grant new powers to the Home Office to stop or board ships, take them to any place on land or water in the UK or elsewhere, retain them there or require them to leave UK waters, if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that a relevant immigration-related offence is being committed. The powers may be exercised in relation to a UK ship, a ship without nationality, a foreign ship or a ship registered in another British territory. In addition, extensive new enforcement powers are to be conferred in this clause, and the power to seize and dispose of ships will be conferred in schedule 5. The problem with the power to divert ships bound for the UK is that it raises profound questions about the safety and wellbeing of the people on board, and ultimately presents a risk to lives. There is no proof that the diversion of a ship would occur only where safe, no suggestion of how it would be policed and enforced, and no intention from the Government to act in accordance with international law. Such intentions are likely to be assessed meaningfully only in retrospect, once people have been harmed.
Tom Pursglove
There are a few points that I briefly want to address in concluding the debate on this clause. The first is the training that immigration officers have to undergo. I clarify again that all immigration officers have to pass the immigration foundation course to be appointed. This includes training on the Human Rights Act. Further specialist training is given to those officers working in the maritime environment, which includes vulnerability assessments in the context of human rights obligations. They will be exercising maritime powers using operational guidance that emphasises the need to take full account of relevant human rights aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Human Rights Act, in the context of safety of life at sea obligations. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central is very keen that we include this in the Bill, but I respectfully disagree. There is already an established process in place that is delivering exactly what the hon. Gentleman wants to see. We are very mindful of these obligations on an ongoing basis.
The issue of immunity has also been raised; however, these protections are nothing new. Border Force has existing powers to intercept vessels in UK territorial seas; an officer is not liable in any criminal or civil proceedings if the court is satisfied that the act was done in good faith and there were reasonable grounds for it. This provision is also included in the Policing and Crime Act 2017, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and applies in other contexts. This provision follows the same approach as the Immigration Act 1971.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East raised a number of points in relation to search and rescue operations, which we had an extensive debate about during this morning’s session. Again, I make the point that this Government are absolutely committed to search and rescue operations, as would be rightly expected. That is an important function and service, and it is right that it continues to be a strong commitment. We are committed to it and that service must be provided. Again, I will emphasise that this Government will abide by their international obligations at all times.
Neil Coyle
Can the Minister be absolutely clear that no new powers, or attempts at immunity that arguably do not follow international law, are being sought? This is contrary to some of the Government reports on this issue.
Tom Pursglove
All I can say in response, is that I refer the hon. Member to what I have just said. There is an established position in relation to this; these protections are nothing new.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
I beg to move amendment 126, in schedule 5, page 73, line 23, at end insert “24B,”.
This amendment and Amendments 127 and 128 are consequential on NC20.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 127 and 128.
Clause 42 stand part.
Government amendment 124.
Government new clause 20—Working in United Kingdom waters: arrival and entry.
Tom Pursglove
As you noted, Ms McDonagh, I have spoken to various aspects of the grouping in my earlier remarks, so I do not propose repeating what I said. Amendments 126, 127 and 128 are changes to existing maritime enforcement powers to ensure that these are available in relation to illegal working offences in the UK’s territorial sea. Amendment 124 brings new clause 20 into force automatically two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent for the purpose of making regulations.
Amendment 126 agreed to.
Amendments made: 127, in schedule 5, page 73, line 31, after “(S.I. 2020/1309),” insert—
“(ba) an offence under section 21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006,”.
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 126.
Amendment 128, in schedule 5, page 73, line 37, leave out “paragraph (a) or (b)” and insert “paragraphs (a) to (ba)”.—(Tom Pursglove.)
See the explanatory statement to Amendment 126.
Amendment proposed: 144, in schedule 5, page 74, line 30, at end insert—
“provided that the relevant officer may not do any of the things mentioned in sub-paragraph (2) where they would risk the welfare or safety of persons on board the ship.”—(Paul Blomfield.)
This amendment would require officers to assess welfare risk before stopping or boarding a ship, requiring it to be taken elsewhere or requiring it to leave UK waters, and not act if doing so would exacerbate these risks.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Bambos Charalambous
I beg to move amendment 137, in clause 43, page 40, line 8, leave out subsections (3) to (5).
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Government new clause 28—Removals: notice requirements.
Bambos Charalambous
Clause 43 refers to no-notice removals and presents another problem of access to justice in the Bill. The clause aims to provide a statutory minimum period to enable individuals to access justice prior to removal and makes provisions for removing individuals following a failed departure without the need for a further notice period. It also includes the provision of written notices of intention to remove and departure details. It makes clear in statute the duty of the Home Office to give people a maximum of five working days’ notice when they are going to be removed from the UK.
For more than 10 years, the courts have recognised that that duty to give notice of removal is essential to accessing justice and the rule of law. As the Committee will acknowledge from our discussions on the Bill so far, it is vital that, when officials decide people should be removed, those people can access the courts to challenge that decision if they have a legitimate case.
However, while this clause sets out to provide access to justice, its effectiveness in doing so is very unclear. If the purpose of the notice period is, as stated, to enable those facing removal to access legal advice and the courts, it is essential that people served with a notice are able in practice to access that advice.
For example, the clause does not explain how the Government will ensure that access to legal advice will be provided. Asylum seekers can be highly vulnerable and may experience difficulties in effectively accessing legal advice and in understanding the legal intricacies of the asylum process, such as studying legal determinations or preparing submissions. As we know from our earlier scrutiny, clause 22 in part 2 provides for up to but no more than seven hours of legal aid for those served with a priority removal notice to receive advice on their immigration status and removal. We do not believe that provision goes far enough, but this clause is worse still. Unlike the provisions for priority removal notices, there is no specific provision in part 3 for ensuring that those who are served with notice of intention to remove can access legal advice within the notice period. The scheme therefore depends on existing legal aid provision, which has of course been decimated by the Conservatives for more than a decade. There are serious limitations in the availability of this provision for those both in detention and in the community.
Subsection (8) inserts new section 10A in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It sets out potential scenarios where a further notice period is not required, which includes, for example, where the person was not removed on the date specified in the first notice due to matters reasonably beyond the control of the Secretary of State, such as adverse weather conditions, technical faults or transport delays, or disruption by the person to be removed.
Disruption is very broad of course, and can be interpreted on a very broad basis. It could be applied to a person refusing to leave their room in detention because they want to speak to their lawyer. The fine print also states that a new notice of intention to remove and a further notice period are also not required where the person was not removed on the date specified in the first notice as a result of “ongoing judicial review proceedings”.
That point is even more problematic. It applies where a planned removal does not proceed because of judicial review proceedings. If those proceedings are resolved in a way that means removal can proceed, the Home Office does not have to give any notice of removal if it is carried out within 21 days of the court’s decision.
As the Public Law Project and JUSTICE have pointed out, that decision could come weeks, months, or even years after the first notice of removal. Over time, the person’s circumstances could have changed fundamentally, important new evidence could have come to light or the situation in their own country might have changed dramatically. Such changes can happen virtually overnight, as recently witnessed in Afghanistan. Yet once the previous judicial review proceedings, which were potentially based on completely different facts and circumstances, are decided, a person can be removed without any notice or opportunity to raise these new circumstances with the Home Office or to access the court. If implemented, that could give rise to significant injustices.
I have one example to highlight this point—I thank the Public Law Project and JUSTICE for sharing this example. MLF is a Sri Lankan national whose asylum claim had been dismissed. During judicial review proceedings, in which he was unrepresented, he submitted further representations to the Home Office based on new evidence of the killing of three male relatives. That new evidence could not be considered in the judicial review proceedings because it post-dated the decision being challenged. The Home Office’s barrister informed him that the material would be forwarded to the relevant part of the Home Office for consideration.
MLF was subsequently served with a decision that refused to consider his fresh representations. He was subsequently removed to Sri Lanka on the same day without any notice or opportunity to access the court. In hiding in Sri Lanka, MLF applied for judicial review of his removal without notice. The Home Office conceded that he had been unlawfully removed and arranged for MLF to return to the UK. He has since been granted refugee status on the basis of evidence that post-dated his original appeal, including that which he had submitted during his judicial review proceedings.
If clause 43 was implemented in that case, it would have authorised the removal of MLF without notice. To avoid situations where people are wrongly removed and evidence is not considered properly, amendment 137 seeks to delete subsections (3) to (5) of new section 10A of the 1999 Act. That change would ensure that people are required to be given notice of removal directions and an opportunity to ask the court to issue an injunction preventing their removal while additional elements of their case are considered or in order to present fresh evidence to challenge an initial decision.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The shadow Minister has raised lots of sensible questions. I have one other brief question for the Minister, on new clause 28. He may not be able to answer it today, but I would like it clarified, if possible.
Proposed new section 10E to the 1999 Act that the new clause would add is supposed to apply when a person has applied for judicial review and the court has made a decision authorising the removal. To be clear, does that decision relate to the judicial review, or could it relate to any prior decision? That point will not affect lots of people, but it will be important. I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to answer immediately, but I hope we will get clarity on that in due course.
Tom Pursglove
It may be easier if I explain that the power in amendment 137 already exists—albeit for 10 days—in published policy that is available on gov.uk. The purpose of putting the policy into statute is not to introduce a new power, as it already exists. Rather, we want to place it on a statutory basis to enable parliamentary scrutiny.
We can currently rearrange a migrant’s removal on another flight within 10 days of a failed removal without the need to give the migrant a fresh notice period. Clause 43 will increase the period to 21 days. Our recent experience during the pandemic has shown us that organising flights and complying with travel restrictions is difficult—dealing with self-isolation and rebooking escorts, for example. It is therefore entirely reasonable and sensible to allow the flexibility of 21 days to remove the migrant if the removal fails for reasons that are reasonably beyond the Secretary of State’s control.
It may be helpful to provide some examples to illustrate that point. A migrant has already had time to access justice and is due to be removed, but the flight is cancelled because of bad weather. The removal fails, but we manage to book a flight for the next day. We do not want to be in the position of having to wait another five working days before we can remove that migrant. As a second example, if a removal fails because the migrant is deliberately disruptive, that person should not be rewarded with another five working days in which they can try to defer their removal further. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate to withdraw his amendment.
To pick up on the point about access to legal aid during the notice period, migrants who are detained in immigration removal centres during the notice period will have access to the free legal advice surgery.
New clause 28 replaces clause 43 in its entirety. Our expert drafters have advised that it is better to do it that way because the text flows better and it is easier to navigate.
Unfortunately, migrants subject to enforced removal often wait until the last minute to challenge their removal from the UK. Consequently, flights are cancelled and removals are inevitably delayed at great cost to the taxpayer. We think it right that migrants subject to enforced removal must be allowed a reasonable opportunity to access justice. The sole purpose of the notice period is to give migrants time to seek legal advice. That is the rationale underpinning the clause.
Our current policy is complicated. Some migrants are given a minimum notice period of 72 hours, while others are given five working days. Calculating when the 72 hours start and end is confusing. They must include at least two working days, and the last 24 hours must include a working day. Evidently, there is scope for simplifying the process and making it consistent across the board. New clause 28 will do just that by placing in statute a single statutory minimum notice period of five working days for migrants. The new clause requires us to serve a written notice of intention to remove, setting out the notice period. Before the migrant can be removed, we must serve a written notice of departure details containing the date of removal.
A limited exception to the single statutory notice period relates to port cases. Migrants who are refused entry at the border can be removed within seven days without receiving a notice period. It is unlikely that they would have developed ties to the UK within that week.
The clause will create more clarity for Home Office staff, legal representatives and migrants. Migrants will know how long they have to access justice—in fact, some will have more time to access justice—and will therefore have fewer excuses to frustrate removal.
To be clear, we are not reintroducing removal windows, which were found to be unlawful by the Court of Appeal. Under the new clause, the migrant cannot be removed during the notice period. If the removal is cancelled or deferred because the migrant raises a fresh or further claim, a fresh notice period must be given before removal can proceed. Individuals will also be given a fresh notice period if there is a change to the previously notified destination or route, unless the place of transit is in a safe country.
The new clause provides that migrants can be removed within 21 days of a failed removal that was caused by their disruption. In such circumstances, a further notice period is not required because the migrant has already had sufficient opportunity to access justice, which is entirely reasonable when there are no significant changes to the migrant’s circumstances. That is in our current published policy but with a timescale of 10 days. Extending the time from 10 to 21 days will give us more time to rearrange removal.
The pandemic has highlighted the fact that organising escorts and rebooking flights cannot always be turned around quickly. Migrants frequently challenge their removal by way of judicial review, and of course that is their right. As per the clause, once a court decides that the migrant can be removed, we can remove them within 21 days without a fresh notice period. The migrant has already had time to access justice, and the removal decision has been subject to judicial scrutiny. There is no justification for further time.
Bambos Charalambous
We are not convinced by the Minister’s response and wish to press amendment 137 to a Division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Neil Coyle
I beg to move amendment 143, in clause 44, page 41, line 7, at end insert—
“(1A) A prisoner who arrived in the United Kingdom before their tenth birthday is not eligible for removal from the United Kingdom under subsection (1).”
This amendment would prevent deportation as an FNO for those who arrived in the UK before their tenth birthday, in line with the age of criminal responsibility.
The amendment is not down in my name; it was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central, who has an urgent constituency engagement. Forgive me if I am not as eloquent as my hon. Friend. I will try to do justice to his amendment.
In recent months and years we have seen a multitude of cases of individuals who have lived in the UK almost all of their lives, and in some cases were even born here, being deported as a result of past convictions. The amendment seeks to prevent that happening if the individual came to the UK before the age of 10, the age at which the UK deems one becomes criminally liable for their actions. Assuming that the age at which criminal liability kicks in is the age at which we believe someone starts to become at least partly responsible for their actions, why should their previous country of residence change how they are dealt with in the criminal justice system years or decades down the line? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central has provided a case study.
We hear of cases such as that of Sam Trye, who was born within sight of this room, just over the river in St Thomas’ Hospital, where my daughter was born and where perhaps the son of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North will be born. We might not agree on many things, not least a scattergun approach to facts, but I congratulate him on his news, which I hope his wife gave permission for him to share before breaking it to us this morning. I hope our children have better life chances than Sam was afforded because he has since served a prison sentence for a non-violent crime, and the Home Office has been trying to deport him to Sierra Leone, from where his family moved to the UK. Despite Sam being born in the UK, he is treated differently as he lacks birthright citizenship. He has two British children and cares for his mum here in London, so his right to family life is therefore well established.
There is a question here about the UK’s responsibility. When a child is born here and has been through our education system and our support services, and has grown up British in every sense, we have a duty to ensure that if they commit a crime, the British state takes responsibility for that individual. It is nonsensical to deport those who have never known another country, who came to the UK before they were ever criminally liable in UK law, let alone an adult with full independence and responsibility.
That issue was raised during the Windrush report, and by Sir Stephen Shaw in his 2016 “Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons” and his 2018 follow-up progress report. Sir Stephen stated:
“I found during my visits across the immigration estate that a significant proportion of those deemed FNOs had grown up in the UK, some having been born here but the majority having arrived in very early childhood. These detainees often had strong UK accents, had been to UK schools, and all of their close family and friends were based in the UK… Many had no command of the language of the country to which they were to be ‘returned’, or any remaining family ties there… The removal of these individuals raises real ethical issues. Not only does their removal break up families in this country, and put them at risk in countries of which they have little or no awareness. It is also questionable how far it is fair to developing countries, without the criminal justice infrastructure of the UK, for one of the richest nations on earth to export those whose only chance of survival may be by way of further crime.”
Sir Stephen’s recommendation 33 was that
“The Home Office should no longer routinely seek to remove those who were born in the UK or have been brought up here from an early age.”
That recommendation has been routinely ignored by Ministers, but we do know that the Government accept that premise in specific circumstances, so there is a precedent. Last year, when there was an outcry over their attempted deportation of people to Jamaica, the Government reached a private agreement with the Jamaican high commission that it would not deport those who came to the UK under the age of 12. When there were further charter flights this year, despite Ministers refusing to answer parliamentary questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central on the subject, as they wanted to hush up the agreement, we know that when the flights departed, no one who came to the UK under the age of 12 was on board. So which other countries does the Minister have other such agreements with, and which other countries are negotiating with him or others in the Government to secure such agreements? If the Minister has an agreement with Jamaica, which we know is sensible, why will he not make it a blanket policy? I invite him to respond if he can.
The amendment reflects British values, in the opinion of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central, and it take steps to enact Sir Stephen Shaw’s recommendations. I urge the Government to accept it.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for raising these important issues. Amendment 143 aims to prevent the deportation of a foreign national offender where they arrived in the UK before the age of 10. The clause enables the removal of a relevant prisoner at an earlier point in their sentence. The amendment would exempt FNOs who arrived in the UK before the age of 10 from the provision enabling them to be removed at an earlier point in their sentence, but it would not exempt them from deportation. I cannot see a rationale for exempting FNOs who arrived in the UK before the age of 10 from the provision enabling them to be removed at an earlier point in their sentence, given that they will still be liable to deportation at the end of the custodial part of their sentence if they have not been removed earlier.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark stated that the purpose for the amendment is to align the age on arrival in the UK at which an exemption to deportation applies with the age of criminal responsibility. Almost all foreign national offenders that the Government deport from the UK have committed offences since they were adults. It does not make sense to provide an exception based on the age of criminal responsibility. Unlike England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland is 12.
Neil Coyle
I am keen to explore this on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. Will the Minister tell us more about the arrangement with Jamaica, and those with any other countries? He says that it would not make sense to have such an arrangement, but there is an existing one with a country. Perhaps he can tell us more about that specific arrangement, and any other countries we have entered into similar arrangements with.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful for that question. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central is not here. I promised earlier to write to Committee members on the RNLI issue. I will make sure that this issue is addressed in that letter, particularly so that the hon. Gentleman can see that information in its full context, given that he is unable to be here because of a constituency commitment.
The amendment is too broad in scope. It does not define what is meant by “arrived in” the UK. This could include anyone who visited the UK for a short period or who arrived here clandestinely, as well as those who have been lawfully resident here since the age of 10. It is technically deficient and, I argue, wrong in principle. I also refer hon. Members to the requirements under the UK Borders Act 2007, passed under the previous Labour Government. For these reasons, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Neil Coyle
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government new clause 8—Prisoners liable to removal from the United Kingdom.
Tom Pursglove
Clause 44 is one of the six clauses drafted as placeholder clauses at the Bill’s introduction. As indicated in the Bill’s explanatory notes and the memorandum for the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, it was drafted as such in the interests of transparency, to make clear our intention to bring forward substantive provisions on the early removal scheme. New clause 8 is intended to replace clause 44.
New clause 8 forms part of a package of measures that will enable the swift removal of those who have no right to be in the UK. By expanding the existing early removal scheme and increasing the removal window from nine months to 12 months, we will have greater opportunity to remove as many foreign national offenders from the UK as early as possible. However, to ensure that those sentenced by the courts are not simply let off their sentence, and to maintain public confidence in the justice system, removal under the scheme is subject to at least half of the custodial period of the sentence—the “requisite custodial period”—being served in prison. The knowledge that offenders will serve punishment for their crime in prison and will be removed from prison and the UK before they have an opportunity to be released on licence will provide comfort for victims.
The new clause will also mean that eligible foreign national offenders can be removed at any point in their sentence provided they have served the requisite custodial period and are within 12 months of their earliest release point. Presently, the scheme does not permit removal for those foreign national offenders who are serving a recall—FNOs who have been released into the community after serving their custodial sentence and subsequently recalled to custody for breaching that licence. The new clause brings them into scope.
The new clause also serves to deter foreign national offenders who have already been deported once from returning to the UK through the introduction of a stop-the-clock provision. Should a foreign national offender ever return to the UK after being removed, they will be liable to immediate arrest and return to custody to serve the remainder of the custodial period of their sentence. This is in addition to a maximum 5-year prison sentence that may be imposed for returning in breach of a deportation order.
Bambos Charalambous
The Government will disagree to clause 44 and replace it with new clause 8, although I understand that new clause 8 has fundamentally the same principle as the clause. Clause 44 and new clause 8 will extend the length of time a foreign national offender can be considered for early removal from the last nine months to the last 12 months of their sentence if they become eligible for the scheme. The Opposition have concerns that increasing that time limit will lead to unfairness in accessing justice for foreign national offenders as well as leaving them with inadequate time to obtain access to legal representation.
In our already overpopulated and overworked prison system, foreign national offenders have limited access to legal support and resources even when compared with people detained in immigration detention centres. They have no access to mobile phones or the internet. In the limited time that they do have access to a phone, the contacts they can call are vetted by the prison and this process can take many weeks. Thus, acquiring adequate legal representation becomes near impossible. Time is of the essence to these individuals and increasing this early removal widow will only lead to exacerbating these difficulties.
Bail for Immigration Detainees produced a report in 2017 on the lack of legal advice available to prisoners, which found that only five of the 86 prison detainees surveyed had received independent advice about their immigration case. They found that detainees in prison are routinely denied access to basic information that might help their immigration case. Cuts to legal aid have only made this situation worse. The High Court earlier this year held that detainees in prison have suffered discriminatory treatment due to obstacles in getting legal advice—in particular, exemptions from legal aid eligibility.
Despite what high-profile recent Home Office failings might imply, when it comes to deportations the already heavily stacked deck is stacked against the deportee. Not having proper legal representation means that the detainees will almost certainly be denied the fundamental right to a fair hearing. It would mean that they could be deported to countries in which they face persecution, or it would be in breach of their human rights. We should not undermine that right by extending the length of time they have for removal. Charities such as Bail for Immigration Detainees are already stretched to breaking point trying to support these vulnerable individuals. Instead of limiting access to justice, the Government should work on increasing its efficiency so that foreign national offenders who have committed serious crimes are dealt with swiftly and those who have claims to remain are given a fair hearing.
Question put and negatived.
Clause 44 disagreed to.
Clause 45
Matters relevant to decisions relating to immigration bail
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
For too long, individuals with no right to remain in the UK, including foreign criminals, have been gaming the system in order to get released from detention and frustrate their removal. We have seen individuals making asylum claims while in detention, but then delaying the resolution of that claim through their own deliberate actions, such as refusing to be interviewed. The current system incentivises non-compliant behaviour. By creating obstacles, bail is more likely to be granted due to the time it will take to resolve the claim and any subsequent appeals. It is not right that a person’s non-compliance enables their release.
Similarly, an individual may refuse to provide fingerprints for a travel document or may lie about their true nationality, thereby obstructing the returns documentation process. This again makes the prospect of removal more remote and increases the likelihood that bail may be granted. From an operational perspective, non-compliance is difficult to tackle and becomes much harder to counter once individuals are released from detention into the community, where they have the ability to abscond or continue with non-compliance. Therefore, eliminating the risk and impact of non-compliance is a key benefit that arises from the use of immigration detention if appropriate in the individual case.
We must have an immigration system that encourages compliance. The purpose of clause 45 is to ensure that, so far as possible, appropriate weight is given to evidence that a person has not been co-operative with the immigration or returns processes without reasonable excuse when making immigration bail decisions. This is currently not explicitly referenced as one of the specific mandatory criteria for considering whether to grant immigration bail.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister did seem to accept that all those factors can be taken into account already if they are relevant to the question of whether the person is going to be removed in a reasonable time or whether they will abscond. Surely those are the only two questions. This is not necessary at all and seeks to use immigration detention as a form of punishment.
Tom Pursglove
I do not accept that depiction. We are requiring decision makers to take into account co-operation with removal proceedings and immigration processes when considering applications for immigration bail. We are mindful that non-compliance may already be considered, and that the tribunal takes such behaviour into account when deciding whether to grant bail. However, the intention behind the provision is that there be the same focus on evidence of non-compliant behaviour as there is on those factors already particularised and considered in every case. As we have always made clear, we do not detain indefinitely, and the clause will not mean that people will be detained solely due to non-compliance, as there must always be a realistic prospect of removal within a reasonable timescale.
Bambos Charalambous
We will oppose the clause. It makes it more difficult for individuals to get bail and leaves them stranded in immigration detention indefinitely.
The clause would require decision makers to consider previous failure “to cooperate with” certain immigration processes when considering whether to grant immigration bail. That is extremely vague and broad language. There is a risk of it being misconstrued and used to penalise those who use their legal rights to resist or appeal against immigration decisions made against them.
The Public Law Project has stated that if detainees are given the impression that any resistance to a decision of the Home Office may be held against them, it would increase unfairness and have a significant chilling effect on those bringing legitimate legal challenge. There is already an uneven playing field; the clause risks tipping things still further in the Home Office’s favour. The Home Office is expanding its powers of detention, while preventing independent judicial oversight of its decisions to detain.
Immigration detention is a harsh measure. It has no time limit and little judicial oversight, and should be used only when necessary and for the shortest time possible. The Government hold vulnerable people in prison-like immigration detention centres for periods ranging from days to several years. That includes people who have lived in the UK since childhood, people fleeing war and persecution, torture survivors and victims of human trafficking. Such vulnerabilities cannot be managed in detention and will no doubt be worsened by the prospect of bail being denied.
Since 2000, 49 people have died in immigration detention centres, and incidents of self-harm are now recorded at more than one a day. The Home Office’s immigration detention facilities are not fit for purpose, and narrowing the availability of immigration bail will only make the situation worse.
The uncertainty of indefinite detention is cruel not only for the detainee, but for family members waiting for them at home. Research by Bail for Immigration Detainees, which helps 3,500 detainees to apply for bail every year, shows that children of detainees are often British citizens, and suffer a range of physical and mental effects due to separation from their parent. Those are compounded by further, unexpected separation. For those children, cutting off the prospect of bail will lead to further mental ill health and suffering.
The majority of people in detention do not need to be there. More than 60% of people taken into detention are eventually released, their detention having served no purpose, at a cost of £76 million a year, according to Matrix Evidence research. BID has said that the Home Office repeatedly breaks the law and detains people unlawfully. In the past two years, the Home Office has paid out £15.1 million to 584 people whom it had detained unlawfully.
The clause will make it tougher for people to get bail and leave them trapped in detention for longer. The Government have committed to reducing detention, but this measure is counter to their own rhetoric. It means less justice for detainees, more harm for vulnerable refugees and more wasted costs for the taxpayer. That is why Labour opposes the clause.
Stuart C. McDonald
As I said in my intervention on the Minister, the decision has to be based on whether there is a reasonable prospect of imminent removal, and included in that is the question of the likelihood of the person absconding if bail is granted. If any historical non-compliance has any sort of relation to that question—if it is relevant—the tribunal will obviously already be able to take it into account. Today, the Minister is asking us to tell the decision makers to take into account historical non-compliance even where it has absolutely no bearing, in the decision maker’s view, on the fundamental question of whether someone should be interned. That is moving from weighing up those considerations in the question about removal to using detention almost as a form of punishment. It is completely unjustified, and I echo what the shadow Minister has said.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 170, in clause 46, page 41, line 41, leave out “, before the specified date,”.
This amendment would remove the hard deadline for compliance for persons who have made protection claims or human rights claims to comply with a slavery or trafficking information notice.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 169, in clause 46, page 42, line 4, leave out subsections (4) and (5) and insert—
“(4) Subsection (5) applies if the recipient of a slavery or trafficking information notice does not provide the Secretary of State or competent authority with relevant status information within a reasonable period of time.
(5) The Secretary of State must provide recipients with an ongoing opportunity to explain why they did not provide the relevant status information within a reasonable period of time (and see section 47).”
This amendment would remove the hard deadline for compliance for persons who have made protection claims or human rights claims to comply with a slavery or trafficking information notice.
Amendment 171, in clause 46, page 42, leave out lines 13 and 14.
This is a consequential amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
Clause 46 brings us on to part 4 of the Bill, which relates to modern slavery. I will make a few general points in this debate, which will save me from having to repeat them in later debates. They are relevant to the clause and the amendment, and to other ones as well.
My first point is: why is modern slavery in a Bill that relates to immigration and border enforcement? The fact that it is included betrays the Government’s motivation. It is not about protecting survivors or addressing the huge difficulties victims face in accessing protection and support. Rather, this has to do with border enforcement functions and is based on unevidenced assertions of abuse. It is important to remember that people cannot refer themselves to the national referral mechanism as a potential victim of slavery; they have to be referred into it. The majority of referrals come from the Home Office and the police. In the overwhelming majority of cases— nine in 10—the NRM results in positive and conclusive decisions. None of this is evidence of any sort of abuse.
This part of the Bill also pre-empts the review of the modern slavery strategy that is supposed to be happening. The proposals are all largely absent from the new plan that was published earlier this year, and they have not been consulted on—certainly not with trafficking survivors. Efforts to tackle the traffickers will suffer as a result of the lack of consultation and engagement. When we debate these clauses, let us also remember that a huge number of survivors are British citizens.
The real problem that we face with trafficking is encouraging people to come forward. That is partly because of the power that traffickers have over their victims, partly because of the trauma that victims have suffered, and partly because we are not doing enough to enable them to feel sure that they will have protection. Too often the experience of the NRM process is that people are re-traumatised and left in limbo waiting for a decision, often for years and without any right to work. Even when they are recognised as trafficking or slavery survivors, as the vast majority are, they are given no leave to remain and are subject to removal. It is little wonder that while some expert groups reckon that there could 100,000 or more modern slavery victims in the UK, we conclusively identify around just 3,000 or so each year. Instead of fixing that, the clause and others in this part of the Bill will make things worse.
The Chair
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there will be a clause stand part debate later. If he could concentrate on the amendments in this group, that would be good.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am happy to do that, Ms McDonagh.
I will not repeat the arguments that I have already made about why it is wrong for Parliament to tell decision makers how to assess evidence that they see, but that we never will—I have done that already in relation to other notices. I simply make the point that putting in place deadlines for disclosure and punishments for missing them is especially dangerous and counterproductive for victims of trafficking.
Tom Pursglove
Before turning to part 4, which deals with modern slavery, I would like to make a declaration of interest. In October, prior to my appointment as Minister, I ran the London marathon and raised funds for the Mintridge Foundation, which encourages young people to get into sport, and Justice and Care, a charity that works to tackle modern slavery. I make the declaration in the interests of complete transparency and for the information of the Committee.
I thank the hon. Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, and for Glasgow North East for the amendment. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East raised important questions about the purpose of the slavery and risk trafficking notice.
The clause forms part of our approach to expanding the one-stop process to include modern slavery through the establishment of a new slavery and trafficking information notice. We have already debated the one-stop process, so I will not repeat that discussion, but the aim of the process is to identify possible victims as early as possible and ensure they receive the support they need. To best achieve that, we also need to discourage misuse of the system by stating our expectations and stipulating the consequences of non-compliance with the process.
That being said, let me reassure hon. Members that the clause has safeguards built in, and decision makers will consider each case on its grounds. To seek to remove the deadline stipulated by the slavery or trafficking information notice, as suggested by amendment 170, would go against the approach I have outlined. Without a deadline, the Government would be unable to seek the information up front that supports speedier decision making. Equally, changing a “specified” time to
“a reasonable period of time”
would provide less certainty to victims and decision makers on what is required. That would be detrimental to the victim identification process and goes against what we are trying to achieve in the Bill.
The ability to identify victims at the earliest opportunity is fundamental to our ability to support them. The clause is part of a wider process of much-needed change to the system to enable quicker decision making and reduce opportunities for misuse of the system, which takes valuable resources from victims. To deliver on that aim, it is right that we specify the time period in which information should be given, so that there is a connection to the consequences of late provision. As I have already set out, that does not mean that late claims will not be considered; any individual who brings a late claim for a good reason will be treated as if the claim were made in time. That will enable us to strike the right balance between preventing misuse and focusing resources on victims. For the reasons I have outlined, I respectfully invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
We share the same goal, which is identifying victims. Unfortunately, every single trafficking organisation that has got in touch with us has said that putting these hard and fast deadlines in the Bill will make that harder, rather than easier. We will probably end up voting against this clause, but in the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 172, in clause 46, page 41, line 42, at end insert—
“(2A) The requirement in subsection (2) does not apply in relation to anything that the slavery or trafficking information notice recipient has previously provided to the Secretary of State or any other competent authority.”
This amendment would ensure a recipient of a slavery or trafficking information notice does not need to provide information that has already been submitted to the Secretary of State or any other competent authority.
This amendment makes a short and simple, but important, point. Requesting the same information that has already been disclosed could be needlessly re-traumatising for a victim of modern slavery or trafficking, so the simple question is whether the Minister can assure us that that will not be made necessary under clause 46. The clause seems to envisage that trafficking information notices could be served on someone who has already had a positive reasonable grounds decision. Can the Minister confirm whether that is right, and if so, why that would be necessary? As it stands, the clause calls for “any” information that might be relevant for the purposes of making a decision on reasonable or conclusive grounds. Surely there will be no penalty if information already provided is not once again provided in response to the notice being served.
Tom Pursglove
Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling the amendment. I reassure Members that the clause already has safeguards built in, and it is clear that decision makers will consider each case on its grounds. I appreciate the consideration given to the provision of information, and the recommendation that the clause should stipulate that information provided previously to the competent authority should not be included. However, the amendment is not needed. Decision makers in the competent authority will consider all information provided to them. Credibility considerations connected to lateness will, by implication, apply only where information has not been provided within a specified time period and without good reasons, which will be made clear in guidance. For that reason, I respectfully invite the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his response, which I will go away and consider. In the meantime, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 184, in clause 46, page 42, line 3, at end insert—
“(3A) Any slavery or trafficking information notice must be accompanied by information regarding the Secretary of State’s obligations to identify and support potential victims of modern slavery and trafficking.”
This amendment would ensure that potential victims are given information regarding their rights at the same time the notice is served.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I commend the Minister on having run the London marathon for Justice and Care, which does invaluable work.
We are supportive of the previous Scottish National party amendments to clause 46, which were outlined by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. If we achieve nothing else this afternoon, I did promise the SNP spokesperson that I would work on being able to pronounce his constituency in time for our debates on the Bill, having managed to avoid doing so entirely during the passage of last year’s Immigration Act. I hope he will recognise those efforts.
With your permission, Chair, I will come back to clause 46 more broadly during the stand part debate. Our amendment follows a damning letter sent by 60 charities from across the human trafficking and modern slavery sector. They seeks to mitigate the effects of a Bill that they claim
“will have a disastrous impact on the UK’s response to modern slavery.”
In the light of the series of recommendations in that letter, amendment 184 would require any slavery or trafficking information notice to be
“accompanied by information regarding the Secretary of State’s obligations to identify and support potential victims of modern slavery and trafficking.”
We have serious concerns about both clauses 46 and 47, but these trafficking information notices are a new initiative, and should be accompanied by a full explanation of why the questions are being asked and what rights and support a potential victim of trafficking should be entitled to. The Government have placed significant emphasis on the need to reduce the time taken for victims to be identified, and on ensuring they receive the correct support package at the earliest opportunity. We strongly share that objective, so the requirement for information to be provided at the same time as the notice is served seeks to address any uncertainty and anxieties a potential victim may have.
Furthermore, it is critical that a trafficking notice is served with an assessment and awareness of risks and victims’ needs, as they can be incredibly wide-ranging, and that assessment and awareness can be essential for safeguarding purposes. Some victims will not have English as their first language, and some may have limited literacy skills. They will need access to the correct translator and there should be recognition of any special educational needs. That reinforces the need for each case to be evaluated sensitively.
We seek to ensure that the basic entitlement to information is met. It is important to recognise that in cases of modern slavery, many first responders and expert witnesses have found that victims interviewed often have so little knowledge of the national referral mechanism that they do not know if they are, or have been, in the NRM. Victims being unable to self-identify and limited awareness of how to navigate the NRM are consistent issues, and we will return to them under other clauses in part 4. Amendment 184 seeks to mitigate potential restrictions to the NRM, and is a sensible suggestion, and I hope that the Minister sees its merit.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Members for Enfield, Southgate, and for Halifax, for tabling the amendment, and the hon. Member for Halifax for setting out the case for it. Clause 46 forms part of our expansion of the one-stop process to include modern slavery through the establishment of a new slavery and trafficking information notice.
Amendment 184 is not required, as the Government are providing mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that potential victims are fully aware of their rights and the Secretary of State’s obligations to them, including the right to free legal aid where appropriate. Information on the Secretary of State’s obligations to victims will be provided to individuals when a slavery or trafficking information notice is issued. These measures will ensure that potential victims better understand the national referral mechanism and their support entitlements.
In combination with clause 46, clauses 54 and 55 seek to ensure that individuals are provided with advice on the national referral mechanism when they receive advice on asylum and immigration matters. That will enable more victims of modern slavery to be referred, identified and properly supported.
Primary legislation on the process of providing information to possible victims is not required, and while I appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment, it would duplicate what happens through clauses 46, 54 and 55. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the hon. Member for Halifax is content to withdraw the amendment. We have had a pretty good debate on clause 46, so I hope that it can stand part of the Bill.
Holly Lynch
I am somewhat reassured by the Minister’s remarks. I hope that he will inform Committee members when the draft notices have been finalised; we will continue to keep a close eye on that matter. We will not push the amendment to a vote, but given what the Minister said about the clause, I might move on now to my speech on clause stand part.
Holly Lynch
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Holly Lynch
I have some broader remarks on the clause, which we do not intend to support. I thank colleagues right across the human trafficking and modern slavery sector for their professional expertise, and their assistance with our scrutiny of the proposals before us.
As was said in the evidence sessions, and by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, part 4 came as a surprise to many; they had not anticipated its proposals, which were wrapped up in an otherwise very heavily trailed piece of immigration legislation. There are no two ways about it: part 4 is a backward step after the hard-won progress of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Every Child Protected Against Trafficking was scathing about it in its briefing; it said there had been a complete lack of due process when it came to these elements of this primary legislation, and that for that reason, parliamentary scrutiny of them would be even more urgent and important. The Children’s Society has been explicit in saying that part 4 of the Bill should be removed entirely. It has described the Bill as
“an affront to the Government’s own recognition that identifying victims of modern slavery or human trafficking is a safeguarding, not immigration matter. Consequently, not only will this Bill have unjust and dire impacts on children and young people who have fled to this country seeking safety and protection, it will particularly harm children if they are then also trafficked or exploited.”
That is a stark warning to us all.
Stuart C. McDonald
I will be brief, given what I said in support of the amendment. All the anti-trafficking organisations that got in touch with us—60 or so—said that this clause could cause huge problems. I am not clear at all what issue the Government think it will resolve. What is the problem they are striving to tackle? It has not been outlined at all. All hon. Members agree that we need to identify more victims, but as the hon. Member for Halifax said, this will do the opposite and make it harder, not easier.
Tom Pursglove
It might assist the Committee if I say a little more. I am not concerned about covering ground that we may have already covered if it helps to clarify matters further and to put beyond any doubt the Government’s undertaking.
The purpose of clause 46 is to ensure that genuine victims of modern slavery are identified at the earliest possible opportunity, so that they can get the support they need to recover from their exploitation. The clause is part of the measures that seek to expand the current one-stop process to include modern slavery through the establishment of the new slavery and trafficking information notice, which can be issued alongside the new evidence notice introduced by clause 16.
Asylum and human rights claimants will need to provide relevant information relating to being a victim of modern slavery or trafficking within a specified period and, if providing information outside that period, set out a statement of their reasons for doing so. The slavery and trafficking notice aims to help identify possible victims at the earliest opportunity, to ensure that they receive appropriate support. It also aims to ensure that those who are not genuine victims are identified at the earliest possible stage.
The clause is underpinned by access to legal advice to help individuals understand whether they are a potential victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, and to support a referral into the national referral mechanism if that is the case. The clause works in tandem with clause 47, which sets out the impact of not providing information in good time without a good reason, such as the effects of trauma. Individuals will also be made aware from the start that if they fail to disclose information, save for good reason, their credibility may be damaged. We will set out our approach in guidance, giving decision makers the tools to recognise the impact of exploitation and trauma, and ensuring any changes to processes resulting from those measures are designed to take full account of the impact of trauma on victims of modern slavery. We intend to work with the sector to develop the guidance around that. I hope that will give Members confidence that the views and experiences of those groups will be taken into account when developing the guidance.
Neil Coyle
Perhaps the Minister could name one of the expert organisations that support the inclusion of clause 46 or 47. As it stands, the vast majority of organisations in the sector oppose the inclusion of those measures. It is all very well the Minister saying he will impose a requirement on the sector to work with the Government on that guidance, but they are saying categorically that they do not want the clauses.
Tom Pursglove
I think the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood my point. I was not saying there was any intention to impose a requirement on the sector to work with Government to develop the guidance, but undoubtedly we would welcome the input of the sector, which has a lot of experience and knowledge. We think there is a genuine issue that we need to address. The point I have made several times is that we want people to access the help they need when they need it as quickly as possible.
Stuart C. McDonald
The sector would have preferred to have been consulted on the clause. The key problem it has is what happens if someone has gone past that deadline. This scheme puts real pressure on that person not to disclose at all, because they will fear that the regime will lead to their being disbelieved. That is a fundamental problem. Consulting after the clause is already on the statute book will not fix that.
Tom Pursglove
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s broader interpretation of the situation. We want to identify and help genuine victims as quickly as possible. I would expect cases to be looked at appropriately and individually to ensure that is exactly what happens. There was also a question of whether victims will receive a slavery and trafficking information notice before getting a reasonable grounds decision? Yes, we want to identify victims as soon as possible.
Holly Lynch
The Minister had, and I am eternally grateful to him for giving way.
It does worry me somewhat that, as I understand it, those decision makers at the Home Office would ordinarily make reasonable grounds decisions very quickly in order to facilitate a swift entry into the NRM. If that will no longer be the case and we will be issuing notices, bearing in mind what we have discussed about trauma and victims taking time to disclose it, that could introduce significant delays for a victim entering the NRM. That really worries me. Could the Minister say any more to assure us that we will not be preventing victims from accessing the support they need by introducing that additional process?
Tom Pursglove
I would expect cases to be looked at on an appropriate case-by-case basis that properly takes into account all of the relevant circumstances. It might be advantageous if, in my note to the Committee, I include some commentary on how we expect the process to work, to set that out for Members in more detail and make sure there is no confusion.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Holly Lynch
I beg to move amendment 190, in clause 47, page 42, line 19, at end insert—
“(aa) the person was 18 or over at the time of the incident or incidents in respect of which the slavery or trafficking information notice was issued;”.
This amendment seeks to ensure those exploited as children are not penalised for late disclosures.
The amendment seeks to ensure that those who were exploited as children are not penalised for late disclosure, because of their age-related vulnerability and safeguarding concerns. Statutory guidance under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 very clearly states:
“Whatever form it takes, modern slavery and child trafficking is child abuse and relevant child protection procedures…must be followed if modern slavery or trafficking is suspected.”
There is a remarkable lack of distinction between children and adults in the proposals set out in the Bill. That issue was picked up by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, who commented in her letter to the Home Secretary in September on the lack of detail on provisions for children.
This is the first in a series of amendments to clauses in part 4 of the Bill that seek to ensure that the worst elements of part 4 do not apply to children. As we know, the Children’s Society has been deeply critical of the Bill and of clause 47 in particular, arguing that the clause will disproportionately and unjustly affect children and young people, who we know are often unable to disclose evidence
“because of the trauma of their experiences, or due to inadequate legal representation.”
Putting the responsibility of disclosure on to a child victim of slavery or trafficking in order to comply with a pre-determined Home Office timeframe, so that they can access the support they need to escape slavery or trafficking, is a perverse barrier. Surely that is not what the Minister intends to achieve. If it is not, I urge him to adopt amendment 190 to make that clear.
In its written evidence, Every Child Protected Against Trafficking points to a 10% increase in the number of children identified as potential victims of trafficking from 2019 to 2020. There were 4,946 referrals last year. That is why we must recognise children within the NRM as requiring a different approach from that required by adults. I return to the point that child protection procedures must be followed as outlined in the modern slavery guidance. Nowhere does that feature in this part of the Bill.
ECPAT makes the point that child trafficking is a form of child abuse and that identifying child victims of trafficking is a safeguarding matter, not an immigration one—not least because so many children in the NRM are British citizens. However, we have a responsibility to any child victim of trafficking to protect them from exploitation, first and foremost. To put the burden of proof on to a traumatised child with trafficking information notices is not right; nor, I suspect, would it comply with various other safeguarding obligations.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Members for Halifax and for Enfield, Southgate for setting out their case, and for tabling this amendment. I appreciate their consideration of this clause and their concern for a vulnerable group of individuals. Ensuring that clause 47 enables decision makers to take account of individuals’ vulnerabilities is fundamental to our approach. That is why we have included the condition of good reasons, and we will ensure decision makers have the flexibility and discretion to appropriately consider them without prejudicing what that should cover.
What constitutes “good reasons” has purposely not been defined in the Bill. The detail on how to apply good reasons will be set out in guidance for decision makers. This will give decision makers the tools, for instance, to recognise that the age at which traumatic events took place may affect an individual’s ability to accurately recall, share or recognise such events, while maintaining a case-by-case approach. Doing so in guidance will ensure that we also have the flexibility to update and add to the range of considerations undertaken by a decision maker in exercising discretion. To create a carve-out for one group of individuals, as amendment 190 seeks to do, would undermine this approach and create a two-tiered system based on the age at which exploitation may have taken place.
I am sure that this is not the intention of the hon. Member for Halifax, but this amendment could also incentivise individuals to put forward falsified referrals regarding the timing of exploitation to delay removal action. Our approach avoids this potential avenue for misuse, but still allows for important considerations regarding the age of the victim to be looked at. Indeed, reasonable grounds decision making already takes account of the specific vulnerabilities of children by, for instance, not requiring there to be any means of exploitation when establishing whether an individual is a victim.
We believe that the right approach is to provide more detail in guidance on the varied and complicated reasons that may constitute good reasons. These will include the age when the exploitation took place, but a wider range of potential reasons and indicators will also be considered to avoid focusing specifically on one victim cohort. This approach will allow decision makers to consider each case on its merits, whilst considering all the information relevant to their case without prejudging it. To do otherwise would not be appropriate or fair to all victims. Again, I hope that the sector will work with Government to shape those guidelines and ensure that they are right. For these reasons, I respectfully invite the hon. Member to withdraw her amendment.
Holly Lynch
I am concerned by some of the Minister’s response. He says that children, and the age of the victim, will be a consideration within good reasons. However, once again we have not got that guidance; it has not been nailed down, so we have no assurances of how the detail will look. He also says that it would not be appropriate to have a different approach for victims based on their age. However, I think that would be entirely responsible and appropriate, and we look to do so throughout a whole range of legislation and legislative approaches. I think it would be a responsible requirement to place on the Government. With that in mind, I will press amendment 190 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 173, in clause 47, page 42, line 21, leave out—
“or a conclusive grounds decision”
This amendment would disapply this section when a conclusive grounds decision is being made (i.e. when a reasonable grounds decision will already have been made).
The amendment is designed to allow us to question how the new process will interplay with the NRM process, and to establish how long the notice period in the new process will be, so it is another short but important point. The amendment would disapply the section on credibility if a reasonable grounds decision is made. It is even less clear what sensible case can be made for the use of a trafficking information notice if sufficient information has already been provided to justify such a reasonable grounds decision.
Depending on how the system operates, and given the huge delays in making conclusive grounds decisions, the following scenario could play out. A person receives a reasonable grounds decision and is referred to the NRM process. That person makes a claim for protection, and the Secretary of State then serves them with a trafficking information notice. Full disclosure takes time because of their circumstances. The person is better placed to disclose much more information after the deadline for the trafficking information notice has passed but before a conclusive grounds decision is reached. It would surely be very strange, then, for the conclusive grounds decision to take account of late provision of information, but the clause appears to envisage that that could happen. Has that all been appropriately thought through? It would be useful to hear an explanation of how those two processes will interact.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Members for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and for Glasgow North East for their amendments. I am pleased to see from the amendments that they acknowledge the benefits of a system that brings forward at the earliest opportunity all information related to modern slavery, enabling us to provide support and protection quickly to those who need it.
To that end, clause 47 covers information raised at the reasonable grounds and conclusive grounds stages, which are the two crucial decision-making stages in the national referral mechanism, and which both confer different rights on possible and confirmed victims. Although there are different standards of proof at those two stages, it is critical that the decision maker at both points can review all information to take decisions. Those decisions should include consideration of whether information has been provided late and whether there are good reasons for that. By removing that consideration at the conclusive grounds stage, amendment 173 would remove the consequence of providing late information when the decision-making threshold is higher. That could perversely incentivise misuse of the system at the later stage.
We are clear that that approach should be taken across both decision points to ensure that we meet the clause’s aim of identifying victims as early as possible and reducing opportunities for misuse.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am confused. I cannot see the benefit of late disclosure if the conclusive grounds process is ongoing. What does the amendment incentivise?
Tom Pursglove
Again, I simply make the point that decisions are made case by case. We maintain that we need all the information at both decision points to reach the right decisions in individual cases. For those reasons, I respectfully invite the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
We will go away and study what the Minister has said. I am still confused about the interaction between the two processes. The amendment was designed to seek an explanation, and I suspect that we will not be satisfied with it, but in the meantime I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 174, in clause 47, page 42, line 23, leave out “or on behalf of”.
This amendment would exclude statements made on behalf of a slavery or trafficking information notice recipient (as opposed to statements made directly by them) from this subsection.
This is a very short point, but another important one. The amendment is designed to try to get further information from the Minister. I am sorry to have to test him on all the detail of the clause, but it is important. What we are asking here is why statements made on behalf of a trafficking information notice recipient should be impacted by the clause because of late provision of evidence. What does this cover? Is a medical report, for example, to be impacted by the clause so that its credibility is doubted because the recipient gave information late? Is analysis of the truth of what a social worker or a counsellor has said on behalf of the trafficking survivor to be impacted by the clause as well? We are really just asking this. What does it mean? What is the scope of the fact that this scheme applies to statements made on behalf of the trafficking information notice recipient and not just by the recipient himself or herself?
Tom Pursglove
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Member for setting out his case for the amendment. We know that, given the nature of modern slavery and human trafficking, many individuals often struggle to provide information relating to their abuse. That is why these measures are supported by the provision of legal aid to support possible victims in understanding the process and the national referral mechanism. It is also for that reason that the clause is specifically drafted to capture information provided by the victim or on their behalf.
All relevant information should be considered, whoever provides it, when decision makers are taking into account the provision of late information. Not to do so would create an artificial divide between different cohorts of individuals, depending on who provides the information for consideration. That could inadvertently encourage misuse of the system by leaving it open for individuals to seek to use others to provide all information late, knowing that its late disclosure will not be part of the consideration of credibility, when they could provide it themselves. That could delay disclosure and therefore our ability to identify and support individuals at the earliest opportunity as well as reducing opportunities for misuse. To give a practical example, I am confident that if someone else failed to press “Send”, the individual affected would not be impacted negatively by that.
For the reasons that I have outlined, I respectfully encourage the hon. Member to withdraw his amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
Again, I am grateful to the Minister for his answer and we will consider it. I am still not absolutely clear on precisely what the scope of the provision is and whether, for example,
“a statement…on behalf of the person”
would include a medical statement—a medical report—so that its credibility would be damaged just because the person who underwent the medical report disclosed information late. We will go away and think about that. I think the Home Office may need to give it some consideration as well, but in the meantime I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Anne McLaughlin
I beg to move amendment 175, in clause 47, page 42, line 24, leave out from “account” to the end of the subsection and insert
“of all the factors that may have led to the person providing the information late.”
This amendment would remove the presumption that delayed disclosure in relation to slavery or trafficking will be deemed damaging to a person’s credibility.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 163, in clause 47, page 42, line 26, at end insert—
“(2A) For the purposes of subsection (2) ‘good reasons’ include, but are not limited to—
(a) the impact of trauma, including avoidant behaviours and memory fragmentation consistent with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder;
(b) distrust of authorities, including fear of punishment or a lack of confidence in the confidentiality of information sharing;
(c) fear of reprisals against them, their children, families or friends if they make an allegation of slavery;
(d) experiencing pressures and fears related to bonded debt;
(e) where the claimant was under the age of 18 years at their time of arrival in the UK or at the time of their exploitation;
(f) where the claimant has diminished capacity;
(g) fear of repercussions from people who exercise control over the individual;
(h) a lack of understanding of Modern Slavery including being unable to identify themselves as a ‘victim’;
(i) narrative reasons including being unable or unwilling to identify themselves as a ‘victim’;
(j) Stockholm syndrome; and
(k) an ongoing or previous relationship with the trafficker.”
This amendment seeks to define “good reasons” for late disclosure.
Anne McLaughlin
We know that it is common for the impact of trauma on trafficking survivors to result in late disclosure of the trafficking experiences. I will not repeat things that we have already said, but let us not pretend that we do not know that already. The clause places an additional burden on people to demonstrate good reasons for their late disclosure, or lose credibility and be less likely to be recognised and given the support essential to recover—in as much as one can—from the crimes that have been visited on them, as a trafficked person. They are no less in need, however, and for that reason, amendment 175 would stop the very common delayed disclosure of information from damaging a victim’s credibility.
Holly Lynch
We very much support the SNP’s amendment 175, which, as we heard, seeks to strike “as damaging” from the clause and hand that discretion back to the Home Office decision maker, as the Minister has already gone to some lengths to assure Members will be the case.
I will also speak to our amendment 163. We seek to mitigate the Government’s refusal to spell out what, if anything, would constitute a good reason for late disclosure. In Committee on Tuesday, the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, argued for a similar approach during our debates on part 2. The Minister responded that
“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.”––[Official Report, Nationality and Borders Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2021; c. 333.]
I understand the points that the Minister made, but he will appreciate that for the Opposition, it is feels although he is somewhat putting the cart before the horse. We are being asked to consider the clauses in blind faith without the guidance, and one way he could address that is by including something in the Bill. As the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East said earlier, we can debate only what is in front of us.
I expect one thing we can agree on is that no list can ever be exhaustive. I suspect that, as we have heard, the most convincing reasons for late disclosure are ones that we cannot comprehend. It would be nonsense to think that any list would be exhaustive, but without having in front of us any indication of what good reasons might be, we are being asked to take a leap of faith too far. The reasons in amendment 163 include, but are not limited to, a person’s fear of reprisals against them, experiencing pressures related to bonded debt, and being unable to recognise themselves as a victim.
In discussing part 2, again, the Minister went on to 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”,
and that
“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”––[Official Report, Nationality and Borders Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 26 October 2021; c. 333.]
I felt that the Minister was very much talking up the discretion that the competent authority decision makers would have, in order to offer us assurances, but that is not reflected in the primary legislation in clause 47. I would be grateful if he could confirm that “good reasons” will be set out within the guidance for NRM decision making, as was the commitment for asylum decision making in part 2.
I would be grateful if the Minister also confirmed when that guidance will be published, and when the training, which he described as being necessary in accompanying the guidance, will begin. I hope he will recognise that amendment 163 is measured and sensible and that he will agree to adopt it.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for their genuine interest in these matters and for bringing forward their amendments. By introducing a statutory requirement to provide information before a specified date, victims of modern slavery will be identified at the earliest opportunity, ensuring that those who need protection are afforded it quickly. This measure is supported by the provision of legal aid to ensure that possible victims feel able to share information in a safe and supported manner.
It is important to state that the requirement to bring forward information related to being a victim of modern slavery does not mean that referrals brought late will not be considered; all claims of modern slavery will be considered, irrespective of when they are raised. We have purposefully not defined “good reasons” in the Bill, and the detail on how to apply “good reasons” will be set out in guidance for decision makers. That is the appropriate place, giving the Government the flexibility to respond to our ever-increasing understanding of modern slavery victims.
We will of course work carefully with stakeholders as we operationalise guidance to ensure that decision makers have the tools to recognise the effect that traumatic events can have on people’s ability to accurately recall, share, or recognise such events in some instances, while not seeking to prejudge their decision making by placing this detail in legislation. However, as has been recognised, we cannot legislate for every instance where someone may have “good reasons” for providing late information. To attempt to do so would be impractical. It would also limit the discretion and flexibility of decision makers, who are best placed to consider all factors on a case-by-case basis.
Amendment 163 would have the perverse impact of individuals facing different requirements simply because their situation is excluded from the amendment. It also ignores the possibility that a person may identify as one of the listed categories, but their information may be late for unrelated reasons. It would therefore create a blanket acceptance for late information in specific prescribed circumstances, while a vulnerable individual who did not fall within the specified categories would face a different test on whether they had good reason for providing late information. That would be unfair.
As I have set out, it is important that we are clear on the consequence of late disclosure of information in order to provide clarity for decision makers and victims, and to deter possible misuse of the system. Removing the reference to impacting credibility, as amendment 175 seeks to do, would remove our ability to require the provision of information up front. A duty to provide information requires a consequence and I think we are all agreed that seeking information on modern slavery issues up front is of benefit to all. The clause already includes mitigations to the possible consequence of damaged credibility, providing clear safeguards while still addressing the issue of potential misuse. The solution is not to stifle the clause of any robustness.
As I stated, more detail on good reasons and the credibility considerations will be set out in guidance. We will work to ensure that this takes account of vulnerabilities related to an individual’s exploitation. However, as I have outlined, we believe that removing the consideration of credibility as damaging would impede the ability to reduce potential misuse and reduce the impetus to identify victims as early as possible. As a result, that would perpetuate the issues that these clauses are designed to address, to the detriment of victims.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am still not sure that the Minister has addressed a fundamental point here. The worry is that if somebody genuinely is a victim of trafficking—I hate even having to describe people in that way—and misses that deadline, the fact that there are possible consequences of that, even if they might have a good reason, means that all they know is that they have missed the deadline. It is a huge disincentive for them to then come forward with other information. That is the whole point, and I still do not think that has been addressed by the Government.
Tom Pursglove
I recognise the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman’s concern about this. What I would say to him, as I have now said many times, is that I expect appropriate decisions to be taken on a case-by-case basis, taking proper account of all the circumstances, mitigations and issues that people bring forward in relation to good reasons. I am confident that that process can be properly developed and delivered in a way that is responsive to those sorts of issues. That is why—to address the point made by the hon. Member for Halifax—it is difficult to put a precise time on when that guidance will be put in place, for the simple reason that we want to engage properly with the sector in the way that I have outlined. I want that to be a thorough process and for the guidance to be put in place in an appropriate manner that is as exhaustive as possible, but does not lack common sense and means that proper consideration is given to the many varied reasons that people may have for providing information late, for example.
Anne McLaughlin
I have a couple of points to make. My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East made the point that once people get past the deadline, they will be terrified to come forward. What will the Minister do about those people—
Tom Pursglove
I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady in mid-flow. I just want to provide some clarity on this point. If there are reasonable grounds to believe that someone is a victim, they will get positive identification even if the information is provided late. I want to be clear about that and place it on the record.
Anne McLaughlin
But the Government are refusing to accept amendment 163, which would put in the Bill what some of the good reasons could be. The Minister says that he will allow decision makers to have discretion, but what he is actually doing is allowing them to have discretion not to accept some perfectly valid reasons—including trauma, as we have covered. I would love to press the amendment to a vote, but we have to pick our battles in this place, so I reluctantly beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
Amendment 163 has already been debated. Do the Opposition wish to move it formally?
Holly Lynch
The Minister has heard my comments, and we anticipated his response. We will follow the issue closely, but at this stage we will not press it to a Division.
Neil Coyle
I beg to move amendment 181, in clause 47, page 42, line 31, at end insert—
“(5) The provision of relevant status information identifying a person as a likely victim of human trafficking for sexual services shall constitute a “good reason” for the purposes of this section.”
This amendment would mean that the credibility of victims of human trafficking for sexual services would not be called into question by reason of the late provision of information relating to that fact.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 187, in clause 47, page 42, line 31, at end insert—
“(5) Subsection (2) does not apply where the person is a victim of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
(6) For the purposes of subsection (5) the person may be considered a victim of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation if there is evidence that the person—
(a) Has been transported from one location to another for the purposes of sexual exploitation;
(b) Bears signs of physical abuse including but not limited to—
(i) Branding
(ii) Bruising
(iii) Scarring
(iv) Burns; or
(v) Tattoos indicating gang membership;
(c) Lacks access to their own earnings, such as by having no bank account in their own name;
(d) Has limited to no English language skills, or only such language skills as pertain to sexualised acts;
(e) Lives or stays at the same address as person(s) meeting the criteria in paragraphs (a) to (d); and
(f) Sleeps in the premises in which they are exploited.”
Under this amendment, late provision of relevant status information would not be taken as damaging the credibility of the person providing the information if that person were a victim of trafficking for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.
Amendment 182, in clause 48, page 42, line 36, at end insert—
“(za) at the end of paragraph (a) insert—
(aa) the sorts of things which indicate that a person may be a victim of human trafficking for sexual services;”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to issue specific guidance on the sorts of things which indicate that a person may be a victim of human trafficking for sexual services.
New clause 42—Offence of human trafficking for sexual exploitation—
“(1) A person commits an offence if the person arranges or facilitates the travel of another person (“V”) to the United Kingdom with a view to V being sexually exploited in the United Kingdom.
(2) It is irrelevant whether V consents to the travel (whether V is an adult or a child).
(3) A person may in particular arrange or facilitate V‘s travel to the United Kingdom by recruiting V, transporting or transferring V, harbouring or receiving V, or transferring or exchanging control over V.
(4) A person arranges or facilitates V‘s travel to the United Kingdom with a view to V being sexually exploited in the United Kingdom only if—
(a) the person intends to sexually exploit V in the United Kingdom during or after the travel, or
(b) the person knows or ought to know that another person is likely to sexually exploit V in the United Kingdom during or after the travel.
(5) “Travel” means—
(a) arriving in, or entering, the United Kingdom,
(b) departing from any country outside the United Kingdom in circumstances where the person arranging or facilitating V’s travel intends that the destination will be the United Kingdom.
(6) A person who is a UK national commits an offence under this section regardless of—
(a) where the arranging or facilitating takes place, or
(b) where the travel takes place.
(7) A person who is not a UK national commits an offence under this section if—
(a) any part of the arranging or facilitating takes place in the United Kingdom, or
(b) the travel consists of arrival in or entry into, departure from, or travel within, the United Kingdom.
(8) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life;
(b) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or a fine or both.”
Neil Coyle
I have always wanted to be a dame—[Laughter.]
I thank Tom Farr of CEASE and Kat Banyard of UK Feminista for assisting in the drafting of the amendments and for their valuable work. Before I address each amendment in turn, I want to quickly highlight the concern that we have seen online in response to today’s discussions about some of the language that the Minister has used, specifically the issue of “genuine cases”. It is my understanding that nine out of 10 “reasonable and conclusive grounds” decisions were positive last year, and I gently urge the Minister to consider the impact of his words, especially when it comes to more people coming forward in the future. He said that he will listen to the sector. I hope that is a genuine offer, given that the sector does not feel that it was listened to. The consultation period was very brief and unexpected and has left the sector very unhappy.
Amendment 181 would help ensure that the credibility of victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation would not be called into question by a late disclosure of being trafficked, which clause 47 would do. If a person discloses that they have been a victim of human trafficking for sexual services, the lateness of the claim should not matter.
As we are all aware, the treatment of trafficked women and children subjected to sexual exploitation is unimaginable. It is widely understood to severely impact on their ability to escape from the situation they find themselves in. For many, it impacts on their ability even to understand or admit what has happened to them, for reasons of denial and other issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax raised in the debate on clause 46.
There is a bureaucracy behind the Government’s plans. Many individuals who have been sexually exploited are wholly unaware of the process of having to declare themselves as a victim of sexual exploitation. Many are likely to be suspicious of any involvement with the authorities. There may be a very good reason why a person feels that way, including that they have not been in control of their activities and are unaware that they have committed specific immigration offences or other criminal offences that they have been forced to engage in under duress, such as soliciting.
Clause 47, in practice, means that if trafficking status is disclosed at a late stage, that will have a devastating impact on credibility. That simply cannot be justified. As my hon. Friend argued, victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation must not be precluded from legal protections simply because they are too frightened or traumatised—we have previously discussed post-traumatic stress disorder—to disclose information as soon as they come to the attention of the authorities. To encourage disclosure can very often take time and sensitivity, something that the Home Office does not always currently allow for, and which the proposals in this Bill will affect to an even greater level. The amendment would make sure some of the most vulnerable people who have been trafficked continue to be protected under the law.
Amendment 187 supports amendment 181. It details how a person making a late disclosure of trafficking for sexual exploitation might better be identified by any relevant authority. A person may be considered a victim of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in a number of ways: first, if there is evidence they have been transported from one place to another for the purpose of sexual exploitation; secondly, if a person has signs of physical abuse, including but not limited to branding, bruising, scarring, burns or tattoos; thirdly, if a person has no access to their own earnings—for example, a person who does not have access to a bank account—fourthly, if a person has limited or no English language skills, could not cope on their own and has been managed previously; fifthly, if a person lives at the same address as anyone who meets any of these criteria; and finally, if they sleep in the same place they have been or were exploited.
Although authorities may have the best interests of an exploited individual at heart when investigating any trafficking-related crime, they may not even be aware of how to recognise such an individual, given the distinct and specific treatment that they have been subjected to. Putting these comprehensive but by no means exhaustive guiding factors into the Bill aims to ensure that authorities have a deeper understanding of the factors they should be aware of and how to identify and help victims.
It is important to note that it is often only when the authorities make wider arrests of criminal gangs that exploited individuals are discovered, usually in brothels or closely-controlled transient places of residence. In a situation of criminality, it may be difficult for authorities to discern who may ultimately be responsible for such criminality.
Acknowledging that exploitation often manifests in ways such as physical and mental trauma, as well as a total lack of autonomy over their own lives, will improve the current legal situation in two tangible ways. First, it may deter lengthy and expensive prosecutions of victims of exploitation, who may otherwise fall between the cracks and be prosecuted for an offence they committed under duress. Secondly, it will put into law current Crown Prosecution Service policy, which is to treat these individuals as victims as and where they are discovered. That is not happening now—we see the prosecution rate for sex crimes in this country at a historic and terrible low.
Amendment 187 would allow the UK to further build its status as the world leader it wants to be when it comes to a toolkit to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation. These individuals must be viewed as victims of crime and not criminals requiring punishment.
Amendment 182 is an alternative probing amendment that would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance on the specific factors that may indicate that somebody is a victim of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. I hope the Minister will give an indication of whether that is the direction of travel for the Government.
The amendment would also provide greater clarity for the relevant authorities. As already said, it would prevent the prosecution of individuals who may have been compelled to commit offences while being sexually exploited, as well as providing a framework for authorities to refer to when trying to discern exactly the type of exploitation that has taken place. I hope that the aim behind these amendments will be welcomed by the Minister today, even if they are not accepted.
New clause 42 would put into law a specific offence of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. The clause makes it an offence to arrange or enable the travel of another person for the purpose of sexual exploitation, regardless of whether the person consented to travel. Arranging or enabling travel can be done in numerous ways: by recruiting a person, by moving or carrying a person, by holding or receiving a person, or by transferring or exchanging control of a person.
Trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation means planning to sexually exploit a person during or after travel to the UK, or knowing another person is planning to sexually exploit a person during or after travel to the United Kingdom. Travel means arriving in the UK or leaving any country outside of the UK if the destination is the United Kingdom. A UK national commits the offence regardless of where the facilitating, arranging or travelling takes place. A non-UK national commits the offence by facilitating, arranging or travelling into and out of the UK. Committing the offence carries up to life in imprisonment if tried in a Crown court and would be a welcome step forward.
New clause 42 is necessary because while the Modern Slavery Act 2015 covers exploitation more broadly, the issue of sexual exploitation, specifically within the commercial sex industry, now merits being recognised as a distinct offence due to the catastrophically high numbers of trafficking victims brought into the commercial sex industry in the UK, organised by serious organised crime outfits.
The link between trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation—industrial-level prostitution—is undeniable, and the problem is getting worse. During the covid pandemic there was a 280% increase in the advertising of sexual services online in the west midlands, with the women being predominantly of eastern European origin. A 2010 report suggested that at least 10,000 women involved in off-street prostitution were victims of trafficking or non-UK nationals who were highly vulnerable. These statistics are shocking. We are not seeing provisions in current legislation to match the scale of the problem in the country.
Introducing new clause 42 would ensure that authorities and the Government recognise these intrinsic links and would aid in all our efforts to combat the scourge that is human trafficking and broader violence against women and girls. The benefits of the clause would include, firstly, requiring authorities to dig deeper to examine whether human trafficking has taken place when investigating any prostitution-related offence. Second, it would protect victims of sexual exploitation who have been trafficked. If an individual is being investigated for a prostitution-related offence, it is wholly unacceptable that they should be prosecuted for acts committed under duress or threat of violence from exploitative traffickers.
Placing this specific offence in law would encourage authorities to think more carefully about whether individuals who may initially be viewed as criminals are, in fact, victims of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. It would further allow for the specific prosecution of those who traffic people for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and the full scale of what is going on would perhaps become clearer. Amendments 181, 187 and 182 and new clause 42 would ameliorate and offer some specific protection to women trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. I hope the Government will look favourably on these probing proposals.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Members for setting out, through the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, their case and for putting forward their amendments. I appreciate their consideration of these clauses and their concern for a vulnerable group of individuals. They have raised important issues around identifying victims who have faced the most heinous crimes.
Ensuring that clause 47 enables decision makers to take account of individuals’ vulnerabilities is fundamental to our approach. That is why we have included the condition of good reasons, and ensured that decision makers have the flexibility and discretion to appropriately consider those without prejudging what that should cover. What constitutes good reasons has purposefully not been defined in the Bill: the detail on how to apply good reasons will be set out in guidance for decision makers, as we have already discussed. That will give decision makers the tools to, for instance, recognise the effect that traumatic events may have on individuals’ ability to accurately recall, share or recognise such events, while maintaining a case-by-case approach. Doing so in guidance will also ensure that we have the flexibility to update and add to the range of considerations undertaken by a decision maker in exercising discretion.
To create a carve-out for one group of individuals, as amendments 181 and 187 seek to do, would undermine this approach and create a two-tiered system based on the type of exploitation faced. I am sure this is not the intention of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, but amendment 181 could also incentivise individuals to put forward falsified referrals regarding the specific forms of exploitation, or delay removal action. We believe that the right approach is to provide more detail on the varied and complicated reasons that may constitute good reasons in guidance, where these can be explored in more detail and where we can be more flexible as our understanding of exploitation develops.
Neil Coyle
The Minister has said that the intention is to address some of the issues and concerns raised by organisations and by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East in the guidance. Can I request that the Minister meets those organisations and the hon. Member before Report, to make sure that any guidance plans take those concerns fully into account their concerns?
Tom Pursglove
I have made this point several times now, but it is certainly worth repeating: there is a real willingness and desire to engage thoroughly in relation to the development of the guidance. I would of course be very happy to consider any meeting requests that come in the usual way, but I assure the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark that there is a firm commitment here, which I have made several times. As I have said, the hon. Member is a canny parliamentarian, and will take every possible opportunity to hold Ministers to account on that commitment to engage constructively with the shaping of the guidance.
Neil Coyle
There is a real test here, because the Minister is saying that he wants to listen to the sector. The sector is saying that it does not feel particularly listened to up to this point. It is a simple request to meet before Report, and the Minister has not quite said yes.
Tom Pursglove
What I would say to the hon. Member is that if he makes contact with my office in the usual way, with information about who he would like me to meet alongside him, I will absolutely consider that appropriately.
Decision makers’ considerations will include the indicators highlighted in the amendment, but they will also consider a wider range of potential reasons and indicators to avoid focusing specifically on one victim cohort. This approach will allow decision makers to consider each case on its merits while considering all the information relevant to that case without prejudice. To do otherwise would not be appropriate or fair to all victims.
Amendment 182 seeks to insert a specific reference to human trafficking for sexual services into clause 48. We are agreed that this provision must enable decision makers to identify the most vulnerable victims, including victims of trafficking for sexual services. However, to set out a particular purpose of trafficking on the face of the Bill would fragment the types of exploitation victims have faced.
Exploitation for the purpose of human trafficking is defined under section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and that definition includes sexual exploitation. This is supported by the modern slavery statutory guidance in section 49 of the Act, which sets out considerations that may indicate that a person is a victim of human trafficking for sexual services. The existing guidance provides detail on indicators of specific types of modern slavery, including indicators that apply specifically to victims who have suffered from sexual exploitation. I am certain that hon. Members agree that there should be no grading of exploitation, and it is correct that exploitation for any one purpose should be considered with the same severity as exploitation for other purposes. We believe that to set out one particular purpose for exploitation on the face of the Bill would create fragmentation. Our guidance already provides detail on indicators of several types of modern slavery.
I will now turn to new clause 42. As I have already stated, I agree with hon. Members that the abhorrent crime of trafficking in individuals for the purposes of sexual exploitation should be treated with the utmost seriousness. That is why section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 already accounts for human trafficking offences, and makes specific reference to sexual exploitation in section 3. In fact, the Modern Slavery Act allows for a wider provision of the offence. Section 2 makes human trafficking an offence in any part of the world, which includes trafficking to the UK but also trafficking within the UK, which the amendment does not.
Neil Coyle
I think the sector has a concern that the proposal in this legislation undermines the Modern Slavery Act and measures to encourage and support victims who have come forward. I hope that the Minister will hold that meeting before Report, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Tom Pursglove
Clause 47 sets out the consequence if an individual who has been served with a slavery or trafficking information notice as discussed under clause 46 provides information relating to being a victim of modern slavery after the specified time period. The clause aims to ensure that possible victims are identified as early as possible to receive appropriate support and to reduce potential misuse of the national referral mechanism system from referrals intended to delay removal action. Under clause 47, the decision maker must decide whether information provided through the one-stop process is outside the specified time limit and therefore is late. This consideration will take into account whether there was a good reason for the late information, such as the impact of trauma, but where there are no good reasons, an individual’s credibility is damaged due to the provision of late information.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister referred to abusing the process but he has not said much about what evidence there is for this problem. What is the scale of it? Much like statelessness, perhaps he could write to us with the evidence of what it is that the Government are trying to get at here. The big problem is the three-year delay for making decisions. Is not that the problem rather than anything that the Minister has referred to?
Tom Pursglove
I recognise the invitation to write with more detail around this and I am happy to do that. That would be advantageous to the Committee. Given that time is getting on and we want to continue to make progress, I am very happy to take that request back to the Department. I will provide that information.
The Government will ensure that any changes to processes as a result of these measures are designed in a way that accounts for the impact of trauma. This includes ensuring that individuals working in the system are aware of the factors that can affect the task of obtaining information such as the effects traumatic events can have on people’s ability to accurately recall such events. This assessment will be set out in guidance for decision makers and we will engage stakeholders as we develop it. We will continue to consider all referrals on a case-by-case basis to ensure that support is tailored to the needs of genuine victims.
Holly Lynch
We intend to vote against clause 47. It is closely linked to clause 46 and I will try to avoid repetition as we are returning to elements that have been well discussed under part 2 on Tuesday.
The number of survivors able to receive support through the national referral mechanism will be reduced as a result of clause 47.
As the Human Trafficking Foundation outlined in written evidence:
“Introducing a trafficking information notice and so converging immigration with human trafficking risks creating another layer of bureaucracy and so would likely increase the length of time survivors must wait in the NRM.”
If we are to ensure that victims with complex psychological and physical needs are not punished by the system or left in limbo while their claims are processed, the clause cannot stand part of the Bill.
As other hon. Members have said, the Home Office’s own statutory guidance states:
“Victims’ early accounts may be affected by the impact of trauma. This can result in delayed disclosure, difficulty recalling facts, or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder… It is also vital for decision makers to have an understanding of the mitigating reasons why a potential victim of modern slavery is incoherent, inconsistent or delays giving details of material facts… Throughout this process it is important to remember that victims of modern slavery have been through trauma”.
The clause runs completely contrary to that guidance.
The VITA Network explained in its consultation response to the new plan for immigration that:
“Psychological trauma causes profound disturbances to normal brain function and memory, including memory loss and inconsistencies”
in recollection. We know that a high proportion of trafficked people experience violence prior to and during trafficking. Long after they have escaped exploitation, many still fear that harm will come to them and their families if they disclose information about their experiences. It is often those who are most in need of protection who will find it the hardest to disclose such information.
In 2015, the PROTECT programme was established. It was an independent piece of research, commissioned and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care’s policy research programme, and led by King’s College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The programme aimed to develop evidence to inform the NHS response to human trafficking, and it was comprised of surveys and qualitative research, including interviews with trafficked people and with NHS and non-NHS professionals. It found that psychological distress was highly prevalent: four fifths of women in contact with shelter services screened positive for anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder at interview.
My hon. Friend the shadow Minister told the harrowing story of Gloria in his contribution on Tuesday, and demonstrated why the clause will be damaging to those who have been subject to trauma. The clause flies in the face of best practice and runs contrary to all we heard from witnesses in oral evidence. Earlier this week, my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark made excellent points about how PTSD is just one reason why the approach in the clause will be unworkable and unconscionable for those who really need our help. We do not seek to punish or discredit other victims for late disclosure, so why are the Government seeking to do so in this case? The clause highlights the inconsistencies and the unjust nature of the Government’s approach.
It is also deeply worrying that the Government have offered no clarity in subsection (2) on the timescales within which individuals would have to provide that information. Will it be days, weeks, months? I would be grateful if the Minister gave us an indication of his thinking on that. As things stand, the clause will put barriers between victims and the support that they need to recover and secure prosecutions against the real criminals, who we all want to see brough to justice. On that basis, we cannot support clause 47.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Holly Lynch
I beg to move amendment 183, in clause 48, page 42, leave out line 38.
This amendment would ensure that the threshold applied (in the Modern Slavery Act 2015) when determining whether a person should be considered a potential victim of trafficking remains at its present level.
The amendment would leave out line 38 in clause 48, which moves the threshold from someone “may be” a potential victim of trafficking to someone “is” a potential victim of trafficking, to ensure that the threshold applied in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 when determining whether a person should be considered a potential victim of trafficking remains at its present level. It is our view that we should seek to build on the commitments in the Act, not undermine the hard-fought progress that it achieved. As I have raised already, the Government are seeking to tear up what were at one time world-leading principles in the Act, and to do so via an immigration Bill, conflating two very different processes.
The reception that clause 48 has had from across the sector should have stopped the Government in their tracks. The amendment is essential to ensure that we can identify victims effectively, rather than creating additional barriers to the national referral mechanism. Currently, around nine in 10 of all reasonable and conclusive grounds decisions are positive. In 2020, the Single Competent Authority made 10,608 reasonable grounds decisions and 3,454 conclusive grounds decisions. Of those, 92% of reasonable grounds decisions and 89% of conclusive grounds decisions were positive. Additionally, in 2020, 81% of all challenged negative reasonable grounds decisions were overturned.
Judging by the Home Office’s own data, we can conclude that the current threshold is set at an appropriate level, so why are the Government seeking to raise it? Referral into the NRM is possible only when made by a designated first responder who has identified someone as a potential victim of trafficking and secured their informed consent to make a referral. That means that there should already be a very high level of positive reasonable grounds decisions at the threshold of “suspect but cannot prove”, as the referral should not have been made if that threshold had not been reached.
It is important to remember that currently we are identifying only a small fraction of the estimated number of victims of trafficking. The Centre for Social Justice has estimated that the number of people trapped in modern slavery in the UK might be in excess of 100,000. Furthermore, there is still no pre-NRM specialist support available in the UK, despite the Government recognising the need for it to facilitate disclosure through having time in a safe space to receive information and advice in their 2017 announcement of places of safety. I would be grateful if the Minister told us why there is no mention of places of safety in the Bill—a point that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East made earlier.
With the Government failing to deliver on their own promises, initial identification is therefore an even bigger priority. Every Child Protected Against Trafficking made the valid point that for someone to just fall short of the new threshold will make certain victims vulnerable to being re-trafficked. Would we not all be more satisfied knowing that professionals have had a proper look at a situation that gives first responders cause for concern by staying with a “may be” rather than an “is” threshold, when the data speaks for itself on that? The amendment is therefore essential in maintaining the threshold at a level where victims who have built up the courage to seek help are identified and admitted to the NRM.
Tom Pursglove
I thank hon. Members for their interest and valuable contributions to the debate. They have raised important issues around identifying victims who have faced the most heinous crimes. Under the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings—ECAT—to which the UK is a signatory, certain obligations flow if there are
“reasonable grounds to believe that a person has been a victim of trafficking”.
The amendment seeks to leave the reasonable grounds threshold as it stands, which is where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person may be a victim of trafficking.
It is crucial that decision makers are able to quickly and appropriately identify possible victims. That is why we have proposed this minor change to the reasonable grounds threshold to closer align with our international obligations under ECAT and with the devolved Administrations. To not make that change would undermine the clarity on decision making. Additionally, as the amendment relates specifically to the provision of assistance and support to persons, it would create a different threshold from that applied when determining whether a person is a victim of slavery or human trafficking. That would create significant ambiguity around the reasonable grounds threshold and create further separation from our international obligations. For those reasons, I respectfully ask the hon. Member for Halifax to withdraw her amendment.
Holly Lynch
I am not entirely satisfied with that response, so I will press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Westminster Hall
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Coroner Service
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir George Howarth (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. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have 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, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering or leaving the room.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the First Report of the Justice Committee, The Coroner Service, HC 68, and the Government response, HC 675.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir George, and to introduce the debate. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate. This is an important matter that deserves further attention. I am sorry in some respects that it requires further attention, because had the Government responded more positively to what is a detailed report based on careful and substantial evidence, it might not be necessary to highlight the measure of deficiencies that are revealed in the Government’s response.
I welcome the Minister to his first justice debate in Westminster Hall, having congratulated him warmly on his debut at the Dispatch Box in the main Chamber yesterday. I appreciate that the Government response was not his responsibility, and I am not sure if he can avail himself of the young and naïve defence that was used yesterday.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
It was Tuesday.
Sir Robert Neill
Tuesday. Now that he is in post, I hope that, once he has read the Government response, he will take the opportunity to ask his officials to review it, because there are compelling reasons, which we will set out, why the Government should look again at a number of issues.
It is good to see a former member of the Justice Committee appear for the first time as a shadow Minister in Westminster Hall. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) certainly knows the full detail of the report because he played a substantial part in contributing to it. I hope that he will be able to agree with the contents of the report when we get to the end of the debate.
I also want to mention the presence of the hon. Member for Wallasey—
Sir Robert Neill
Garston and Halewood. The hon. Lady has played such an important role in the debate and has raised the issue—I know she will do so again today —of inquests into major disasters, such as Hillsborough, with great passion and expertise. I am grateful to her for her input to the report and to today’s important debate.
The debate is on an issue that is of concern to a lot of people. I am grateful to the House authorities for making an exception by allowing representatives from INQUEST and Mr Andrew McCulloch, who gave our inquiry compelling evidence about his family’s experience, to sit in the Public Gallery.
Let us start by taking an overview. The coronial system and jurisdiction date back to medieval times; it is one of our oldest jurisdictions. It grew up on the basis of a very localised approach. That means that historically it was dealt with and supported by local authorities—initially parishes, counties and then eventually it morphed into being supported by essentially top-tier authorities in the modern local government structure. That makes it completely different from any other type of court jurisdiction because we moved to a unified magistrates court service some years back. That originally came from not dissimilar localised routes, but it was recognised in the case of magistrates that logic compelled that we move to a single national system. I have to say that nothing has persuaded me that the same logic does not apply to the coronial system.
The system means that some of the procedures and levels of funding are much more variable across the country than those in any other form of court system. There are differences between it and the criminal courts in particular—the coronial system is inquisitorial, whereas the criminal court system is adversarial—even though there is, sadly, an overlap in the subject matter they both consider. The complexity and nature of the issues that now frequently come to be considered by coroners, in relation to both the evidence presented in individual inquest cases and the growth in inquests into multiple deaths, mean that the system—which started in the time of the Plantagenets and evolved through the Tudors and Hanoverians—does not work in the 21st century, based on our judgment of the evidence. That is why, on the back of very strong evidence, the Committee recommended a major reform.
This is not the first time that there have been calls for a national coroner service. Previous reports, which are well documented in our report, have argued for this in the past, but the Government have been consistently unwilling to agree to it. I am sorry to say that I cannot see any compelling reason for their stance. The argument seems to be cost, but that same argument could have been made about magistrates courts. It rightly was not. We have to balance cost with the importance of the work that coroner courts do for the public and individual families.
It is right that when tragic deaths occur, there is a proper and transparent hearing into what has happened. Many of the cases dealt with by coroner courts will be straightforward and uncontroversial. Nobody is seeking to change that, but increasingly there are cases that are not only much more complicated in terms of the causes of death, but of really high public importance. Hillsborough is the most obvious and well-documented example, but there are many others. We have seen this in the growth in issuances of prevention of future deaths letters, which is a procedure the coroner is in power to use. These are being written more often because, sadly, more instances of failures, often corporate, come to light at inquests. It is important for public policy that those issues be fully ventilated.
Those arguments lead us to the conclusion that we need to take a much more radical look at the issue. The last overhaul of the system was with the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. There was a review of the operation of that Act, as had been promised in 2015, but I regret to say that it was never published. It sits somewhere in the archives of the Ministry of Justice. Perhaps if the Minister, as I occasionally used to do when I was in post, went in on a Friday when the officials might expect him to be in his constituency and had a poke around, he might find it somewhere. I urge him to get somebody to go and have a look at it.
The simple question is: why was the review never published? What on earth was the reason, even back in 2015? We ask why it has not been published and are told that it is now out of date. If one sits on anything for long enough, it becomes out of date. We might ask whether this is a blatant cover-up, but if it is not a cover-up why not publish the review? It would cost one official’s precious little time to put it on a website—we do not need anything more than that. No doubt, there will be a suitable narrative around the review saying, “This goes back a long way and things may have changed.” As a matter of good public policy and transparency, why on earth has the Ministry of Justice not published it?
The Ministry may even say at the end of the day that it disagrees with the conclusions or does not think they are viable. It may say that the review is not appropriate any more. Put it up there and say that. To me it is the obvious thing to do. It might be that there are lessons to be learned from the review. The actual structure of the service has not changed since the 2009 Act and there have not been any significant changes, so I guarantee that not everything is purely of historic interest. I ask the Minister to respond to this issue, which I mention first simply because of the history. It is against the background of a number of reports recommending a move to a national system that that became the central part of our recommendations.
The reasons can be encapsulated as follows: coroners’ services are funded by local authorities, whose financial circumstances and priorities vary—as you well know, Sir George—because the pressures on their resources vary. As such, the service that is given to bereaved families across the country varies, as does the service provided to the public. We do not think that that is justifiable, any more than it would have been justifiable in the case of magistrates courts some time ago.
The overwhelming majority of those who submitted evidence to the inquiry called for a unified coroner service to ensure consistent standards, and that is what we recommended. The Government rejected that, saying that they did not think it would be the best solution. They said, as far as I can see, that there is merit in flexibility, but that does not at all reflect the evidence we received. I have had a few clients over the years who were faced with pretty overwhelming evidence, and I usually told them that the answer was to put their hands up. For some reason, the Government have not done that, but the evidence is just as strong—it was really quite marked how compellingly the weight of evidence was tilted in one particular direction—so I hope the Minister will take that recommendation away and have another look at it.
In particular, it was suggested that there were cost issues around the proposal, and I accept that. However, this is part of the justice system, and as some of us have said on other occasions, an effective justice system is so fundamental to the wellbeing of civil society in this country that one should not be afraid to make a proportionate amount of money available to make sure it is delivered properly. Can the Minister at least tell us whether he will share the cost analysis that backs up the Government’s conclusion in relation to this recommendation? Will it be made public? It seems to me that it ought to be. What is the basis of the Government’s assertion that it is too costly, given the benefits that the evidence clearly suggests would be achieved?
A second recommendation went hand in hand with the first. If one thought that a national service is too ambitious—which I do not—one could consider having a coroner service inspectorate: a single national inspectorate. We have inspectorates for the Crown Prosecution Service and a raft of other Ministry of Justice agencies, and it does not seem unreasonable to do that in this case. I am glad to say that in recent years there has been an important development: the creation of the post of Chief Coroner. A series of very distinguished judges have held that post, and they have undoubtedly done a lot to improve the system within the limits of their current powers.
Being head of a national service could, of course, give the Chief Coroner the proper powers of direction to ensure consistency across the piece. The CPS, the prisons and probation inspectorates, and the inspectorates assessor alongside them, are not expensive in the overall scheme of things. We all know that the budgets for the inspectorates that the Ministry of Justice run are very small compared with the day-to-day delivery costs. I would argue that that should be introduced alongside a national service, but even without one it would be a sensible, reasonable thing to do and a step in the right direction, and something that the Government could consider without prejudice to their principal position.
Has any work been conducted to assess the affordability of establishing a coroner service inspectorate? Without such an inspectorate, how are the Government going to ensure that the coroner service is sufficiently transparent and accountable? Given that the Government did not dispute the evidence of inconsistencies of practice, how will they ensure consistency of practice, or much more consistent practice than we have at the moment? That is exactly the sort of thing one would expect an inspectorate to be there for, so why not?
Another very important issue was the question of access to legal aid for bereaved persons, which is an immensely sensitive issue, as Members will understand. We heard really moving evidence from a number of families who had lost loved ones and, inevitably, found the whole process to be extremely distressing. It seems to me that a number of issues arise from that.
At the moment, there is no legal aid for bereaved families at inquest, other than exceptional case funding. To be clear, a large number—perhaps the majority—of cases that come before the coroner’s court will not require legal representation. They are very straightforward and seek to ascertain the cause of death—no more, no less. However, a significant number of cases involve more complex issues. One would, therefore, expect that it is right for families to have legal representation in those cases. However, they may have lost the principal breadwinner of the family or be going through many other pressures—is it right to expect them to go through the very complicated procedure of exceptional case funding? It is not like the ordinary legal aid application form; it is a much harder, more bureaucratic set of measures. It does not seem fair to put people through that, after such tragedies.
There is also an important question of principle. Frequently, one of the interested parties will be a public body. It may well be a health authority, a police authority or chief constable, or a local authority. It might be a Government agency of one kind or another. That party will invariably have legal representation. Sheer equality of arms—a basic principle of the rule of law—would surely dictate that in circumstances where a public body is legally represented, the family should also have legal representation, even within an inquisitorial, as opposed to adversarial, system. The family have the right, as they should, to expect that the evidence given by the public body and its representatives is tested, particularly as there may be a challenge to it, and that there is a full explanation as to whether the actions of the public body, whatever it may be, contributed to the death of the deceased.
Maria Eagle
I agree very much with what the hon. Gentleman has said thus far. Does he agree that the adversarial nature of some coroner’s inquests often results from a public authority trying to defend its reputation and defend against civil or criminal liability that it may fall into as a consequence of the outcome of the inquest? Yet the families, who are also interested parties, simply want to know what happened to their loved one. Things become adversarial because of that difference in the interests of the interested parties.
Sir Robert Neill
That is a perfectly fair point. We have all had experience and seen a great deal of evidence of that. The more potentially sensitive the issue, the more that is likely. Let us be blunt: in some cases, there will be public bodies who desire to avoid the potentially significant claims for damages that could arise if it is found that their negligence has, to some greater or lesser extent, contributed to the death of the deceased. They therefore have a direct stake in trying to minimise their fault. There is inevitable pressure on them to do that.
In that event, it is right and proper, even within an inquisitorial system, that the coroner should not have to bear the whole burden of trying to rectify that. Instead, we should enable the other interested parties—the families—to have legal representation as well. The truth is, in these types of inquest, it is not the purely old-fashioned inquisitorial system any more. The reality is that an adversarial and defensive nature has inevitably been brought into the legal proceedings by the legal representatives —acting on the instructions, of course, of the public bodies concerned.
That is why we think it is important that there should be equality of arms. We recommended that there should be automatic entitlement to non-means-tested legal aid for legal representation for people in relation to mass inquests, where there are multiple deaths, and that non-means-tested legal aid or other public funding for legal representation is made available for people when public authorities are legally represented. The level of representation may vary according to the complexity of the case. However, the principle should be there.
I accept that there has been positive movement from the Government in one respect. INQUEST, in its very helpful briefing for today’s debate, recognised that the Government did announce that they would take forward legislation to remove the means test for applications to exceptional case funding for legal representation at inquests. They also announced an intention to provide non-means-tested legal help. That is also crucial. However, the suggestion that non-means-tested legal help will be contingent on cases where ECF has been granted does not seem to be logical, given the range of cases that are potentially engaged here, and the way these processes operate.
As I understand it, there are plans to remove the means test for legal help in these circumstances—I am told there will be some public consultation on this—but I hope the Minister can update us on the progress of plans to remove this and on the time frame for bringing this to a conclusion. That would remove a great deal of pressure for many of the families who contacted us during our inquiry. Even if this cannot happen for them, the fact that it would be possible for families in the same position in the future would be a great boon, would improve public confidence, and would be a humane gesture by the Government. I hope therefore, in that spirit, that the Minister will give us more detail on how the Government intend to pursue that welcome move. Having been critical in some areas, I give them credit where credit is due, but I would like to see flesh on the bones in how that will be achieved.
It has also been suggested that there should be some delay until the Government have responded to Bishop Jones’ report relating to the Hillsborough families’ experiences. That was a very important report, and I can quite see that the Government would want to take it on board, but it was published in 2017, and we still do not have the Government’s response. I know the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) will want to talk about that. I know that it sometimes takes a long time to get things done, but four years seems to be an awfully long time, particularly given the sensitivities and how that might weigh on the families of those concerned and on public confidence in the system. Can we have an indication as to when the Government intend to respond to the Bishop’s report, and a timeline for how they intend to deal with the particular issue of legal aid, which they have already moved towards?
What will be done for cases that fall outside that ECF funding to ensure families have legal help from the outset? The importance of that is not just what happens on the day, at the inquest. It is also in dealing with, for example, post-death investigation and inquest preparation. I hope the Minister will have more detail on that.
I might add, in passing, that another point in favour of a national coroners system is that it would enable the Chief Coroner to have far greater power to ensure consistency in pre-inquest hearings and that coroners, on a national basis, have a greater suite of case-management measures than they currently have—as found in the Crown court or elsewhere—to ensure that preliminary hearings are dealt with expeditiously, and that the issues are narrowed down so that evidence, when it does come from bereaved families and so on, is only that which is absolutely necessary. Sometimes, irrelevant material is attempted to be introduced, causing great pain to families without actually leading to the key conclusions in the case. That could be dealt with, and its admissibility determined, at a much earlier stage in the proceedings.
Those are all arguments for the national service, as well as for strengthening the role of the Chief Coroner—in management and so on. However, to do that properly, it is right and fair that the interested parties are legally represented on an equal footing at those preliminary hearings.
Those are some of the key areas that we addressed around the national system and the position of families in relation to inquests and representation. There are other things that we recommend should be done to help with families, particularly the experiences that all families have, which may not require legal representation but do just need a hand through the system. Even if it is not a contentious death—if I can put it that way—it is none the less a traumatic experience. The thought of having to go to court, having to identify the deceased, or so on, is a difficult circumstance for people. We thought that more work needed to be done to ensure that bereaved people know of the existence of the Ministry’s guide to coroner services; it is good that it is there, but the evidence shows that, on a consistent basis, there is nothing like the awareness of it that there should be.
We recommended that there should be work done to update the guide and make sure that it is freely available online, and where people cannot access it online, it is available in hard copy. I am glad that the Government accepted this recommendation—we appreciate that. However, we are concerned about what monitoring will be put in place, absent any form of inspectorate or national control, to ensure that this is delivered in practice and that families do receive the access that Government and the Committee want them to have. If it is locally based, what levers will the Government use to make sure it happens in every coroner’s area?
At the moment there is no central funding that goes to the coroner service; it is funded through a local government process with nothing from the Department. We think that the Government should look at a small amount of funding being made available for support services for bereaved people at inquests. That could be done as a separate stream, in the same way as we have streams for victim support in other areas of criminal justice. A small pot here could go a long way towards ensuring consistency. If it was ringfenced, and came directly from the Ministry, then it would ensure that support services for victims were not subject to the same local variations and vagaries as other elements of the system. It is a modest proposal, and I hope that the Minister might be able to tell us what the Government will do on it. Could they perhaps look at the affordability and deliverability of it? Has any work been done on it in the same way that work has been done to ensure that families get access to the guide and are signposted to other forms of support?
An unusual feature of the coroner system is that there is no right of appeal, as such. There is the right to seek a judicial review of the coroner’s decision, but the test for that is a very high one. One recommendation in our report is that there should be a straightforward appeals mechanism to the High Court, without having to go through the judicial review test—is it Wednesbury reasonable and so on. The Government said, fairly, that they would consider whether an additional appeals mechanism was appropriate, and I welcome that, but can the Minister help us as to what progress has been made in consideration of it? If there has been progress, and there is time, could we use the Judicial Review and Courts Bill to bring that forward? If not, can we have a timeframe as to when the Minister thinks the Department will be able to come up with a conclusion on an appeals mechanism and identify a vehicle that can put it in place?
As a general concern, it should be said that although there are some useful changes in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill that we debated on Tuesday, which are generally welcomed, a lot more that could have been done. I think there is a general disappointment that the Bill was not used as a vehicle to take forward a number of other issues that were raised in this report.
I wish to raise two further issues. One area of specific concern is the renumeration of pathologists—that is a real problem. The evidence is compelling; there is a real difficulty in finding sufficient pathologists to service the system. We heard that there are 580 consultant pathology vacancies in the United Kingdom, and we recommended that the Ministry should review and immediately increase coroner’s fees for pathologists. The fees have not gone up for over 20 years; it is difficult to think of any public service that could continue to attract people if the fees are not updated for 20 years. For some reason the Government have rejected that recommendation, and yet, we are not talking about vast numbers of people. We are not talking about the number of legal aid solicitors or barristers in the country; we are talking about a very small number of highly skilled and rare clinicians. To make it worthwhile for them to undertake this work, surely the Government need to look again at this.
Maria Eagle
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is hard to think of anything that could have a more catastrophic impact on the capacity of the coroners courts to do their work than a shortage of pathologists?
Sir Robert Neill
It is pretty fundamental, is it not? At the end of the day, if the purpose of the inquest to determine the cause of death, the most important bit of the evidence in that respect will often be the pathologist’s report, so it seems strange, to put it mildly, that what is a very modest proposal in the overall scheme of things has not been pursued.
The Government said they were not convinced that the level of fees was the reason for the shortage of pathologists. I ask the Minister politely, in that case, what they think it is? If it is not the level of fees, what is the problem? The Royal College of Pathologists certainly thinks it is an issue; it says 62% of its members giving up post-mortem work cite poor remuneration as a major cause of their decision. If it is not the sole consideration, it sounds to me as if it is one of the major ones, and one that could be easily and swiftly resolved.
There are other issues that we suggested, such as working with the Department of Health and Social Care to make sure that pathologists’ work is planned within their NHS contracts. The problem is that the work they do for coroners is outside the NHS contract. If it is outside their contract and they are being paid a wholly out-of-date fee for it, no wonder it is difficult to get people to do it.
Is there a proper workforce plan for recruiting adequate numbers of pathologists? As the hon. Lady says, we almost cannot get past first base in many inquests without having the pathology services there to start with. I hope the Government will be able to look at that again. What do the Government intend to do to improve recruitment and retention of pathologists? If it is not increasing the fee levels, what else will they do? Things are clearly not sustainable as they are—having 580 vacancies is simply not viable.
The other point I wanted to touch on briefly is something I mentioned early on: the procedure for addressing fatal risks identified by coroners and juries, the prevention of further deaths reports. As I said, they have become increasingly important, and we have all seen their value in many highly publicised cases, but there is currently no consistent mechanism to ensure follow-up. Again, that is due to the highly localised and diffuse system that we have.
What progress have the Government made? They said that they recognised that more could be done and they would consider options, and I welcome that, but what progress have they made in considering how preventing future deaths reports could, first, be made more accessible and, secondly, followed up routinely? The whole point is that they ought to be out there in the public domain to change working practices, to change behaviour and to stop such things happening again.
However, as we found out with prison inspectorates and other things, all too often recommendations are left sitting there and are not followed up. The difference that was made when Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons had the ability, and some funding, to follow through on its recommendations was quite marked. What will the Government do to learn from what happened in the prisons system and put in place a mechanism for consistent follow-up and action? Could the Chief Coroner be given greater powers here? It would sit very logically within a coroners inspectorate system, which is perhaps another strong argument for going down that route, but in any event there ought to be a system of consistent means of follow-up and proper transparency and scrutiny.
The Government accepted our recommendation on bringing stillbirths within the coroner’s remit. That will be a considerable benefit to many bereaved families. A joint response from the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care was promised; can the Minister tell us when that response will be forthcoming?
I have not touched on everything, but I hope that gives an overview of what was a very substantial report, and the substantial issues it raised, by no means all of which have yet been satisfactorily answered. I know the Minister brings a fresh mind to this matter, and he is a can-do politician, so I hope he will use this opportunity to reassure us that the Government have not just closed the book on this and said, “No, thank you, that’s the end of it,” but that we can continue to have a constructive engagement with the Government about improving the system—because clearly, it does need improving.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. As a fellow Merseyside MP, I know you have long-standing experience of some of what I will discuss, particularly the first inquests into the Hillsborough disaster. I think you are the only person present who actually attended one of the many inquests at the time, so you know better than anybody how catastrophically wrong they went.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who is the Chair of the Justice Committee, on the way he introduced this important debate. I welcome the Minister to his post. Immediately after we produced the report, all the Ministers were cleared out in the reshuffle of the Ministry of Justice. It is not something that is ever helpful for getting continuity of effort and speed of response but it is not the Minister’s fault that he has only just come into his role and I wish him well. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said he is a can-do Minister, and I hope he is a will-do Minister too.
The report into the coroner service is not only knowledgeable and good—I am bound to think that, given that I am a member of the Justice Committee, which produced it. It also identifies issues that have come to light not just over the last couple of years but, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, over a couple of decades in some cases. I was the courts Minister in the MOJ for a period of time, back when Jack Straw was the Lord Chancellor in the late 2000s, as well as being the prisons Minister thereafter. I was also one of the Ministers who took the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 through the Commons, although I was not the lead Minister. Bridget Prentice did the policy development, but I did some of the work in respect of the Bill.
I recall the debates about whether we should have a national coroner service. It is always a question of cost, but somebody will have to grasp the nettle and deal with this issue at some point. As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, it is anomalous that it is still a local service. No matter the value of a local service, the consequence of having a local service is that people get a postcode lottery, which is not acceptable for the delivery of basic elements of our justice system. That is something for the Minister to grapple with in due course.
Perhaps my most important qualification for wanting to speak in today’s debate is as a constituency MP from a Liverpool constituency. I have been the MP there for almost 25 years, and I have a long-standing involvement with many of the bereaved families and survivors affected by the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. I have seen the horrendous experience of our justice system that they, as wholly innocent bereaved and traumatised people, have had to endure, partly because of the appalling failings of the first coroner’s inquest, which took place in 1990. That was not only the fault of the coroner who handled it at the time; in part, it was a consequence of the behaviour of public authorities, particularly the South Yorkshire police.
I am very much in favour of putting bereaved people at the heart of the coroner service, and it is not only about Hillsborough. I have had dealings with other families who have been caught up in other disasters, such as the sinking of the MV Derbyshire, although that did not involve the coroners. It happened at sea, so that involved a wreck commission. It was long before my time as an MP, but the ongoing trauma felt by bereaved families was still there when I became the MP for what was then Liverpool Garston.
There was also the Alder Hey organs scandal. Scandals and disasters happen every few years, and they can lead to decades of trauma for families.
I have had constituents who have had to deal with coroners’ inquests at the worst time in their lives—after they have lost a loved one, often in traumatic, unexplained or contentious circumstances. They have had to face a public authority that is being defensive, that is lawyered up to the eyeballs and that seemingly has an unlimited budget to spend on avoiding the blame and minimising its responsibility. That is how it often seems to bereaved relatives, who are going along as interested parties—the same status as the public authority before the court—simply to find out the truth of what happened to their loved one and to have a measure of justice done, so that they get the right verdict according to the facts. That is what families who go to inquests want, whether they are a member of a group of bereaved people who have lost their loved ones in awful circumstances or a single family who have lost a loved one and the coroner needs to be involved.
I want to say a little about the experience of families caught up in public disasters. In the case of Hillsborough, the interim report of the Taylor inquiry into the cause of the disaster—remember, this was filmed; it was on TV live, and people saw what happened—reported within four months of the 1989 event. Although time has proven it was wrong in some respects, most notably on the emergency services’ response, it has been proven entirely correct—remarkably so, given that police were changing statements to try to affect the way in which the inquiry apportioned blame—in finding that the main cause of the disaster was a failure of police control. That report was done within four months. It was quite clear at that stage what had gone wrong, yet South Yorkshire police did not like that finding and refused to take responsibility, as Taylor had said in his conclusions that they should. Instead, they used the inquests to give a very different impression, which set the tone that persisted for three decades—three decades of hurt and pain caused to the families and survivors.
There were procedural issues at the time of the first inquests. The inquests were difficult to handle and took more than a year. At that time, they were the longest inquests that had ever taken place in British legal history. The way in which the coroner chose to handle them did not work. The police exploited the way in which he chose to handle them to have evidence put that supported their story. Every individual who died had their blood alcohol levels taken, even though a third of them were children—the youngest was 10. The coroner allowed that.
So the impression was given, during the inquests, that the police story, which Taylor had refuted—that it was not the police’s fault but that of the victims and the Liverpool fans—was perpetuated, ingrained into the public imagination and reported in the newspapers every day for a year. Funnily enough, 30 years later some people still think that is what happened at Hillsborough. It was the coroner’s inquests being inappropriately conducted that led to that hurtful and difficult outcome—a year of propaganda leading to the wrong verdicts.
It took Hillsborough families until April 2016 to get the new, correct inquest verdicts of unlawful killing—a full 27 years after the events. The second inquests were not as terrible as the first. For example, the pen portraits introduced at the beginning of those inquests, which enabled families to say something about the deceased, are a wholly welcome innovation, which I know has been taken up in other proceedings. That is good. But imagine, 25 years after the events, family members having to sit and listen for two years—that is how long it took—to the same old lies being told in court by those who were still being defensive, despite the intervening years and the vast amount of evidence. It was deeply traumatic for those families and very difficult for them to cope with. Many felt they had to go every day and listen. Twenty-five years later, they had to go every day and listen, and it took two years—pretty tough.
Being an interested party at the inquest gives the bereaved family no greater locus than that of those who may be at fault for the death or who, by natural omission, failed to prevent a death, even though bereaved families have lost far more. Often, the public authority is simply using lawyers to seek to avoid blame or to protect its reputation above all other considerations. To avoid liability or cost is sometimes the main aim of the public authority that behaves in that way. It does not necessarily think about the consequences for the family.
That was certainly the case with Hillsborough, although I think there was also an institutional unwillingness by South Yorkshire police to accept any criticism or blame for the Hillsborough disaster. Even though—or perhaps because—Taylor had found them to be at fault, they were intent on proving that they were not, blaming someone else. The lack of consequences and the impunity for those responsible for that approach meant that South Yorkshire police were able to continue with it for decades. Right up to the second inquest, they were still advancing the same case, which had repeatedly been shown to be nonsense, to the deep hurt and pain of the families. Had the chief constable been dismissed after Hillsborough, after Taylor, a lot of what happened might have been avoided: a lot of that institutional impunity and appalling behaviour, and 30 years of extremely expensive legal actions, might have been avoided.
I met the families after I was elected. I had known some of them before, in my capacity as a junior lawyer in Liverpool at the time. They told me that the inquest had overturned Taylor—that the inquest verdicts had overturned the result of the public inquiry. As a lawyer, I said, “Oh no, they do different things,” but actually the families were right, because that is what the police set about doing and did—that was the consequence.
Not until September 2012 and the report of the Hillsborough independent panel, which was a non-legal procedure, was the truth finally known and accepted by the vast majority of people in public life in this country. Before that, politicians and other people frequently said that Hillsborough was about hooliganism. It certainly was not, but that was the impression left by the first inquests. That is what can go wrong if things are allowed to go wrong.
Although the public authorities and the bereaved families in essence had the same status—that of interested parties—at that time and still do, the fact is that the police had far, far more resources at their disposal. They seemed able to use unlimited amounts of their public funding to pursue those arguments about who was really at fault and how it was not really them. Only when the second inquest came along did the families have exceptional case funding, which I am sure ended up being extremely expensive, but they were at last able to have equality of arms.
Equality of arms between interested parties in contentious and adversarial proceedings, whether for individuals or in a disaster such as Hillsborough, is essential to establishing and getting justice and the right verdicts, and to persuading families that yes, they have been party to a proper proceeding. Bishop James Jones, in his 2017 report on the lessons of Hillsborough, recommended what he described as the “proper participation” of bereaved families at inquests. That is vital.
The bishop’s specific recommendations are similar to some of those in our report. He recommended:
“Publicly funded legal representation for bereaved families at inquests at which public bodies are legally represented”—
not all inquests, but those where public bodies are represented. He recommended:
“An end to public bodies spending limitless sums providing themselves with representation which surpasses that available to families”,
and which does not have the same tests applied to it. He recommended:
“A change to the way in which public bodies approach inquests, so that they treat them not as a reputational threat, but as an opportunity to learn and as part of their obligations to those who have died and to their family.”
That is a fundamental shift in attitude, if it can be encouraged. He also recommended:
“Changes to inquest procedures and to the training of coroners, so that bereaved families are truly placed at the centre of the process.”
One still hears examples of appalling insensitivity, if I can put it that way, by coroners. I am not saying all by any means. Some coroners are excellent at involving and engaging families properly, but not all are.
Our report proposes an automatic entitlement to non-means-tested legal representation for bereaved people at inquests into mass fatalities. That is tremendously important, but we also recommend more broadly that the MOJ should by 1 October—that deadline has passed, Minister—
“for all inquests where public authorities are legally represented, make sure that non-means tested legal aid or other public funding for legal representation is also available for the people that have been bereaved.”
I know that the Government responded to that recommendation, albeit not particularly positively. Bishop James also proposed a statutory duty of candour for police officers; our report proposes it for the coroner service, and for the Government to consider whether that should be extended to all public bodies.
There should be an equality of arms: legal aid or some kind of funding support for families in these circumstances, along with a more extensively applied statutory duty of candour. Together, those two things are a substantial part of the Hillsborough law, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, which Andy Burnham proposed before he left the House and of which I was co-sponsor at the time. I believe that those measures, along with the Public Advocate Bill, which was prepared by Lord Michael Wills and me, and which I have again introduced in the Commons in this Session, would go a long way towards preventing what happened to the Hillsborough families from ever happening again to families of those bereaved in public disasters.
There have been public disasters since Hillsborough, and unfortunately there will probably be more over time. One thinks of Grenfell, and one can already see things going wrong with that. The families are not satisfied with the way that the inquiry is enabling them to represent their views, and one suspects that that disaster has a long way to run before getting to the end of all the legal proceedings that are likely to happen as a consequence of that terrible disaster. The proposals made by Bishop James and in my Public Advocate Bill are not just a relic of some past disaster that would have made a difference; they will, if enacted, make a difference in future to families in that terrible situation.
It has taken the Hillsborough families 32 years to get to the position they are now in, where there is general acceptance—the truth has been officially acknowledged. They have had a measure of justice, in respect of the second inquest’s verdicts of unlawful killing; they have not had accountability for those who caused the disaster, and who over all these decades have sought to blame those who died and the footballs fans in the ground that day, rather than themselves. The Hillsborough families have not had accountability, and if we were to talk to them, they would not say that they are totally satisfied with the outcome, even after 32 years, because nobody has been held to account for what was done—the unlawful killing of 97 people. That cannot be a good day for justice in this country, if that is the outcome after all these years.
In what I would say was a somewhat disappointing response to our report—I think the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst was harsher—the Government have effectively played for time. I take the view that if they are playing for time, they have not completely said no to all the recommendations that they have played for time on. This is where the Minister comes in. This is where he can be a can-do Minister—a will-do Minister. The Government have accepted only six of our 25 recommendations.
Sir George Howarth (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that another speaker has to be brought in, and I will call the Front Benchers at 2.38 pm. Will she take that into account?
Maria Eagle
I will—apologies, Sir George. I will make sure that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has time.
I hope that the Minister will consider Bishop James’s report and our proposals, and come forward with a much more positive set of responses to the issues raised. In view of the time, I will not say what I wanted to about the prevention of future deaths, but more needs to be done on that. If more is done, lessons can be learned to prevent future deaths instead of the same thing happening time and again, with different coroners sending letters saying the same thing to the Government, who then do nothing about it for many years.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I am grateful for your intervention, Sir George. I do not have a lot to say, but I want to raise two specific issues, which have both been alluded to by the previous contributors. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and the Justice Committee on a comprehensive, timely and necessary report.
The two issues that I want to raise are coroners’ investigations into stillbirths—the subject of my private Member’s Bill—and the Shoreham air show crash. To start with the latter, I am sure that colleagues will remember that fateful day in August 2015 when at the Shoreham air show, which had been running for some 28 years, raising large amounts of money and providing a great spectacle in aid of the Royal Air Force charities, a Hawker Hunter jet crashed and 11 innocent bystanders on the ground tragically lost their lives. It was the deadliest air show accident since the Farnborough air show crash in 1952, so that activity has an extraordinary safety record over those many years.
An interim report on the crash was first produced in September 2015 by the air accidents investigation branch. A second report was produced in December 2015, and a third in March 2016. In January 2017, the Civil Aviation Authority accepted all the recommendations. In March 2017, a final report identified pilot error, and in December 2019 there was a supplementary report to the final reports from the AAIB. There was also a prosecution, and the court acquitted the pilot in March 2019. A lot has been written about the tragedy.
The only thing that has not happened is the coroner’s inquest. Six years, two months and six days on from that fateful tragedy on 22 August 2015, the families of the 11 men who lost their lives have still not have the closure that a coroner’s inquest could help to bring. That is made worse by the fact that, in the end, nobody was convicted of any fault. I make no comment about the trial that took place, but it certainly did not answer the questions those families still have. They have had to go through the trauma of not really getting to the bottom of what really happened on that day and not getting the answers that a coroner’s inquest could bring.
I share some of the misgivings about the way the coroners system is working. It is not very effective in certain cases, and it has not been remotely effective in the case of the Shoreham air show victims. There are all sorts of reasons for that. The relationship between the AAIB, the police and the CAA really needs to be looked at in detail. Giving some form of closure, information and comfort to the families of those who lost their lives must be a priority, yet they seem to come at the back of the queue in such considerations.
Something I was involved in to start with was the question of who was going to represent the families at the inquest. The original inquest opened on 2 September 2015, and was adjourned until March 2016. There were pre-inquest review dates, further pre-inquest review dates were set, and a full hearing was originally due in March 2017. That was delayed and postponed, delayed and postponed, and finally in May 2020, it was announced that the hearing would be postponed again until 2021. We are still waiting, and I hope that it will happen before too long. Throughout all that time, the coroner for West Sussex, Penny Schofield, has played a remarkable role and sought at every juncture to keep engaged with the families and keep them in touch as much as possible.
However, it was not clear whether those families would get legal representation paid for by legal aid at the outset. I hope that is now going to happen. It was estimated that 18 public bodies would be represented at the inquest, all of which would get public funds for legal representation. The only people who would not automatically receive funding for legal representation would be the families of the victims—the most important part of that inquiry, one could say. I share the concerns of the Select Committee and of Members who have spoken today: we must ensure that in tragedies such as this, legal representation is automatically available for the families, and the coroner system has to work more efficiently and effectively, not drag on for many years, as it has in this case.
The second case of “dragging on” I want to raise is that of my private Member’s Bill, the Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019, which was passed by Parliament in February and became law in May of that year. Two of the measures in that Act have now come into practice, the first of which is civil partnerships between opposite-sex couples. The first of those civil partnerships happened on new year’s eve 2019, and they have been taken up by many couples and have been a great success. The second measure, which came into effect earlier this year, is the inclusion of mothers’ details on marriage certificates, a historical anomaly going back to 1837 that I am glad to say this Act corrected.
However, two parts of the Act have not come into effect, the first of which is coroners’ investigations into stillbirths, dealt with in section 4. That clause requires the Secretary of State to
“make arrangements for the preparation of a report on whether, and if so how, the law ought to be changed to enable or require coroners to investigate still-births”,
and states that
“The Secretary of State must publish the report prepared under this section”
and that
“After the report has been published, the Lord Chancellor may by regulations amend Part 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (coroners etc) to—
(a) enable or require coroners to conduct investigations into still-births”.
Effectively, due to interpretation of the law, coroners cannot investigate deaths until somebody is deemed to have lived, and a baby who is stillborn is not deemed to have lived and therefore does not fall within the remit of the coroner. However, in some cases in which children have been stillborn, serious questions need to be asked. That is why, after representations from many coroners—including my own—and various baby charities, I included that clause in the Act. It is referenced on page 31 of the Justice Committee’s report, urging the Government to get on with publishing that report.
It is slightly odd that I am once again having to go over the reasons why this provision is so important, because we made the case for the Act in the long time it took to get it through Parliament. It was described as the most complicated and comprehensive private Member’s Bill ever to make the statute book, but it was widely supported in this House by Members from all sides, in the Lords, and by many baby charities. The Select Committee on Health and Social Care also included a reference to the Act in a recent report, and it has been supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), the former Health Secretary who is now Chair of that Committee. The reason is that, according to the charity Sands, an estimated 500 babies die or are left severely disabled because of an event during their birth that was either not anticipated or not well managed, and there is currently no independent investigation of those intrapartum deaths. That, again, leaves many questions unanswered for many parents.
There have been many improvements to the way the NHS has been dealing with stillbirths, and the Government are to be congratulated on that. Various investigation measures have been brought in, but none of them are independent. They are all within the NHS. That is why it is still deemed necessary that the coroner, in exceptional circumstances where there are unanswered questions, should have the power to investigate. The Minister was involved in my private Member’s Bill and he was very helpful with and supportive of it, but I ask him, when is the report going to be published?
I had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) when she was Health Minister as well as this Minister’s predecessor in the Ministry of Justice, in which it was suggested that various details of the consultation would be published before the summer. However, the Department was loth to go ahead with measures because they were worried about the compulsory inquest by coroners causing trauma to parents. I am afraid I do not accept that; it was parents who were asking for these powers.
I am particularly concerned about the sunset provisions in the 2019 Act. Section 4(6) reads:
“No regulations may be made under this section after the period of five years beginning with the day on which the report is published”.
Time is ticking away. I urge the Minister to investigate where the report is. It was never sent to me, so was it published on the quiet? Can we see the full result of the consultation responses? Will he go away and look at when we can have regulations brought forward, which the vast majority of people have agreed is necessary, so that the third important part of my 2019 Act can come into force? It will give great comfort to many parents who are concerned that they had a stillborn child in circumstances where many questions have not been answered.
In some cases that results in legal action taking place. The provisions in the 2019 Act will cut down on that sort of legal action and hopefully give quicker and more effective answers to those parents who have gone through the traumatic experience of suffering a stillbirth. There are good reasons why the law was passed by the House. I see no good reason why it has not become effective. Can the Minister respond as to when we can expect the good news?
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you chairing our proceedings, Sir George. I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), for his comprehensive and clear setting out of the recommendations of the report and for not pulling his punches in dealing with the Government’s response. The contributions of the hon. Members for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) were much appreciated. The examples they gave were not typical of the inquest system, but the system needs to stand up to all eventualities. They talked about particularly harrowing circumstances and personal recollections from their own constituencies, which show how important it is, not just for the many people affected by coroner proceedings, but for the general public. We must get the policy right, and that is not happening, sadly, in all cases at the moment.
If the Chair of the Committee had not already outed me, as part of my duty of candour I was going to say that I was a member of Justice Committee when it heard the evidence for and approved this report. It comes as no surprise that I think very highly of the report. It deserves this debate on its merits but, as the Chair of the Committee made clear, this debate is a mark of the displeasure of the Justice Committee. The Government’s response to what has been set out is wholly inadequate. The report is the first since Tom Luce’s 2003 report almost 20 years ago that has comprehensively looked at the faults and issues in the coroner system. We might have expected something better in response.
It is clear that proceedings grind slowly in relation to reform of the coronial courts. The legislation recommended by Tom was not passed for six years and did not take effect for four years after that. We then had the review, which was six years ago, and it has not yet been published. That is not a terribly good start, but we now have the happy coincidence that the Judicial Review and Courts Bill is going through its proceedings in this House. It had its Second Reading this week and will begin its Committee stage, which the Minister and I will take part in, next week.
A whole chapter of that Bill is to do with the coroner system, which provides an opportunity to address some of these issues. Unfortunately, the current proposals in the Bill are pretty minimalist and, if they do anything, they tend to restrict transparency and accessibility rather than the other way round, which is certainly not what the Select Committee was looking for. However, let us not let this be a missed opportunity. There is time to get it right, and whether it is in this House or in the Lords, there is an opportunity for the Government to bring forward some of their responses to the Committee that they said were delayed.
I counted at least seven major omissions from the Government’s response, and many of them have been mentioned already by the contributors. One is the provision of non-means tested legal aid, which might be the most central of them. One is appeals on coroners’ decisions. One is the issue of pathologists’ fees. One is the national coroner service, which the report recommends. One is the inspectorate, which the report recommends. One is a complaints procedure. The last is the independent office. Some of those are rejected out of hand, such as higher fees for pathologists and the national coroner service. With others, we are told that the Government will consider them—not now, but they are not saying not ever—or simply that they are not responding at present. It is quite unusual that we had a response along the lines of, “Why are you bothering us with this report now? Don’t you know we’ve got a Ministry of Justice to run?” I do not think that is an adequate response.
I do not have time to go through all the issues in detail, but let me mention one or two of which I have had personal experience. It is right that the Government appear to be shifting some way on the issue of legal aid, but they are looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope. What is clearly needed is not to make some adjustments to exceptional funding and early help, but to state the situation categorically in situations where there are unrepresented families—they are almost always families—in proceedings where there are state actors who are well funded and represented.
In my time at the Bar, I appeared at many inquests, but I do not think I ever appeared in one where 18 state bodies were represented, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham told us about. However, I have certainly been at an inquest where there were at least six state bodies and a family who either did not have representation or had pro bono representation, and neither of those is sufficient, frankly. I hope we can get an answer to when we will see the proposals coming through and when we will have a response to the bishop’s report.
On the issue of appeals, I cannot understand why this is probably the only area of law where there is no right of appeal. That seems an anomaly.
The prevention of future deaths reports have been significant in many cases and are a welcome innovation in the process, but they do not do the job that the independent office would do—what INQUEST calls in the report the national oversight mechanism. Again, I have personal experience of this. I have done a lot of work on fire safety over the past few years, and there have been a number of inquests around the country into situations where people have sadly died because of electrical fires and other fires that have occurred, but the dots have not been joined up. There may have been an individual report, but it has not been sufficient to carry it through into national policy.
The conduct of coroners is rather dismissed out of hand in the Government response, but it is a serious issue. I have taken part in a Westminster Hall debate with representatives from across west London about the west London coroner service. There have been allegations of appalling conduct, but there is no real mechanism for addressing them, which needs to be examined. I also think that the Government should look again at the idea of a national coroner service.
I know the Government will be concerned about cost in some of these areas, but at least they should investigate the price and decide whether there is merit in some of the recommendations here. The recommendations should not be just left to rest.
I mentioned the Bill that is coming up, which includes provisions for discontinuance of investigations, inquests in writing and remote attendance inquest hearings. I will be interested to hear how the Minister defends those changes, but none of them are about the fundamental reforms we have suggested. Indeed, he may want to look at the responses from the Royal College of Pathologists, a series of bodies representing victims and, indeed, from Tom Luce himself about the opportunity presented in the Bill to make some of these changes.
I do not want to exceed the 10 minutes I have been given, Sir George, so I will conclude with this: in responding today, in the time available, I am sure the Minister cannot cover every recommendation in detail, but perhaps he could at least do two things. First, perhaps he could articulate more clearly the Government’s response to us and what the Government’s policy is towards coroner services. There is a common theme of consistency in the report, whether we are talking about appeals, the independent office, the inspectorate or the national coroner service: consistency. How do we get a high standard of consistency in the decisions being taken in coroners’ districts around the country?
Secondly, and more immediately, can the Minister say when the response to the bishop’s report will be published, when the legal aid guidance will become clear and whether he will meet the ask in the Select Committee report on that, and whether he will consider bringing forward in the Bill some of the issues that the Government have not currently ruled out—appeals, inspection, and an independent office or national oversight mechanism?
If we can go that far, that will address many of the Committee’s concerns. If we do not, and we are left with the Government’s response as it is, they will have singularly failed again to address a service in which problems are being highlighted every day and every week by hon. Members on behalf of their constituents around the country, and in which people, often in extremis, are left to their own devices to try to represent the interests of their loved ones when they should be getting assistance from the state.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. My huge congratulations to the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill); he spoke fantastically on Second Reading this week, and he has done so again today. In terms of speakers today, it has been more a case of quality than of quantity on display.
I will try to cover all the points raised as far as possible, but I will leave my hon. Friend two minutes, so if I fall short in covering points in order to give him those two minutes, my apologies. I not only thank the members of the Justice Committee for their thorough and wide-ranging inquiry, but express my gratitude to the previous chief coroner, his honour Judge Mark Lucraft, QC, coroners’ charities, faith groups, medical professionals and organisations, bereaved families and many other stakeholders who provided written evidence to the Committee.
Like other public services in England and Wales, coroner services have faced, and continue to face, unprecedented challenges, exacerbated by covid-19. Despite those challenges, however, the coronial system continued to deliver. While we might say that, relative to other parts of justice, particularly criminal justice, this area arguably attracts less attention, coroners provide a vital public service that has a significant impact on bereaved people at their most vulnerable, and the Government are committed to ensuring that bereaved people are at its heart.
The Justice Committee’s report highlighted a number of key areas of concern and made 25 recommendations. My hon. Friend is very kind in what he says about a can-do attitude, but I think that responding in just two months, and then having some of those recommendations in a Bill a couple of months later, is not a bad performance time-wise. But, of course, the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) was right that we are still considering some of them. That is absolutely correct.
Five of the recommendations were for the chief coroner to consider, and we expect that Judge Teague will respond directly to the Committee on them and that the Committee will publish his response in due course. The remaining 20 recommendations were for the Government. The Government’s response explained that the Government accepted six of the recommendations outright, and we are already undertaking work on those recommendations.
One recommendation was to improve access to the Ministry of Justice’s publication, “A Guide to Coroner Services for Bereaved People”. The Committee acknowledged the value of the guide to bereaved people, and we are looking at how we ensure that hard copies are made more widely available.
Two of the Committee’s recommendations that the Government accepted relate to provisions that we are now bringing forward in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which is currently before Parliament. I look forward to debating the provisions with the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) in the Bill Committee that starts shortly. There are five coroner measures in the Bill, and the provision to make it easier for coroner areas to merge precisely meets one of the Committee’s recommendations. Taken together, the five coroner measures in the Bill are aimed at streamlining processes in the coroner’s courts and supporting the chief coroner’s post-pandemic recovery plans, thereby meeting another of the Committee’s recommendations.
Successive chief coroners have proposed a change to the legislation to give the High Court greater flexibility when it is asked to quash or request a fresh inquest, which speaks to the point about appeals. There is, of course, a route of approaching the Attorney General for an inquest verdict to be challenged in the High Court. I do not say that that is precisely what we would call a legal route of appeal, but it is there and it is important. The Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation to adopt the proposal on quashing verdicts and we have committed to introduce this measure when parliamentary time allows.
Let me come to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). The Government also accepted the Committee’s recommendation about the consultation on coronial investigation of stillbirths. Publication of the Government’s response has unfortunately been delayed due to the impact of covid-19 on wider priorities, but a response to the consultation is expected to be published in due course. I note my hon. Friend’s point about the sunset clause, which I will look into further.
On the terrible tragedy at the Shoreham air show, as noted by the chief coroner’s office at Shoreham, the inquests are legally and logistically complex, with large numbers of participants, and are being progressed as quickly as possible. I understand from the West Sussex coroner service website that the next Shoreham pre-inquest review is on 6 January next year. I also understand that the coroner very much regrets the delay in holding the Shoreham air show inquest—the delay is because of the pandemic—and that the coroner has applied to the High Court for permission to access material from the criminal trial. The coroner cannot continue with the inquest until the outcome of the application to the High Court is known. As we say, we expect the next pre-session in January.
I turn to the points raised by the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood, who has quite a background. She has had this job, been a solicitor, served on the Committee and, perhaps most importantly of all, has many constituents who have an interest in Hillsborough—as you do, Sir George—and has spoken on the issue many times with great passion. I very much admire the way she has done so. Of course, I can do nothing to change the amount of time that has elapsed. It is not my Department but the Home Office that will be responding in due course, and I am afraid I cannot say more than that today.
The hon. Lady made some very good points. On change of approach and the number of lawyers of either type that can be there to support public bodies, there is a protocol in the Government’s guide to coroner services that Departments must consider the number of lawyers, bearing in mind the commitment to an inquisitorial rather than an adversarial approach. The protocol is designed as a “model of behaviour”.
We are considering the independent public advocate. I know that the hon. Lady led a debate on this issue recently, which was answered by my predecessor, who is now the Solicitor General. He said there are details we need to look at, and I stress that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst raised many points. On the non-publication, shall we say, of the 2015 post-implementation review, I am afraid this is not a can-do answer. The work is almost six years old. I take my hon. Friend’s point about what happens if we sit on something long enough, but I am afraid that is our position. I am happy to speak to him further on that point offline.
The Government decided that 10 recommendations needed further consideration to determine whether the proposals could be delivered. They were not rejected, but need further work to determine whether they would be affordable and aligned with the Government’s priorities.
I will turn to legal aid, which is obviously very important. I realise that even in a Second Reading debate, several right hon. and hon. Members raised the issue of the inequality of arms and so on. We said that more work was needed on the recommendation around non-means-tested legal aid for legal representation for bereaved people at inquests. There have also been numerous calls from stakeholders for the Government to consider their position on the provision of legal aid funding for legal representation at inquests, in particular where the state is represented. The Government remain of the view that legal representation is not necessary for the vast majority of inquests because they are an inquisitorial, fact-finding process.
It is, however, one of the Department’s long-standing priorities to ensure that families are put at the heart of the inquest process. We acknowledge that there will continue to be instances where bereaved families are entitled to legal aid, for example where the state or public authority’s acts or omissions have arguably contributed to a death or where having representation at an inquest would be beneficial in the wider public interest. We believe that, where there is an exceptional case for legal aid, the process to access that support should be as straightforward as possible—not least to relieve the stress and anxiety that the application process brings to the bereaved family. With that in mind, we are in the process of amending legislation to remove the means test for exceptional case funding; I am pleased to confirm that that is currently being drafted and that we hope it will come into force early next year.
The Committee also asked the Government to consider adopting a charter of rights for bereaved families. The Government are keen to explore those issues, but explained that they would respond as part of their response to Bishop James Jones’s review of the Hillsborough families’ experiences, which is expected to be published in due course.
On the matter of—shall we say—a national service, the Government rejected the recommendation to unite coroner services into a single service for England and Wales. The Government recognise that many calls for a national coroner service stem from the view that such a service would address inconsistencies or a postcode lottery. We do not accept that nationalised organisations are necessarily the answer to such inconsistencies or postcode lotteries. I would make two points on that matter. This is about not only the cost per se, but the question of how it would be funded, given the service is currently operated by local authorities. That raises a lot of issues. We are moving from around 85 coroner areas to around 75, so there is amalgamation and there are therefore more economies of scale. However, we remain of the view that this is best as a local service.
I will wrap up there, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that he would have time to finish. It has been a very high-quality debate, with lots of passion and very good points, some of which we are still considering and some that we have responded to. I congratulate my hon. Friend on a very thorough report on a very important matter.
Sir Robert Neill
I am grateful to the Minister for his response and the way he raised it, as I am to all Members who participated in the debate. I take on board some of the things the Minister said, and I welcome some of the moves that the Government are making, in particular any indication as to what will happen around legal aid. If the improvements to that came earlier in the new year rather than later, I think that we would all welcome that.
I hope that we might press the Minister in due course, via the Select Committee, for a definition of what “in due course” means. That is one of the great phrases used in this place. We have already seen about six years pass by in due course, in some instances, so I think we will need a little bit more than that. I hope he will understand if the Committee returns to that topic, because these are matters of pressing concern. The concern is that, with many other things facing the Government, those issues can get lost and slip down the agenda, which does not help anyone. While the passage of time may well be a reason for not acting on a report, I am not sure it is a very convincing reason for not actually publishing the thing, even if they then say they are not going to do anything with it. I am not quite sure why the Government are so troubled by it, frankly.
However, on the big issue, I hope they will reflect in particular on a means to achieve greater national consistency, such as the oversight mechanism referred to in the course of the debate, and—even if they are not yet persuaded of it, although I hope they one day will be—a national service, a proper inspectorate, and proper oversight and greater powers for the Chief Coroner. I am glad for the reference to Mark Lucraft, an old colleague at the Bar, and Judge Teague. That would be a step forwards, at least, which I hope would be achievable within a comparatively short period.
I welcome what the Minister has said, as far as it goes, although he will not be surprised if I say that members of the Select Committee might want to go further and return to the topic. I hope there is some common ground that we can work on, as far as that is concerned.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the First Report of the Justice Committee, The Coroner Service, HC 68, and the Government response, HC 675.
BACKBENCH BUSINESS
Black History Month
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Graham Brady (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. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have 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, or at home. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Black History Month 2021.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Graham. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this vital debate and I extend my thanks to the hon. Members who supported my application and have joined to participate today. To some, this might be just another debate, but for black and minority ethnic communities, holding this debate in Parliament shows that we recognise and celebrate that history and their achievements right across the UK and the world. I sincerely hope that general debates to celebrate Black History Month will become a regular fixture on the parliamentary calendar.
This year’s theme for Black History Month is “Proud to Be”. That is so important because so many are made to feel uncomfortable about their ethnic heritage, cultural history and language—seen, or felt to be seen, by others as the other, inferior or a minority. However, black people have so much to be proud of culturally in the ways we have contributed to British history, and we ought to be proud to be both black and British. In her Adjournment debate last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) highlighted several black British individuals who make us feel proud. I am sure that colleagues will no doubt mention several more individuals who have made significant contributions to our nation’s history and who we ought to be proud of. From Yvonne Conolly, the UK’s first black headteacher, to C. L. R. James, the renowned author, from William Cuffay, the leading figure of the Chartist movement, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), the first black woman to be elected to this Parliament, we see figures who reflect the diversity of our country and who we can all be proud of.
The UK has its own rich civil rights history, which my generation and those before me were unfortunately never formally taught and have had to take it upon ourselves to learn. Not recognising yourself in your history can have a serious impact on your identity. How are we expected to feel “Proud to Be” if we are shown by omission that the contributions of black people are not worth being taught in our schools? Colleagues may be aware of the petition that circulated last year, which called for the UK to teach Britain’s colonial past as part of the curriculum. It achieved over 260,000 signatures and, along with similar petitions, means that the teaching of black history in schools has received the most support of any parliamentary petition in our history.
That appetite has not waned at all, because more than 660 schools in England have signed up for a diverse and anti-racist curriculum developed by teachers and council staff in the London Borough of Hackney. The Black Contribution aims to teach young people about not just the history of black people, but fundamentally the history that we all share because—as I hope everyone has heard many times throughout this month—black history is British history.
Now is the perfect time to pay tribute to the Labour Government in Wales, which have instituted black history as part of their curriculum. Seeing them lead the way and seeing how much support that has had, I cannot understand why the Government still refuse to commit to putting black history in the curriculum, when there is such widespread support. Perhaps when responding to the debate, the Minister can inform us the reason why the Government refuse to take action on this.
Instead, unfortunately, what we have seen is discussions descending into a so-called war on woke and culture wars, and other, very bizarre claims about the phrase “white privilege”, how it has affected us and the idea that it is being widely taught in schools. First, anyone who actually speaks to teachers will find that that is not a feature in any of the lessons. We do not hear about children running home from school talking about it or, indeed, about teachers asking Timmy, “What’s 1 + 1?”, Timmy saying, “2”, and the teachers saying, “Aha! Timmy, you knew the answer because of white privilege.” We do not hear such nonsense. That is not what is happening in our schools. Secondly, teaching children about race inequality, as some teachers will do during Black History Month, is not what is holding back working-class children in our education system. It was not teaching about racism that closed down hundreds of youth services or cut funding per pupil in this country; that was this Government. It is those policies that hold back working-class children from all our communities.
I completely understand why this Government may not want to talk about race, and especially not about their record on race, but ignoring these issues will not lead to the post-racial society that some people believe we are living in. We have to address them. We have to address past issues of slavery and colonialism and their lasting impact, which is the racism we face today, and we have to do it by education and other means. I would be proud to be part of a Parliament that finally apologised for the atrocities of slavery and colonialism. Yesterday I was pleased to officially launch the all-party parliamentary group on African reparations and am looking forward to policy on this. Cambridge University recently returned, and quite proudly so, two of the looted Benin bronzes, but there are over 3,000 in this country and 900 alone in the British Museum. Reparations begin with things such as that: giving back these things that do not belong to us.
We know that over the past few years there has been no shortage of discussions about racial disparities. We have had debates about the impact of covid on black and ethnic minority communities, about the need to teach black history as part of the curriculum, about racial disparities in maternal health outcomes, and about the ethnicity employment gap and the ethnicity pay gap, and of course the Black Lives Matter protests, a tragic reminder that racism can be a matter of life and death. Time and time again, we have raised the ongoing racial disparities in the UK, and time and time again we have called on the Government to act, but the response has been felt to be full of platitudes and empty gestures, with a report that told us, quite famously, that systemic racism does not exist and that in some ways actually attempted to create some racial divides.
Although it seems like we have talked about it quite a lot, given that the last CRED—Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities—report was only released earlier this year, it would be remiss of me not to mention it. As far as I am concerned, it turns back the clock on ending racial inequality. There are other reports and inquiries that have outlined how racism continues across society, and report after report outlining the social causes and political failings that underpin it.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her amazing speech. She alludes to the fact that there have been multiple reports on racial inequality in this country. Does she agree that if the Government just took some time and looked at beginning to implement some of those recommendations, we might, just maybe, begin to make some headway on racial inequality?
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we had gone down that road, perhaps we would not be having the discussions that we are having today.
We need to think about what that report said, when it decided that there was no institutional or systemic racism, and how that discounts years of lived experience and the things that people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds have experienced in this country. What I could not understand at the time was whether the Government believed they would get any buy-in for a report that was so widely discredited across our communities or to what extent, given how discredited it has been, it was actually for our communities, even though it was very much about them.
The idea that institutional racism does not exist means that there is no action for the state to take, because it is not an institutional problem. As far as I am concerned, the Government appear to be absolving themselves of responsibility to take action on institutions that fail to deliver racial equality. We did not need that report; we needed action on reports gone by. We certainly did not need a new story about slavery and colonialism, when the one that we have at the moment is not even being widely taught.
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) pointed to the recommendations of reports gone by that have not been implemented, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) reminded me that the Government continue to stall on implementing fully his Lammy review. In the meantime, BAME youth custody now sits at 51%, which is an increase of 10% on when he was asked to do the review just five years ago.
The Windrush lessons learned review by Wendy Williams was also commissioned by the Government. Even the author of the report has said how woeful it is that, again, the Government continue not to act on the recommendations. Furthermore, the scandal continues, because many people caught up in it have not yet received compensation or their proper status of leave to remain in this country.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. When we talk about unimplemented reports and inquiries, we could go all the way back to the early ’80s and the Scarman inquiry. If everything that Scarman spoke about had been addressed, we would not be in the situation we are in today.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is what we want to bring to an end. We have to stop this cycle whereby something bad happens, we have a report or inquiry, and the Government—successive Governments—just push it under the carpet and wait until the next disaster in which racial inequality is raised. Part of why we are not making headway is that the bodies that are meant to protect us and to apply checks and balances on the Government simply do not have the ability to do so.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights report, “Black people, racism and human rights”, said that overall there was a very damning picture of structural racism right across society, such as in health, immigration, policing, the justice system and electoral participation. It also mentioned, in a key way, the failures of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is tasked with policing equality and, potentially, enforcing such targets. However, it is not fit for purpose in its current form. How could it be? It is supposed to be an independent arm’s length body, but its major appointments are still made by the Government. That must make it difficult to take action when Government policies lead to inequality or human rights breaches. That has been highlighted in many court cases over the past few years. The EHRC also appears to have rarely used and limited investigation and enforcement powers, and it has an ever-dwindling budget. In practice, it has become a body with no teeth.
In my work on the Women and Equalities Committee, we have found that when people—the Government included—refuse to comply with what they are meant to do under equalities legislation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission appears to be able to do very little. Key to that, given that our main purpose here every day is to pass legislation, is that the Government do not produce equality impact assessments of various pieces of legislation. When they do, at times they refuse to publish them. How on earth are we meant to hold the Government to account and ensure that they are complying with our equalities law? Why does our equalities law always have to be an add-on?
Frankly, black communities need fewer champions and more enforcement of what are supposed to be the rights that protect us. Report after report has reinforced not only the issues, but the recommendations that we need to bring about systemic change. If we were clear about our equalities legislation and the guidance, we would be moving forward.
When we discuss racial inequality and call on the Government to introduce policy to change things, we are not asking for anything beyond equality; we are simply asking the Government to recognise how we are treated as a community in this country and to take meaningful action to change it. Likewise, when we ask the Government for black histories to be taught as part of the curriculum, we are not asking for that to be done over other aspects of British history; we are asking them to recognise that black history is British history—it is a part of that history—but that it is not taught widely, as it should be. They should take those key steps to ensure that that is done.
If racism is ignorance, and education is the absence of ignorance, there is an obvious answer to dealing with racial inequality; it is simple and it costs the Government nothing to start just there—with education.
Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)
I suggest an informal time limit of eight minutes to try and ensure that everybody who wants to speak can do so.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I begin by declaring my non-pecuniary interest as chair of the advisory board of Conservatives Against Racism For Equality. I do not think there is any point shying away from the truth that I am the only Back-Bench Conservative who is here today. I hope that part of the purpose of CARFE can be to encourage Conservative MPs to rise to the leadership and representational responsibility that we all have.
I am very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) and I congratulate her on this debate. She said that black history is British history; I absolutely agree with her. We certainly should be facing up to our history. As I listened to her, and as I reflect on what she said—as well as on some of the things that have been said to me—I realise that an element of this is that we are asking people to face up to acts and facts of shame in our history. It is a very uncomfortable thing for people to do, particularly when those of us alive today are not responsible for the crimes of the past. Nevertheless, it is necessary for us to face up to the crimes of the past and to recognise, as the hon. Lady said, that black history is British history. However painful it may be to face up to it, we must do so in a way that is inclusive and will appeal—if I may say so—to white people to be part of.
To reflect for a moment on my own journey, as I have possibly said before, growing up as part of an ordinary family in Cornwall I suppose I was able to take for granted the equality of all people for most of my childhood and adult life. I wonder what proportion of the UK public today are also able to take for granted racial equality, without reflecting much on the experience that people who are not white have—and, in particular, that black people have.
I am very proud of Wycombe; I am delighted to speak in this debate because, once again, we have an opportunity to celebrate the history, achievements and contributions of black people in Wycombe, and across the UK. Wycombe was a very popular destination for people coming from the Caribbean, and I am sorry to say that sometimes their contribution has been overlooked. I hope to put that right. I am very grateful for the work of Wycombe Museum. This October, it has been celebrating our fantastic community with a selection of events funded with support from—my notes say the Department formerly known as MHCLG—the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as well as Thames Valley police among others. The museum has a very close relationship with the High Wycombe-based SV2G, which celebrates the second generation from St Vincent. I am incredibly proud of the whole community.
SV2G shed light on the tragic life of George Alexander Gratton, a child from St Vincent and the Grenadines born into slavery and transported to Britain. Wycombe has the largest population of Vincentians in the UK. In last year’s debate I spoke about George Alexander Gratton, and I encourage people to look at his story. I particularly want to congratulate those organisations in Wycombe for the work that they do to promote black history and to keep alive Wycombe’s place within it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) was not able to attend today, and he asked me to put the following on the record for him:
“Black excellence is truly spread across the whole United Kingdom. Far from the turf of Wembley, the world’s first professional black football player started as a goalkeeper for Darlington. In 1882, Arthur Wharton abandoned his missionary training in the town to become Darlington’s goalkeeper; he was part of the team which reached the FA cup semi-final in only his second season at the club.
I am proud that during black history month last year, a mural was unveiled in the town to mark his achievements. Darlington’s sporting excellence is continued to this day by champions like Troy Williamson who earlier this month won the British Super Welterweight title in Liverpool.”
I know that my hon. Friend is proud to represent everyone in his community.
Turning to Government policy, I welcome the Minister’s announcement that the Government will respond to the Sewell report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. I am very pleased that the Government will act on the recommendations in the report, in particular by seeking to further trust, fairness, inclusivity and agency. It is very important that the Government pick up on agency. We must express our belief in the dignity of every person and our recognition of their agency, so I look forward to the Government’s swift implementation of those recommendations.
The other members of CARFE and I are very excited by the establishment of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to properly target health disparities in the UK, focusing on research, communication and expertise to reduce those inequalities across all groups. We welcome the Government’s desire to build social and cultural capital to enrich everyone and to prevent harm, reduce crime and divert young people away from the criminal justice system. In particular, I understand that the Government are going to develop an evidence-based pilot to divert offences of low-level class B drug possession into public health services; I hope the Minister will say more about that pilot.
The Government need to replicate those factors of educational success for all communities everywhere, and I will put in a plea for levelling up in Wycombe. I am very happy to take my hon. Friend the Minister to the parts of Wycombe that certainly need extra help. The curriculum, of course, must be made more inclusive, and I again urge Ministers to make sure that we include black history as British history.
I will just touch on the idea of disaggregating the term “BAME”. I think it is unhelpful to polarise our society between white people and everybody else. With great sorrow, I would say that some of the worst racism I have ever heard was directed among different sections of the Asian community in the UK, and I think it is incumbent on us to recognise that Caribbean history is very different from the history experienced by people who have come from, for example, west Africa. I encourage the Government—I encourage everybody, actually—to disaggregate this term “BAME”. I think it leaves people separated between “white” and “everybody else”, and I want us to move into a world in which the colour of our skin does not matter any more than the colour of our eyes. We should be morally, legally and politically equal, with equal opportunities, and there should be justice in the outcomes that everyone experiences.
I am very pleased that the Race Disparity Unit has been awarded a research excellence award by the Office for National Statistics. That fact should be taken seriously, including by the Government’s critics. I welcome the Home Secretary’s endorsement of improving diversity in police forces: she has said that this is a “critical and personal priority” for her, and I think it is worth putting on the record just how diverse this Cabinet is. I am particularly proud that this Conservative Government have such a diverse Cabinet—of course, I lament that I am not in it, but I am nevertheless grateful that it is so diverse.
I am very glad that we have had this debate today. If anybody wishes to visit Wycombe, there is the opportunity to go to the “There’s Something About Wycombe” original theatre production on Friday and Saturday at Hilltop community centre. Based on a true story, it is the story of one man’s move across the world from St Vincent to High Wycombe, and the community he found there. There is also the Windrush legacy pop-up exhibition at the Eden centre, which I will be visiting on Saturday to look at the legacy of Windrush in our town.
Again, I am very proud indeed to represent Wycombe, and to represent everyone in Wycombe. As the hon. Member for Streatham said in her remarks, black history is British history. I am very proud of every section of our community, and I hope that the Minister will be able to set out an optimistic and hopeful vision of how the Government are going to help black people right across the UK.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. It is an important debate, and I look forward to us continuing it in the main Chamber.
As we all know, Black History Month is a chance to celebrate and reflect on the many achievements of the black British community here in the UK. This year, it is also important to celebrate black Britons across the country who have faced huge challenges as a result of the pandemic.
Whether we know it or not, we are all affected by the brave men and women who have gone before us. I am proud to stand on the shoulders of so many of those greats—women such as the abolitionist Mary Prince, the first black woman to have a memoir of her experiences of slavery published in the UK; the amazing Mary Seacole, whose statue stands tall just over the river at St Thomas’s Hospital; Lilian Bader, one of the first black women to join the British armed forces; and the activist and campaigner Olive Morris, who was born in my Battersea constituency.
As I mention those great women, I must also mention John Archer, who was elected in Battersea in 1913 as London’s first black mayor. In his election victory speech, he rightly cited his election as a critical moment for racial equality. Being a Bristol girl, I must certainly also mention those who led the Bristol bus boycott in the 1960s: Paul Stephenson, Roy Hackett and Guy Bailey, who was my youth worker when I was growing up. Their campaign led to the overturning of that racist colour bar, and the boycott also paved the way for the Labour Government’s Race Relations Act 1965.
Learning about our history is essential. That is why, this time last year, I called for black history to be part of the national curriculum, so that all children are taught about black British history. There are great examples where this is already happening, such as St George’s Church of England Primary School in my constituency. At this point, I pay tribute to The Black Curriculum social enterprise, which is helping to deliver black history across the UK. As we have all said today—and I know we all agree—black history is British history, after all.
This year’s Black History Month comes 40 years on from the New Cross fires in south-east London—a tragic event that killed 13 young black people between the ages of 14 and 22. I think we would all agree that their lives had not even begun. It is also 40 years on from the uprisings across the country, including in Brixton, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, in response to the devastating reality of many black people in the UK: mass unemployment, poor housing conditions, police brutality and racism. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) alluded to the Scarman report, which was commissioned as a result of many of those uprisings in the 1980s.
We should therefore ask the question: how far have we come in our fight for racial justice? Last summer, we were all captured by the Euros, when our brave England team proudly took the knee in solidarity and a call for an end to racism and injustice. Sadly, though, rather than supporting them, their Government chose to sow division and hatred, which led to the ugliest and most awful racial abuse of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka at the European cup final. My heart went out to them. As the older sister of a professional footballer, I could only imagine how their families must have felt.
Those young men and the rest of the England team united our nation, in all its diversity and difference, and showed the best of modern Britain. However, sadly, we still face deep-rooted inequalities in health, education, employment, immigration and our criminal justice system. In maternal health, we know that black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth. In the labour market, unemployment rates are up to four times higher for black people. School exclusion rates are five times higher for black Caribbean pupils in some parts of the country. We must be honest about that reality, and the Government must be bold in their response. Unfortunately, to date they have not been.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has mentioned some important, though depressing, statistics about the reality of things in the country today. To add to that, there are fewer than 200 black university professors among 23,000 in the UK. Does she agree that that is a shameful figure, and one that needs bold action from this Government?
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must address the issue of representation in education, right the way from school through to colleges, universities and at professor level. Perhaps the Minister, in his response, can address the point on those disparities in the education system.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, catalysed by the brutal murder of George Floyd and by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, was an opportunity for this Government to tackle structural racism. Instead, they produced a divisive and now discredited report seeking to deny the extent of structural racism.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for putting forward this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the important points she has raised. Does she agree that the murder of George Floyd resulted in an increasing number of organisations and businesses across the country having uncomfortable conversations with employees about how they could do things differently and on understanding the experiences of individuals? Does she also agree that the Government need to take that a step further and implement a race equality strategy, while also looking at diversifying the curriculum? The only way we can move forward is if we learn from our past to build a better future.
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend must have read my speech, because those are exactly the points I was going to raise. She is spot on. In my former role as shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Labour rightly rejected the report. Within days, it had been discredited by a long list of experts, including the British Medical Association, trade unions, and many human rights experts at the UN.
Marsha De Cordova
No. Eight months on, the Government still have not published their response to the report. I hope that the Minister will today give us a timeline, as that was promised to be published in the summer. We are now leaving autumn and going into winter. Their apathy towards meaningfully addressing structural inequalities is shameful, and an insult to those of us with that lived experience.
Today, I call on the Minister to urgently look at implementing a race equality strategy to fundamentally change those systems and institutions in which structural racial inequalities exist. That includes reforming the national curriculum, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) has already mentioned. The Government must commit to addressing those shocking disparities in black maternal health, which leave black women at a greater risk of death during childbirth, and include the recording of accurate and robust data. They must also commit to upholding their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 in carrying out and publishing equality impact assessments. I was pleased to see that yesterday’s Budget included one, but that has not been the case with many of the Government’s policies and even legislation.
We all know that the Government should by now have responded to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report. The Minister may wish to say that the Government have conceded that the report does not even warrant a response. Perhaps the Government will just crack on and get on with implementing the recommendations from so many of those other reports alluded to by my Friend the Member for Streatham in her excellent opening remarks.
I will finish by quoting the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who said:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
That is so important. We are all here because we care about black history. We must demand action—from ourselves, but also from the Government.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for securing this debate, which I am deeply honoured to support.
I would like to take the opportunity to put on the record a precious piece of history from my constituency, in the sincere hope that it will add to our appreciation of the value of Black History Month to a wide range of people in Wales and beyond. During last Thursday’s business statement, I was proud to mention the launch of the John Ystumllyn rose. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) said that it would have been nice to have more Conservatives attend the debate, but I must give credit to the Leader of the House, who welcomed the initiative with great enthusiasm.
John Ystumllyn is the first—there will be a number of firsts in my speech—definitively recorded black person in north Wales, and he worked as a gardener near Criccieth in Dwyfor in the 18th century. The John Ystumllyn rose is therefore a particularly poignant way to remember his life and times, but it is also a powerful symbol in and of itself. It has been created by Harkness Roses of Hitchin, which has worked with Zehra Zaidi’s We Too Built Britain campaign to make available what is believed to be the first ever rose named after a minority ethnic person in the United Kingdom.
Who was John Ystumllyn? Not surprisingly, there is quite a lot of uncertainty, and there also late records, which have their own pattern of recording. We believe he was born in west Africa around 1740. He was abducted by slavers as a young boy, with a late 19th-century account by Alltud Eifion, who was from Porthmadog in north Wales, saying that John’s last memory of his mother was how she protested as he was taken away. We do not know the name by which his family knew him, but we do know that he never saw them again.
By whatever route he arrived, we know that the boy was sent to live with the landowning Wynn family, who owned, and whose descendants still own, extensive estates in north Wales and north-west England. He learned Welsh and English, and he was baptised as John Ystumllyn. He became a well-known and talented gardener who was especially known for his skills in growing flowers. It is recorded that he was a handsome young man and much admired by the young women of the neighbourhood, and we are fortunate to have a portrait of him from 1754. He eloped with a maid who worked at Ystumllyn, Margaret Gruffydd of Hendre Mur, Trawsfynydd, and the pair were married at Dolgellau in 1768. Because they eloped from their jobs, they both lost their jobs, but John shortly found new employment in the area and was then offered his former post again. He must have been a good gardener—too good to lose.
The couple had seven children and many descendants, some of whom are believed to still be in the area. John died in 1786 and his grave can still be seen at Ynyscynhaearn churchyard, although it does give an incorrect date of death. His story conveys romance and a strong sense of how our roots are all intertwined. I have deliberately included some of the relevant place names because they resonate strongly not only with historians, but with people whose history and sense of belonging is closely tied to a sense of place. We cherish the memory of John Ystumllyn locally and it is very important to us, as he is so associated with those place names, which resonate with the history of north-west Wales.
We should also remember that while John was growing up and settling in Ystumllyn, the ships being built at Pwllheli, 10 miles away, included vessels that were designed to service the slave trade. A traveller’s diary from 1801 describes a ship—probably the Mary—as a “large Guineaman”, which is a byword for a ship involved in human trafficking from the Guinea coast of west Africa. It was fitted for 600 slaves. In Wales, there is a long history of the profits of slavery contributing to local economies—from the well-known triangular trade of copper, slaves and sugar, to what was known as Welsh plains: coarse wool made by small-scale weavers in Maldwyn and Meirionnydd, whose goods were sold to plantation owners to clothe slaves in the 18th century.
These stories all need to be told, and I am proud that the Welsh school curriculum—there has been some talk about school curriculums—will now include guidance on the history of black, Asian and ethnic minority people that is to be taught to all children who attend state schools in Wales. I mentioned earlier the delight locally—schoolchildren learn about John Ystumllyn, and that is a great source of pleasure and making connections.
I am also very proud that the first statue of a named, non-fictional woman in an outdoor public space in Wales was unveiled a month ago in Cardiff to celebrate the life and work of Betty Campbell. Betty Campbell was a first. She was the first black woman to be appointed as a headteacher in Wales, at Mount Stuart Primary, Butetown. I mentioned the proximity between Criccieth and John Ystumllyn and Pwllheli and the slave galleys. Butetown is very close to Her Majesty’s prison Cardiff. While we celebrate these histories, we have to remember the proportion of black people imprisoned in Wales. In 2017 this stood at 72 people per 10,000, while the proportion of white people is 15 per 10,000. The proportion in all the prisons in England and Wales is desperately high and wrong, but in Wales it is staggeringly wrong.
While we celebrate these firsts and successes, we must remember this great and most shocking indication of inequality. There are many, I freely grant, but in the 21st century disproportionality in imprisonment is something that we must seek to use as a marker of what we do not tolerate. It is evident that history can be both fragrant and thorny. Perhaps it is best to close with the rose of John Ystumllyn and remember that gardens have always been places that bring people together. Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) on obtaining this important debate.
We have heard a lot of important points about black history, but I want to talk about more recent black history. I want to answer the question of why four black MPs were elected for the first time in 1987. It is tempting to think that it was because of our great merit or the benevolence of our political parties, but I would argue, having been one of the Members elected in 1987, that the fact that we could get selected and elected owed a lot to events in the 1980s. It is my view that the black Members of Parliament that were elected in 1987 and, with respect, black Members who are here today, stand on the shoulders of people in the community who were willing to stand up and in some cases actually cause urban disorder. Without those people at the grassroots, none of us would be here.
Colleagues have touched on these events, but let me remind Members of them. First there were the April 1981 Brixton riots. It is hard to recollect what an impact those riots had. Scenes like that had never been seen on the British mainland. I remember going to Brixton the day after those riots, seeing the devastation and realising that something really impactful had happened to the British political narrative. The reason that the Scarman report, which I mentioned earlier, made such an impact was that it was an elderly white judge saying quite shocking things about institutional racism in British society. He could not be dismissed.
Sadly, many of the things he said were not acted on, but the Scarman inquiry was extremely important. In January 1981 there was the New Cross house fire. As hon. Members have said, the slogan at the time was “13 dead, nothing said”. A black people’s day of action was organised and 20,000 people marched. I was one of those people, and the extraordinary thing about that march was that there were so many people on it who were not regular black, left activists. They were ordinary people who were shocked that 13 young people could die in this way and nothing really was being done or said about it.
Then there were the 1985 Brixton riots, which were triggered by the death of Cherry Groce. Then there was the 1985 Broadwater Farm uprising, which was triggered by a police raid that ended in the death of Cynthia Jarrett.
Without activity at grassroots level, without anger and the expression of anger—sometimes by marching, sometimes through what was written and what was said—we would not have had the tide of events that resulted in the election of four black MPs in 1987. I will touch on who they were, as I am the only one left in Parliament.
There was Keith Vaz, who read law at Cambridge and became a practising solicitor. There was Paul Boateng, who was born in Hackney—Members do not need me to remind them what a great borough that is—and made his name working at Brent law centre. He also represented Cherry Groce in the aftermath of the Brixton riots. He had a very distinguished ministerial career and ended his career as high commissioner to South Africa, a position that was particularly appropriate because the struggle against apartheid was always one of Paul’s signature issues. Then, of course, we had the legendary Bernie Grant, one of the first black leaders of a local authority as leader of Haringey Council.
There are so many issues that were first raised in the ’80s and before, whether that is black children in education or in the criminal justice system, black people in business and the lack of access that they sometimes have to finance and support, or black people in employment, be that public sector or private sector, where black people often find themselves hitting a glass ceiling in terms of promotion. Then there is the issue of black maternal health, which other hon. Members have raised.
Mr Steve Baker
I am glad that the right hon. Lady has reminded us about the death of Cynthia Jarrett. As she reflects historically, she reminds us all of the appalling experiences that people have been through. She did not mention the murder of Keith Blakelock. I remember that happening when I was young. Surely she is not advocating for civil disorder today in response to the problems that we undoubtedly face—surely not.
Ms Abbott
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. Of course I am not advocating civil disorder. As someone who lived through that era, I am saying that without people marching and taking to the streets, I am confident that there would not have been the impetus, the concern and the focus that enabled me and my three colleagues to be elected in 1987. He must give me some credit for having lived through that era and having been active in the community at that time. Neither I nor anyone on these Benches would advocate civil disorder, but it happened; we cannot pretend it did not and we cannot pretend it did not have an impact, as Lord Scarman himself said.
Marsha De Cordova
My right hon. Friend is making an absolutely fantastic speech and giving everybody a well-needed lesson in our history. Does she agree that this is why it is important that our history is told properly? We have to see the good, the bad, the everything in all that we do, so that we all know, and so we can stop the cycle of injustice.
Ms Abbott
Yes, we have to stop this cycle. I have lived through too many decades of it: of civil disorder, which hon. Members opposite deprecate, of anger, anguish and concern, of reports such as the Scarman report, of “13 dead and nothing said”, of reports being written and nothing changes. I have to tell hon. Members that the community—not just the ethnic minority community but the community as a whole—is weary of reports being written and injustice being pointed out and nothing happening.
Black people make our own history. We continue to contend against the forces of institutional racism, whether that is people engaging with civil disorder, which of course I entirely deprecate, or whether it is those of us in Parliament today in 2021. We make our history. Our history is British history. We will continue to fight on. I would like to think that, on some of the issues that have been raised in the past 40 years, we will see real action, a real strategy for action and real change in the coming years.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the chair for this important debate, Sir Graham. Like everyone else, I start by thanking the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for securing this debate and all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part and contributed thus far.
This is a hugely important topic, and today’s debate gives us the opportunity not only to celebrate the lives of so many black people, but to recognise the invaluable contribution they have made to society. It gives us a chance to acknowledge and reflect on those who, often at great personal cost, as we have heard, have put themselves in danger to expose and seek to end racial injustice and to make society better for themselves and for every single one of us. It is absolutely right that we should celebrate those people, because through their sacrifice they have laid a pathway for others to follow.
As the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) have said, many of those figures are well known to us, whether they be politicians, actors, sports figures, or academics such as Betty Campbell and her marvellous statue, but behind them are millions of people who, unrecognised and without fanfare, have devoted their lives to the betterment of their community. I believe today should be as much a celebration of their contribution as anyone else’s.
I sincerely thank the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for her superb analysis of contemporary history, which showed clearly that Black History Month is not the celebration of the end of a journey—far from it. Black History Month exists to reflect on how far we have come, but also to shine a light on how far we as a society have still to go. Depressingly, as we have heard from the hon. Member for Battersea, the vile racist abuse that those three young England footballers had to suffer following the penalty shoot-out at Wembley shows just how far that is.
I am reluctant to inject a note of discord into the debate, but I must take issue with the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who quoted his friend the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson). The great Arthur Wharton was the first English black professional footballer, but the first pioneer on that front was Andrew Watson, a Scots Guyanese footballer who played for the phenomenally successful Queen’s Park football club, captaining Scotland to success over England and Wales on several occasions. I know so much about Andrew Watson because, in a previous life, I made a documentary on his outstanding success. I believe it is still available on YouTube, should anyone care to view it; I would appreciate it if the hon. Member for Wycombe could recommend it to his colleague the hon. Member for Darlington.
Where we can all agree, I am certain, is that racism is an evil that none in our societies can claim to be immune to. We have a huge amount of work to do if we are to advance racial equality across these islands. Let me be absolutely clear: racism, however it manifests, has no place in modern Scotland, but it is not enough simply not to be racist. Particularly in the positions we hold in this place, we must be actively anti-racist, be seen to actively support minority ethnic communities and be first in line to call out and condemn racism wherever it rears its ugly head.
The First Minister of Scotland has made it abundantly clear that she will not tolerate racism in Scotland, whether it is the recent disgraceful anti-Irish racism on the streets of Glasgow, or the discrimination against any of our ethnic minority communities. She has made it clear that her Government are determined to play their part in eradicating racism, inequality and injustice and in building a better, fairer Scotland for every single one of us. I am pleased, therefore, that the Scottish Government have opened a new fund accessible to all organisations with a focus on tackling inequality and prejudice, which is in line with the goals and outcomes of Black History Month.
We have heard from many speakers this afternoon that one of the best ways to tackle racism is through education. Only through education can young people in particular gain an understanding of their history. In the Scottish National party’s May manifesto, we committed to funding an online programme on Scotland’s colonial history and encourage local authorities to adopt that programme in all Scottish schools.
I understand that in last year’s debate, the Equalities Minister, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), expressed the opinion that the education curriculum was not in need of decolonisation because, in her view, there was no colonialism present in the curriculum. She could not be more wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) was right when she said during last year’s debate that
“racism is rooted in untruthful or selective teaching about our past. People are not born racist. They learn it.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 1006.]
We need to recognise that there is a desperate need for the UK—I include Scotland in that—to face up to our colonial history and the role that we played in colonising great swathes of the planet, and how we as a society became phenomenally wealthy in no small part because of the enslavement of black African people.
I am from a generation of Scots children, particularly Glaswegians, who were educated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From primary school age, we were taught about the Glasgow tobacco lords, that group of Scottish merchants who in the 18th century made huge fortunes trading tobacco from the Americas. They became so unimaginably wealthy that they redrew the city itself: vast sums were spent on houses and new roads, which they named after themselves. Indeed, to this day, there is an area of the city—one of its most beautiful—known as the Merchant City. We were taught that these guys were something to admire: that we should have an enormous sense of civic pride in what they did and how their wealth allowed the city of Glasgow to become that much-heralded second city of the empire.
The fact that those tobacco barons were slave traders who made their fortunes from that triangular trade between Glasgow, west Africa and the Americas was an inconvenient truth that was rarely, if ever, mentioned. The fact that they grew fabulously wealthy, and that Glasgow was transformed into a large and prosperous city, because of the slave trade and the enforced labour of the tobacco plantations of Virginia and sugar plantations of Jamaica was airbrushed from the narrative.
As children, we were told that the entrepreneurship of those men was to be admired and celebrated, and to this day, they are immortalised in the street names and place names of Glasgow, a city they effectively built. Any walking tour around Glasgow will include Glassford Street, Oswald Street, Buchanan Street, Cochrane Street, Dunlop Street, Ingram Street, Gordon Street and Robertson Street—all named after the Glasgow merchants whose fortunes were directly linked to the slave trade. If one did not recognise those family names, then Virginia Street, Tobago Street, Jamaica Street and even the Kingston Bridge would provide a clue as to where our city’s money came from. Unknowingly, the good people of Glasgow—like probably many of our constituents—literally walk in the shadows of slavery every single day.
While accepting that we cannot change our past, we should at least know what that past is, and understand the role that the enslavement of other human beings played in our success. We have to accept, because it is an undeniable fact, that our stories are told from one perspective: the perspective of the coloniser. However, there is another, equally important story that deserves to be heard and must be heard, which is the story of the colonised. Without that missing perspective—without being able to hear the stories of those victims—we will only ever have half of the story. For many years growing up, I was failing to completely understand what had been done, why it had been done and the consequences of it, because I only ever had half of the story.
Scotland’s links to the transatlantic slave trade are deep and complex, but they are also undeniable. I am therefore delighted that future generations of Scottish children will have a far more rounded and inclusive education—one that focuses on race equality. The Scottish Government recently announced their curriculum for excellence, which will provide opportunities for young people to learn about current and past attitudes, values and historical events, and their impact on our society. That can include learning about Scotland’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. Scotland’s role in that trade will now be an option in both our national 5 and our higher history qualifications, and Education Scotland will be publishing resources for teachers on slavery and human trafficking, including resources to support teaching and learning about the slave trade and Scotland’s role in it. The Scottish Government will fund the development of an online programme for teachers and encourage all local authorities to take it up. That is very welcome, and a far cry from how my generation was taught Scottish history. The sooner we get to an acceptance that black history is an integral and fundamental part of our history, the better for us all.
Again, I thank the hon. Member for Streatham for securing the debate. I share her belief that it should be an annual event marking Black History Month until such time as it is deemed no longer necessary, which unfortunately seems a long way off.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for securing such an important debate. I know how hard she worked to give us all the opportunity to discuss and celebrate Black History Month. I also thank all Members who have spoken for their powerful contributions.
Black History Month is about celebrating and highlighting black heroes. For me, the first person who comes to mind is Ira Aldridge, a Shakespearean actor who came to Britain from the United States in the 1830s. He was a fierce abolitionist who spoke before Parliament about ending slavery the world over. He went on to settle in my own city of Coventry, where he managed the Theatre Royal, becoming the first black theatre manager in Britain. Ira Aldridge stands firm in our history among other black trailblazers.
The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) referenced George Alexander Gratton from his constituency, and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) mentioned the first black London mayor, John Archer, from her constituency. Two other black trailblazers come to my mind. Mary Prince—my hon. Friend also mentioned her—was a black abolitionist, and the first black woman to write an autobiography and present an anti-slavery petition to this House. The second person who springs to my mind is Annie Brewster, one of the first Afro-Caribbean nurses to work in Britain —a pioneer for supporting elderly patients losing their sight.
I must also mention the trailblazers who came before us in this place. I echo the sentiments of my colleagues in celebrating incredible black parliamentarians. I am thinking of Lord Boateng, Bernie Grant, Baroness Amos and of course my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Their legacies and continued work in Parliament can be seen throughout. We need to ensure that the legacy of those trailblazers is known to all in Britain.
Recognising and celebrating black Britain should be as ubiquitous in our culture as it is in our history. We should not relegate that celebration to a few debates once a year—I add that today’s debate was not brought forward by the Government—because celebrating such trailblazers from our history, and our world, inspires the next generation of black Britons to pursue and achieve their dreams. Hearing the accomplishments of my predecessors in this House partly inspired me to stand for Parliament, and helped me to become Coventry’s first black parliamentarian.
Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend has spoken, quite correctly, about heroes, but does she agree that it is not just about heroic figures? It is also about ordinary black men and women—the ordinary nurse, the ordinary factory worker and the ordinary bus driver—who were willing to do what it took to take black politics and black dignity forward.
Taiwo Owatemi
Absolutely. As my right hon. Friend said, ordinary black people who worked hard to support this country and contributed significantly to our culture should be celebrated for their contribution to the advancement of this country. When we recognise and celebrate the accomplishments of black people in this country we empower the next generation of young black Britons.
Although this month is dedicated to the celebration of black history, it is crucial that we reflect on the historical barriers that black people in this country continue to face. When we look across all parts of our society, including our NHS, we see that we are well represented in the workforce, although sadly often not in positions of power. As an NHS worker myself, it pains me to see that black people are far less likely to rise to the top of the medical profession.
My hon. Friends the Members for Streatham, for Battersea and for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington have spoken passionately about the results of the recent reviews by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and Baroness Lawrence. Baroness Lawrence’s review shone a light on the inequality that black healthcare workers face, putting facts to feelings that many of us present already had. The review exposed how black, Asian and minority ethnic NHS workers have suffered disproportionately from the Government’s failure to keep them safe during the pandemic.
I bring this worrying state of affairs to the attention of the House because just as important as celebrating the achievements of black people in Britain is recognising those ongoing obstacles that black Britons face and the continuing fight to eliminate them. There are a couple of worrying examples that I will touch on. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea said, we must take concrete steps to eliminate the ethnicity pay gap in this country, which stands at 24% in the major cities. That is disgraceful, and fixing it is long overdue. As with the gender pay gap, that injustice entrenches inequality and disempowers millions.
Secondly—an issue also raised by my hon. Friend—exclusion rates for black students in English schools are up to six times higher than those for their white peers in some local authorities. The reason why that is so important is that we know about the damage that exclusion can do to a student: it can derail their life chances for good. Excluded students are far less likely to get good GCSE or A-level results and, sadly, they have much lower job prospects post education. That is an incredible injustice for many black students and we need to root it out. Excessive use of exclusion risks wrecking the life chances of young black Britons and it must be curbed.
Another point made today—by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and others—was about the black British curriculum. My hon. Friend made the important point that schools in Britain need more black representation. I pay tribute to the Black Curriculum, an organisation to which many Members have paid tribute today. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will provide answers on whether the Government have any plans to follow the Labour-led Welsh Government in implementing a black British curriculum.
Having a black British curriculum would not only provide young black people with an understanding of their heritage, but play a significant role in tackling racism through better education about colonial history. It would empower young black British students to learn about the trailblazers who have gone before them, and inspire more young black children to aspire to become teachers. Given the lack of black representation in the education system, that would go a long way towards making up the difference. I hope that the Minister will tell us what steps the Government are taking to address the lack of black representation in school leadership.
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea also spoke about black maternal health and how black women are four times more likely to die while giving birth. I hope that the Minister will explain what steps are being taken to address that and to ensure that data will be collected.
To wrap up, as the shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, I celebrate the many achievements of black Britons. I will use my role to combat the inequalities that I have outlined today.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) on securing this important debate. She spoke passionately—as so many other Members have—about the importance of Black History Month. I welcome the contributions that we have heard. I also congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on granting the debate.
Black history is extremely important to the Government. It has resonance across many different areas of policy.
It is right, then, that all Departments should be responsible and accountable in debates such as these, which is why I am appearing today as the Minister for School Standards. I shall respond predominantly on matters regarding black history in education, as I am sure the hon. Lady will understand. As many hon. Members––including my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) in his thoughtful speech––pointed out, there is a huge range of topics to cover, so where issues such as maternal health have been raised, I will write to colleagues in relevant Departments to ask for a response. In the case of the ethnicity pay gap, that will be the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). I will ensure that the relevant Ministers send responses on the broader issues.
As we have heard, October is Black History Month in the UK, a time to celebrate the contribution of black communities and individuals over the centuries in shaping the dynamic and diverse country that we have today. Like the hon. Member for Streatham, I want black children in our schools to be proud to be black and proud to be British. Like the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), I want to ensure that we inspire the next generation to achieve their dreams.
I take a personal interest in debates of this nature. One of my predecessors as Member for Worcester, who also happened to be my late father, campaigned alongside Jack Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson for civil rights in the United States and came to this House fresh from those campaigns at a time of critical change in the recognition of civil rights in that country. He continued to champion this important issue during his time as an MP and after. When I became Member of Parliament for Worcester in 2010 and met members of Worcester’s Afro-Caribbean community, I was deeply touched to hear how much they valued some of his work in the constituency on their behalf.
It was one of my greatest honours, for too short a time, to represent Basil D’Oliveira and his family. I was very glad that the city I represent marked his life not only with a magnificent civic service in 2012 but also posthumously by granting him the freedom of the city in 2018. Basil was a softly spoken, deeply unpolitical gentleman who became an unlikely hero in the struggle against apartheid, his role showing the cricketing world the true nature of South Africa’s colour bar and helping to strengthen the sporting embargo. His example drew global attention to the fundamental unreasonableness of racist policy. In the words of Nelson Mandela when he met him, he did his bit.
My younger constituents have also been an inspiration to me. Darian Murray-Griffiths, who until recently was one of my constituents, is one such person. I first met him as an 11-year-old boy after his proud parents reached out to me to encourage his interest in Parliament and history. I have since followed his progress closely and, as a student at Worcester sixth-form college, he made an eloquent and thoughtful speech at a Black Lives Matter event in the city. Such was the impact of his speech that he was invited to No. 10 to discuss it. I have no doubt that young people like him will further bring together diverse communities in modern Britain and make their own contribution to history.
I want to acknowledge the strong engagement of parliamentarians, children and young people, black community groups and the public on black history in the curriculum. The Department has been clear that the national curriculum for history enabled black voices and experiences to be taught, whether it is events such as the Bristol bus boycott that had a national impact or the global impact of those soldiers across the former empire and Commonwealth who fought in both world wars. The recent anniversaries of the first and second world wars showed the greater awareness of black and minority ethnic contributions to both. For the first world war, that was aided by Government projects such as The Unremembered and No Barriers, alongside the promotion of figures such as Lieutenant Walter Tull.
Ms Abbott
Is the Minister prepared to share his plans to do something about the wholly disproportionate level of black exclusions from our schools, which often leads to a school-to-prison pipeline? It has been said that the day you exclude a child from school, you might as well give them the date and time to turn up at prison. Will he share with the House his proposals to recruit more black teachers and make it possible to rise up the ladder to be headteacher?
Mr Walker
The right hon. Lady makes some important points and I want to respond on both. I shall return to the issue of teachers later in my speech. On exclusions, we have heard a number of different figures for the proportions in that respect. It is important that we work to reduce exclusions in general. As a Department, we are looking at our behaviour policies to make sure we can support schools to keep more people in school. I would caution that many of those figures are also related to geography and where people happen to be in the country. It is difficult to realise one overall set of figures but I am told that, once other figures are controlled for, black Caribbean children are about 1.7 times more likely than white children to be permanently excluded.
We should not shy away from the fact that some groups of children are more likely to be excluded than others. That is why we are updating our guidance to ensure that schools and governing bodies understand their responsibility to spot trends in the data and accordingly put support in place for certain groups of pupils faster or provide early intervention. We are clear in existing guidance that schools should consider what extra support might be needed to identify and address the needs of children from groups most likely to be excluded to reduce the likelihood of a situation arising where an exclusion is warranted. Ofsted’s assessment of behaviour in schools also includes specific consideration of whether any groups of pupils are being disproportionately excluded, which is absolutely something we should continue to look at.
Our reforms to alternative provision will also look to improve behaviour, attendance and long-term pupil outcomes, including better transition to post-16. That will ensure that all children and young people, including pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds, get back on track and get the right support at the right time. I will come back further on the point made by the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about teacher recruitment and the pipeline.
Marsha De Cordova
The Minister talks about the data he is using. The evidence is very clear. It was actually the Government’s own Race Disparity Unit that highlighted a lot of the data, which clearly shows that black Caribbean children are disproportionately likely to be excluded from school, controlling for all other factors. The facts are clear. It is an issue that needs addressing, and I would be grateful if the Minister kindly addressed that disproportionality and that disparity for our young black children.
Mr Walker
I would say to the hon. Lady that that is just what I tried to set out. We think that, where there is any disparity, it needs to be addressed. That is one of the things that Ofsted is already encouraged to look into. It is also one of the reasons that we are looking at our behaviour and exclusions guidance to see how we can address the issue more generally.
It was good to hear the hon. Lady talking about good teaching of black history at one of her local primary schools. At a recent visit to Burnopfield Primary School in County Durham, I was very pleased to see black history being taught through a rich and broad curriculum. Black Olympians were celebrated in PE and black musicians’ significant contributions were celebrated in a reception class. Inclusivity is an ethos at the school, and Black History Month is celebrated as part of that. That is particularly striking in an area that is almost 100% white English.
Teachers and historians are embedding black history in teaching all year round. In her articles, Hannah Cusworth explains how she teaches her pupils that York was more ethnically diverse in Roman times than it is now; that black people were present at the Tudor courts; and that William Davidson, a black Georgian, was involved in the Cato Street conspiracy. Many history teachers have followed the example of Kerry Apps, who ensures that when pupils study Elizabethan England, they understand the many Elizabethan trading and diplomatic connections with the wider world, such as those that led to the Moroccan delegation to London in 1600. Primary pupils in Haringey Education Partnership study the 5th-century African empire of Axum as an integrated part of their work on early Christian empires.
We have heard some fantastic examples of local history. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) spoke about the new rose that has been dedicated to John Ystumllyn—she will have to forgive my Welsh pronunciation—which I was fascinated to read about this morning. I congratulate the We Too Built Britain campaign for its work on that.
We have heard about some very important figures who have been commemorated, such as the example originally given by the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) of Yvonne Connolly, along with Betty Campbell in Cardiff; Olive Morris in Battersea; Ira Aldridge in Coventry; George Alexander Gratton in Wycombe; Arthur Wharton, the goalkeeper for Darlington; and, of course, Andrew Watson at Queen’s Park F.C.—the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) would not forgive me if I did not mention him. I want schools to look at local figures like those when they teach local history.
We have thought carefully about whether we can do more to support high-quality teaching and to help teachers and schools develop their own school curriculum, fully using the flexibility and freedom of the natural history curriculum and the breadth and depth of content it includes. I acknowledge that some teachers may need more guidance on how to teach a high-quality and diverse history curriculum, and that is why I am pleased to announce that we are taking steps to develop a model history curriculum. We will work with history curriculum experts, historians and school leaders to develop a model history curriculum that will stand as an exemplar of a knowledge-rich, coherent approach to teaching history. The development of model, knowledge-rich curriculums continues along the path of reform that the Government set out in 2010. Our reforms are driven by the ideas of Professor E.D. Hirsch, whose work sets out the importance of the transmission of rich subject knowledge from teachers to pupils. Hirsch came from what might be termed a left-wing background in his views, and he strongly advocated an education that gave all children cultural literacy, in recognition of the fact that knowledge had often been the preserve of the elite.
School education gives the rare opportunity to offer children experiences that go beyond their own circumstances and cultural background. The cultural breadth that schools can teach children offers common cultural touchpoints for all. That is why a knowledge-rich approach embeds diversity in a meaningful, rather than tokenistic, form. A curriculum based narrowly on relevance to pupils is to deny them an introduction to the best that has been thought and said. There is no reason why the work of a dead white man is not appropriate for all children to learn about. Maya Angelou famously said that Shakespeare must be a black girl, as his poetic words expressed so intensely what she, a victim of poverty, racism and childhood sexual abuse, felt inside.
This is why the development of the model history curriculum is so important. We have already published the model music curriculum in March; this is non-statutory music curriculum guidance for key stages 1 to 3, developed by an independent panel of 15 specialists from across the UK. Diversity will be an important aspect of the model history curriculum, as we demonstrate how the content, themes and eras of the national curriculum can be brought to life by teaching them in an interconnected form throughout key stages. A diverse history can be taught because history is diverse. As so many Members have said today: black history is British history.
British history is deeply connected with world history; we do not stand apart. What makes this country “Great” Britain are these historical connections, and how they have shaped our past and present. The model history curriculum will equip teachers and leaders to teach migration, cultural change and the contributions made by different communities to science, art, culture and society. We will announce further details in due course, but I am pleased to show our commitment to high quality teaching in this debate. This country has a lot to be proud of—
Mr Steve Baker
I very much welcome what the Minister has said. I say this slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it feels to me that he is bound to be accused of being woke for what he has announced. What will he say to those, possibly even within Government, who accuse him of being woke? Will he explain to them that it is very necessary and right that he carries through this policy?
Mr Walker
I would say to my hon. Friend that it is much more important to celebrate what brings us together than allow discussions to set us apart. In that regard, this country has a lot to be proud of. Children should be taught all aspects of our shared history, and as we have heard in this debate, that includes both the good and the bad.
We must teach about the contributions of people of all ethnicities, both men and women, who have made this country what it is today. The shared history of our country is one that is outward looking; a nation that has influenced the world and been influenced in turn by people from all over the world. It is people who have built the culturally rich country that we have today, and we are truly an example of the riches that diverse communities can bring to one another.
We believe that schools and teachers should use the flexibility they have in the curriculum to develop a more detailed, knowledge-rich curriculum, and to teach their pupils in an inclusive manner. To support this, the curriculum includes a number of examples that could be covered at different stages, drawn from the history both of this country and the wider world. Examples at key stage 1 include teaching about the lives of key black and minority ethnic figures, such as Mary Seacole and Rosa Parks. It was interesting that the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute referred to his education; I did not learn about Mary Seacole when I was at school, but I did learn about her from a school in my constituency. Other individuals can be taught at this key stage; I know that schools widely teach about Nelson Mandela as an inspiring figure—we mark his great achievements with a memorial statue in Parliament Square, in London.
The key stage 2 curriculum focuses on early civilisations; it also requires the study of a non-European society that provides contrast with British history, with examples including Benin, west Africa, from 900 to 1300. At key stage 3, as part of the statutory teaching of the overarching theme of Britain 1745 to 1901, topics could include Britain’s transatlantic slave trade, its effects, its eventual abolition and the development of the British empire. The latter could include teaching about the successful slave-led rebellions and challenges that led to the abolition of slavery, for example the role played by slaves and former slaves, such as within the Somerset ruling, and the life and work of Olaudah Equiano in the abolition movement. In the theme “Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day”, the end of empire and decolonisation can be taught. This key stage also requires the teaching of at least one study of a significant society or issue in world history and its interconnections with other world developments. Examples include the USA in the 20th century.
For key stage 4, the Department sets out that GCSE history specifications produced by the exam board for pupils should
“develop and extend their knowledge and understanding of specified key events, periods and societies in local, British, and wider world history; and of the wide diversity of human experience.”
We know that exam boards such as OCR, AQA and Pearson often offer options to study migration in Britain. There are a lot of resources available to help teachers teach black history, for example, lesson plays and resources produced by the Windrush Foundation, which support the study of the Empire Windrush and Caribbean migration. Runnymede Trust’s “Our Migration Story” website provides extensive resources telling the story of generations of migrants who came to and shaped the British Isles. Oak National Academy has developed a primary and secondary history curriculum, which is designed to be diverse and representative, including covering black history. Oak’s history curriculum includes medieval Mali, British colonialism in America, the abolition of slavery, the experience of those ruled by empire in Africa and why we celebrate Nelson Mandela Day.
Other subjects such as citizenship, English, PSHE, art, music and geography offer teachers opportunities to further explore black history with pupils, helping to build understanding and tolerance. Diverse texts are offered by exam boards in GCSE English. Pearson and Edexcel include texts such as the play “Refugee Boy” by Benjamin Zephaniah, adapted for the stage by Lemn Sissay, and the novel “Boys Don’t Cry” by Malorie Blackman in their post-1940 section of texts for English literature GCSE.
We know that a diverse teaching and school leadership workforce is important. We want teaching to be an inclusive profession, for schools and their leadership teams to reflect their communities, and for pupils to feel represented and inspired. There is further to go on this. Data show increases over time in the number of black teachers and leaders, but numbers still do not match the proportion of black people in the working population. We make sure that we target diverse audiences in our recruitment campaigns, and I am pleased that the picture is particularly encouraging when it comes to black postgraduate trainees starting their course—around 4% in 2020-21. This is in line with the wider working population.
I note the point that was made about university academics, and I will ensure that I pass on the point to the Minister for Universities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan). It is often said that talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. I believe this to be true. That is why we want to remove the barriers holding people back, whatever their background. This means tackling discrimination, but also levelling up opportunity, so that no matter where anyone lives in the UK and no matter what their socioeconomic or ethnic background, they can fulfil their potential. That is why the Prime Minister launched his independent commission on racial disparities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe noted, we will be responding to that commission in detail in due course.
I will conclude, because I want to give the hon. Member for Streatham a chance to respond. Months such as Black History Month can highlight the great black Britons who have helped Britain shine internationally, from artists such as Steve McQueen, writers such as Malorie Blackman and athletes such as Dina Asher-Smith to the everyday contribution to our society of people from the Caribbean and Africa, who helped build and support the NHS. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Streatham for this highly interesting debate and for once again highlighting the importance of Black History Month.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I want to start by thanking all Members who have participated for their well-delivered contributions. I would like to say that the support of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for these issues does not go unnoticed. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) took us through the history of great black women and reiterated the shameful lack of quality impact assessments on Government legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) pointed out quite rightly the shameful lack of representation of black teachers in our schools and wider academia.
The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), whose constituency I know I have pronounced wrong, gave an analogy about discussions about race and our history being fragrant and thorny. I really liked that. As the only Welsh Member here, she probably takes full pride in the launching of the teaching of Black History Month in schools in Wales.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) reminded us of the civil rights struggles here in the UK. She took a lot of time to talk about the other black Members of Parliament without mentioning herself. She is a trailblazer. She talked about the others whose shoulders we stand on, but we know fully that we stand on hers. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), our shadow Minister for Equalities, quite rightly reaffirmed her commitment to tackling these issues. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara)—
Grand Committee
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Arrangement of Business
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others and to wear a face covering when not speaking.
Social Care
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Lipsey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the possible role of the private sector in helping individuals pay for social care.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as the unpaid president of SOLLA, the Society of Later Life Advisers.
I think these proceedings are a bit rum. A Conservative Government are proposing reforms to help people to pay for care: the cap and the revised means test. They say that these should be entirely funded by the state. And here is a Labour Peer saying, “No, you have got the emphasis wrong, and you should be looking at what the private sector can do to solve the problem without recourse to public funds.” Let me try to resolve that paradox.
In a nutshell, the problem is that roughly half of those needing care have to pay for some or all of it themselves. When it is just a few months or years for people with some wealth, that does not provide much of a problem. But a minority of the half—one in 10 perhaps—go on living for many years in a care home. That means that they exhaust all but £20,000 or so of their resources. Their children may be deprived of their inheritance. As Andrew Dilnot argued in his excellent 2011 report, these people need some form of insurance. The private sector will not provide that insurance. There has never been and never will be any insurance policy you can buy in advance to pay for your care. Tory voters will be terribly affected by this—those we used to call middle England and in the south of England—so of course the Government want to help out.
There are two central flaws in the Government’s approach. First, the insurance that will be provided by the government cap is not at all adequate. I will not repeat what I said in the care debate the other day, but it will be seven years at least before anyone benefits from it and I think it will only pay one-third or one-quarter of costs at the most. We can debate that another time. Secondly, and more importantly to me, such little support as the cap provides will not go to those most in need. It will go to the better off. They are the ones with lots of assets and therefore debarred from means-tested help, and they will tend to live longer since being wealthy is a key to a long life. The Government’s policy, I am afraid, represents a levelling down: taking from less well-off national insurance payers and giving the proceeds to the better off and their children.
Worse still, by spending money on helping the rich in this way, the Government give away money that could be deployed on a more important task: improving our wholly inadequate care services. As the population ages, adding to demand, supply has got worse and worse as local authorities are cut back. The quality of care is not by any means always adequate. If the Minister will forgive me in his presence, I speak the language of Nye Bevan:
“The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism”.
For me, providing more care takes greater priority than paying for care for the rich.
Can the private sector step in? It is true that the financial services sector has been chary of this space. I mentioned already that it does not provide long-term care insurance. Its excuse for this is risk: what if people live much longer than expected and therefore it has to pay out more? If you think about it for a minute, this is palpable nonsense, because these same insurance companies are going around the place desperately trying to sell life insurance policies, which are subject to precisely the same risks as apply to long-term care policies. Having been around these people for a long time, I am afraid that the real reason is a simple one: it is very hard to sell long-term care policies. Most people out there are pitifully ignorant about care. They may know about pensions, but they do not know about care. About a third of the population still think that the state will pay for it in full. Even those who understand see it as a problem that is far in the future, to be dealt with when the time comes. Persuading them to cough up now for a need that they may well never have is hard work, even for the most seductive of financial services salespeople.
However—a big however—there are a number of purely private financial products which financial services companies offer that can help, and there could be more. A major one is equity release. With house prices having soared, many people have a large chunk of money which they can access through an equity release to pay for their care. They do not have to spend that money on it. They can take out a point-of-use care product when their need arises. Then there is the immediate care cost annuity: you take it out when you go into a home and your costs escalate, and it will pay out for as long as you live. If you live for 10 years, it will pay out for 10 years. If you live for less time, you will not do so well. There are subtle variants on this—for example, policies which refund your premium if you die within a few months of taking the policy out, because some people are frightened that they might be paying something for nothing. For many, the future may lie with a cheaper and more attractive policy: a deferred annuity policy. When you first go into care you pay for yourself, but as you are in care for a longer period—a specified number of years—the policy will step in to pay for the rest of it. That provides insurance as a sort of privately funded cap. These are not the only possibilities. An ingenious correspondent suggested to me that there could be a product whereby you temporarily give your home to a housing association. It will then pay your care fees out of the rent.
These products are making progress but from a very low base. For example, equity release sales have nearly doubled since 2016. The number of firms offering care annuities has gone from two to four. It is growing, but slowly. How do we encourage it to grow? I am SOLLA president because people do not know much about care. When they do find out, they are disinclined to do much about it. There is a role here for more publicity, but the most important requirement is for better advice for more people. I do not just mean publicly provided advice. There is no substitute for an independent financial services adviser—dare I say it, a SOLLA-accredited one. It is very important that we increase the availability of that advice and do not just leave people to go to the citizens advice bureaux. Great organisation though it is, Citizens Advice is not necessarily capable of dealing with these very complicated issues.
We are in a crisis on care, and we are heading towards disaster. We have one group of older people who cannot get care of adequate quality, and their families are up in arms at this total failure of the Government. We have another group—smaller but much more used to getting their way—who want their inheritances protected for their children, who will discover, I am afraid, that Johnson’s cap is not an answer. They are likely to lose the greater part of their assets paying for care and will not be able to fulfil their last remaining ambition, which is to see their children right when they die.
The private sector cannot do everything to put this right. I am not saying that it can but, properly promoted and properly advised, private financial products can do much to take the sting out of the care cost fiasco. I hope that today the Minister will show some sign that he and his colleagues are beginning to wake up to the serious problem that was left after their proposals came out.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for initiating this debate. We have gone round and round on this subject for many years; as the noble Lord said, he was on a royal commission long before I ever got anywhere near this House—indeed, before I ever thought I would.
One of the difficulties is that there is a wide range of social care. Some people who are in need of residential care, which they pay for, are not that far away from people who are in need of care through the NHS or some other public body where it is not even thought that they will pay. There is a penumbra in between. The wide range of social care is also reflected in the demographics of the country. My generation is living longer than any previous one. No member of the previous generation of my family ever lived as long as I have now, so there is a general tendency to live longer.
However, there is also a general tendency to wish not to face facts. It exists in our household, where we cheerfully say to each other, “Well, of course, all our family died of strokes. They haven’t lasted very long. They’re unlikely to need anything other than an ambulance to take them off to the hospital, and they probably won’t come back.” This is a factor when people look at whether they should make any advance provisions for social care. I stress “advance” because, if you are going to ask people to take out insurance policies, the policy will be meaningless for many of them; they will never draw on the policy because they will die in a way that means them not needing its benefit.
I have a limited example of equity release. I must say, there must be a lot of money in it. Two years ago, in an idle fit on a Sunday night, on my computer, I filled in one of those forms that says, “How much could you get for your house if you sign up to our equity release?” I thought, “That’s interesting. I wonder how much I would get.” I filled in the online form; it is the only form I have ever filled in but, since then, I have had a regular stream of offers of equity release on my house—and not only from the people whose form I filled in. It is fairly obvious that the information has been sold off around the industry. Every couple of months, I get an invitation to take up equity release. Clearly there is a lot of money there. I also think that there is a lot of capacity for mis-selling in the equity release market; we probably need to look at that.
Next, the Conservative Party’s proposals are interesting. I am pleased to say that the Conservative Party is a party that looks after the wealth of people like me. In other words, what we are talking about is wealth preservation. When we talk about the cost of care for the elderly, we are actually asking whether we can preserve our wealth, particularly in our house, to pass it on to the next generation. Putting it crudely, that is what this is all about. Of course, for many ordinary people who live in council flats or rented accommodation, there is no pool of wealth; that is the big challenge that we face.
I am afraid that my solution to help individuals to pay for social care is that they should probably pay a sum of money towards it, and that most of the fancy systems devised will prove to have flaws in one way or another; they all have weaknesses. It is the fairest way of all. It may be hard luck on the children but, frankly, if you have built up a sum of capital it is not unreasonable that you should spend it on looking after yourself. After all, you would not say, “I need to save money for my children, so I won’t eat or pay the rates.” If you are unfortunate enough to need some form of care, that should be paid for by the person utilising that care.
I noted the noble Lord’s point about the housing association remedy. That is fine if you are a single person, but it is no good if you have a partner living at home—let alone dependants of that partner—because they will need to carry on living there. You cannot give the house to a housing association and draw money. My not very happy conclusion is that we probably have to carry on not far away from where we are at the moment. It may produce its anomalies, but the anomaly of getting people who have money to use it for their care is not unacceptable. It is not as bad as some of the anomalies that would occur if you tried to tilt the system so that the owners of capital were somehow exempt from using it for their care. It is a rather gloomy prognostication, but it is my conclusion.
I hope that the Minister and the department will be very cautious before they come forward with plans. I warn them that there has been a problem in some continental countries, in northern Europe. Where you go down this slope of free care, you will face enormous bills. Take a day trip to Denmark, and ask about the cost of care for the elderly. They are not only tremendous but unceasing. At the last election in Denmark, part of the debate was about how many baths per week should be provided by the local services that cared for people in their own homes. That is because Denmark has the universal system, but that system will run out of money every time more money is put into it. It will make the National Health Service look a relatively tame organisation. You will find that there will be huge debt if you go down that path. I caution the Minister: he should be very careful.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this is a very simple problem but the solution is very difficult. For a long time, economists have talked about what is called the life-cycle hypothesis—how families or individuals rearrange their consumption pattern over a lifetime by transferring some of the future income to the present, as we do in the student loan system and when we buy a house through a mortgage. Mortgages are interesting; all Chancellors stand up and say, “The debt-to-GDP ratio is really very high. Every family that starts with one of at least 300% will have a mortgage.” Everybody knows how to do that.
Our problem is that people do not know how to do the backward transfer. People do not know how to transfer the present value to the future. That is a matter of incentives. Ultimately, there have to be incentives. Building societies evaluate you and give you the money and you pay it off. I spoke on this when we were discussing the extra tax for social care. By and large, the better-off middle classes have a house. The house is congealed capital gains. The question is how you melt that capital gain to make it available without melting it so much that it flows away. I was at that time proposing some form of council tax, which I will not repeat now.
Interestingly, families have assets which they do not want to sell and realise because they want to pass them on. That is one incentive. We have to give them some sort of scheme whereby they would say, “I want to pass on the money that I have to my children, but I don’t want to pass all of it on. I will split it.” How can we give families an incentive to split? Whenever I get up, I propose a new tax, so I will do that. We treat asset transfers to children very lightly; we do not tax them. If we were to say that passing your house to your children would be fine but we would tax it at 40%, which is the higher rate of income tax, or even 20%, the family would ask itself whether it would be better not to preserve the house but to sell it beforehand and split the equity between the family.
I am always autobiographical, so I will say that I am about move to downsize. I have a house in Camberwell that I am about to sell and I shall move to County Hall, which will be easy for inviting all my friends to come to have a drink at my place. That will release cash for me to keep, which is not taxed under current regulations. That is all right; I can do whatever I like. But if, for example, I were to stay in my house and then transfer it, it would not release cash in my lifetime but it would release cash to my children. If the Government said, “That’s fine, but if your children get it you will pay 20% tax”, I would be more encouraged to downsize while living than to wait until I die for my children to get it. This is a very simple thing. We have to give some kind of incentive or disincentive for people to unfreeze their frozen capital gains. If you look at the wealth distribution, that is the largest amount of wealth people have. It is a matter of ingenuity by people who think about taxation.
My noble friend Lord Lipsey, whom I thank for obtaining this debate, spoke about equity release. If you watch television on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, there are adverts for equity release, funeral insurance and that sort of stuff, so there is a market, but I do not think it is a very efficient market. We have to see why that is. What incentives can we give for the market to be more lively? Is there anything we can give to the sellers so that they come up with interesting products? Right now, all they are talking about is how you can be healthy and enjoy the money while you exist and run around in gardens.
A house is a frozen sum of money. How can you melt it, share it with your children and pay for your care? Everybody should be told about this: you are going to need care and you had therefore better provide for it. This is a harsh thing to say, but the existence of the NHS has discouraged saving. We have begun to believe that we do not need to do anything about our health, because it is taken care of. We do not realise that social care is not included in what the NHS does. We can either merge the two and provide them with more money or clearly separate them and tell people that it is not possible to have social care in hospital. It is a different kind of problem.
This is not strictly to do with assets, but about the running costs of social care. It is a slightly tricky business, but many people are cared for by their own family. This is done on a voluntary basis, usually by women. Women end up looking after their husbands, often because they live beyond them anyway, and they do it unpaid. It is extremely hard work, although they may be able to hire people in. Is there any way in which we can create a social dividend income, so that people taking care of an elderly person, even if they are a relative, would get something? It could be like a universal credit or pension payment, but it would be some sort of sustainable payment. We know that carers for the disabled and so on have problems taking holidays and things like that. We know that this happens so, if somebody, whether a man or a woman, can show that they are taking care of their relative, they would get some compensation for doing it and saving the state money. It is basically giving them the money the state saves.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the vice-presidents of the Local Government Association. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on securing this important and timely debate, and for his interesting opening statement about a Labour Peer setting out how the private sector can help individuals to pay for social care. These Benches do not have a problem with that principle; if people wish to make provision for such costs, they should be able to. The big issue from these Benches is whether they understand the social care system for which they are planning to cover costs and whether it will be able to deliver when they need to use it.
I also thank the Association of British Insurers for its helpful briefing, which has wide applicability for the general population, as this issue is not just about financial products. The problem is that, for decades, reform and funding of social care has left us with this current mess—or, perhaps I should say, without the reform and changes to the funding of social care, we have been left with this current mess. It was extraordinary that both your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons each had to pass the Health and Social Care Levy Bill in one day, before Parliament could even see the detail of how the levy and new financial structures will work for social care. This is even before we see the Government’s White Paper on social care, which is still due to be published a few short months away—a line the Conservative Government have been running pretty much since 2015, when they refused to implement the Dilnot commission recommendations. This is very odd, given the Prime Minister’s insistence on the steps of No. 10, two years ago, that it was an absolute priority to
“fix the crisis in social care once and for all”.
For the past 30 years, social care has been funded in this peculiar dual way. Those below the income and asset cap get their care paid for, with the further problem of that being divided into the NHS paying for nursing care and local authorities paying for the personal care element and some, or all, of their accommodation and food costs—misnamed as the hotel costs.
All that the new levy announcement does is raise the cap on the savings element—the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Balfe, set out the problems here. The cap should be viewed as a solution to avoid catastrophic care costs for individuals and is not a way to enable a private market. A cap in itself will not necessarily prompt a market for financial products to develop. In particular, a product that would dovetail with the cap would be almost impossible to create. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, care needs and costs are unpredictable, both for individuals and therefore for insurers. That, frankly, is why there has been some reticence on the part of the insurers over the years to provide a specific tailored product for care needs, as medical progress over time will determine how many people need care and for how long they need it.
Some of the existing products have been mentioned already, but there are care fee plans or intermediate needs annuities; life assurance policies with care cover included; pensions, investment and retirement income products; and equity release and lifetime mortgages. It was fascinating to hear the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, talk about being plagued by people trying to sell him equity release after he had completed a form online. Equity release is already proving to be something of a problem, as such products are being sold to people every day on their television sets and radios for other uses, including their passing on to their children large amounts of money to provide deposits for homes. Some local authorities are now finding that people who started off as being privately funded move into a position of needing public pay once the residual equity has been sorted out with a prior demand from the bank which has offered the equity release. To a local authority’s frustration, when the property is sold after the death of the resident, someone who was thought to be a private payer suddenly becomes a bill that the local authorities has to pay and had no control over commissioning.
What of the future? The noble Lord, Lord Desai, with his usual expertise, set out the wider economic issues facing the public. The first and most fundamental of them returns to the point I started with. Because of the current muddle, we must have a clear state offer from the Government about the boundaries of who will pay what. I add to that a question for the Minister. Is it planned to run an extensive publicity campaign—not just the odd, occasional advertisement, but perhaps a leaflet to every house to raise awareness in advance of the levy being implemented and to explain to people what will be different? I believe that a large number of people think that, by paying the increase in national insurance to fund the levy, they will be exempt in future. As I have said to the Minister on more than one occasion since he took up his post, most people currently think that they do not qualify to have to pay for any element of their social care costs. Even more, virtually everyone is shocked to discover that there are different systems for the nursing element of their care and personal care. It is clear that we will now have to add to that the accommodation and food costs, which are certainly not included in the cap arrangements under the levy.
Any state offer absolutely must be easy to understand, with preferably just one system. The ridiculous system of having clinical commissioning groups and local authorities arguing about whether a patient’s need is caused by a health issue or is a personal care issue, and the divisive and shameful treatment of dementia as a social care issue, must stop. My brother and I are not alone in having to be present at meetings, in our case about our mother, where the NHS and local council argue about the percentage of nursing care versus personal care on the basis of whether it is needed as a result of her stroke or as a result of dementia. We witness this to a ridiculous degree. All sense of the treatment of the whole person is totally lost when different parts of the system spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to deflect costs to other parts of the care system.
There is undoubtedly a role for the private sector in helping people to pay for social care, but there are two major stumbling blocks to making it happen. The first is that the public and the financial sector need an absolutely straightforward system that the population understands, especially regarding whether they will be covered by state provision or will need to pay for it from their own resources and may want to plan for that, say, from the age of 40. We need state provision that is not used by different parts to deflect responsibilities in payment, calling crises at the moment that people need to use the system. That means a streamlined system. For those who wish to use financial products to fund their care, the Chancellor must also make it plain what people can do and whether they will get some tax breaks for this careful planning. After all, it is prudent planning that will cover costs in future.
The second issue is much more fundamental. As many Members outlined in the debate of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley last week, we need comprehensive reform, not just structural reform to the care system. We need to think about this as part of the public health of our nation. Housing, health, working life and activity in later life are all also vital to reducing the need for people going into care homes, let alone having extended stays there.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lipsey for securing this debate and the opportunity it presents to spotlight the issues he raises in his excellent opening speech on the possible role of the private sector in helping individuals to fund their social care costs. His expertise and knowledge across the whole range of social care funding issues—and on all things relating to social care—is much respected across the House and we are always grateful for his contribution and guidance.
Like others, I have drawn heavily for this debate on the very helpful—or not, depending which way you look at it—briefing from the Association of British Insurers, and on the work carried out examining private insurance as a means of funding social care by our own Economic Affairs Committee two years ago in its report Social Care Funding: Time to End a National Scandal. I emphasise that we would have liked to have seen the Government use that report as a first step and springboard to ensure adequate funding to local councils, so that they are able to provide the standards of care quality that are needed. They must recognise that a plan for future care has to include: funding the provision of personal care in people’s homes to meet the unmet needs of the estimated 1.5 million who need help with washing, dressing, toileting and other basic needs to help keep them living well in their homes and in the community; and working towards ending the disparity between entitlement to free NHS care and the adult social care system, ensuring that entitlement is based on the level of need rather than diagnosis, such as in the provision of free care for cancer but lack of free social care for dementia suffers. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke very eloquently on this matter.
Indeed, we have a social care plan that is not a plan; does not “fix” social care, as the Prime Minister promised; places the burden of funding on people who can least afford it; and sets the care cap for two years’ time at a level much higher than the Dilnot recommendation and will not stop people from having to sell their homes—the pledge on which the Prime Minister is fixated and around which his proposals are built.
In the ABI briefing, the criteria set out for social care reforms that would help facilitate what it terms as a more “favourable environment” for insurance schemes have been cited by other noble Lords. They include the need for a clear offer on what the state will provide; an awareness-raising campaign about the means-testing and costs of social care, which it has been calling for since the discussions on the Care Act 2014; an easily understood care offer from the state; helping people to plan for social care costs; adding incentives to encourage people to save and plan for social care and removing disincentives which make saving towards a care plan worth while; and ensuring long-term, sustainable reform to social care that will provide stability for, in the ABI’s words, “decades and not years”.
These key criteria are sorely absent in the Government’s social care proposals. In the words of the ABI, following the Government’s announcement last month, the
“clearer the rules about what the state will provide, the easier it will be for insurers to respond to and support customers with what is not covered”.
Despite the ABI welcoming the Government’s measures as a “welcome step forward”, I am sure that, like many noble Lords, it also has the long memory of the prolonged but fruitless discussions during the passage of the Care Act and of the date for implementation of the care cap being set for 2016, then delayed twice to 2018, and then finally cancelled altogether as unaffordable. Can the Minster confirm that history will not repeat itself, and the cap will not be axed again in 2023 as the health and social care levy is swallowed up by the NHS’s herculean task of dealing with the pre and post-Covid backlog of treatments?
Noble Lords have asked specific questions about the types of financial products that could be made available in the future, such as equity release and intermediate and care cost annuities. On equity release, there have been interesting contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. A lot of financial advisers will say that equity release is only ever worth while over the age of 80. That is generally seen as the only time when it should be considered.
I look forward to the Minister’s response to these issues. Clearly, taking out insurance to cover care costs is not an option for the vast majority of the 1.5 million who need but do not get social care support, which is why the need for state funding for personal care costs is such a key imperative in addressing the current social care funding crisis.
Can the Minister update the House on what discussions are under way on this important issue with the insurance industry? The Prime Minister promised that the Government would be working closely
“with the financial services industry to innovate and to help people insure themselves against expenditure up to that limit”—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/21; col. 155.]
of the cap. Can the Minister reassure the House that discussions have started? Who is leading them? Will there be regular briefings on the key issues and progress? Most importantly, is he confident that any new products will be in place before the proposed implementation of the cap in 2023? Does he accept that the discussions with the industry are time-critical and need to make rapid progress?
Finally, my noble friend and other noble Lords, both today and in our debates and Statements so far, have asked key questions of the Minister about how the cap is to operate, its sheer complexity, what costs it will cover and other major concerns arising from the close analysis of the figures—such as that by my noble friend, which showed that it will be at least seven years from now before people with care needs in homes or at home will benefit from the Johnson cap. Time is fast running out for the Government to provide the answers that are vitally needed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on securing this important debate and I thank him for his well-argued case for the importance of the private sector in helping people pay for care. As he rightly acknowledged, it puts a Conservative politician in an interesting place when a Labour Peer is explaining the benefits of the private sector. I acknowledge his long-standing interest in this area; he brings a wealth of experience to the topic, not least as a member of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly, which in 1999 began the important discussion of how people should pay for their care. We should also be clear, however, that successive Governments, even before then, have kicked the can down the road. Reports have been issued and have gathered dust on bookshelves. I worked for an economic think tank which surveyed a range of views across the political and ideological spectrum—good ideas that have just been ignored for many years.
In that spirit, whatever one thinks of the announcement made by the Prime Minister on 7 September, it marks an important step on the journey to reforming adult social care. We are no longer talking theoretically or about blank pieces of paper. We are talking about a proposal that can be critiqued and, we hope, improved. I hope that in time, with noble Lords’ experience across the House, we will be able to come up with a package that addresses many of the criticisms made today.
The Government’s view at the moment is that the £86,000 cap in England will end the worry that individuals may face unlimited care costs. In addition, anyone with assets worth between £20,000 and £100,000 will be eligible for some means-tested support, helping people without substantial assets. The Government’s view is that the reforms will bring people peace of mind from knowing that their assets will not be wiped out if they end up needing care.
Let me turn to a couple of the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Lipsey. A few years ago, I read a very interesting article in the Financial Times about financial planning. The journalist asked why we plan for people to build ever larger amounts of wealth towards the end of their lives, then leave it to someone without benefiting themselves; surely we should encourage people to build large amounts of wealth that they then spend towards the end of their lives, including on their own care. That raises some substantial questions, which, I agree, the Government will need to address.
The cap marks an important step in enabling people actively to plan for the cost of their care, and agree that this is where the private sector can play a critical role. Of course, the new cap will protect people from facing unlimited costs and give greater clarity and certainty about what costs they may face. However, I take on board the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about making sure that we have proper publicity and public information. People will need to plan. As many noble Lords have said, to date, too few people think about the cost of care until a point of crisis when they or a family member are affected.
We believe that the financial services industry can play a critical role in helping people to meet their needs and in supporting people to pre-fund their care cost if they wish to do so. As many noble Lords acknowledged, the financial services industry already offers a range of products that can be used to help people to meet their care costs; they may not necessarily be marketed as help for care costs, but they help to build up a sum that can be used for such costs. There will continue to be a landscape of products to meet people’s needs and, we hope, to enable them to fund the cost of their care up to the cap. It is not a one-size-fits-all measure, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, outlined.
Some people may prefer, for instance, to invest in a long-term savings product such as a lifetime ISA, or increase their pensions contributions to make use of their pension freedoms. Others may wish to use some of the products that noble Lords have mentioned, such as immediate needs annuities. Some people may wish to draw on their housing wealth, in consultation with their family, to pay for their care and, as such, make use of equity release products offered by either banks or local authorities through a low-interest deferred payment agreement.
No one single product or approach to planning for care will meet everyone’s needs. Therefore, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, rightly pointed out, quality financial advice will be critical so that people can make informed decisions about paying for their care costs up to the cap. There is already a legal obligation on local authorities to help people to understand how they can access independent financial advice, but we recognise that more is needed. We are working with stakeholders to consider what people need and how the Government can support them.
Noble Lords may think it rather far-sighted of me that, 20 years ago, I started looking at financial products and how I could save for my future. Interestingly, when I interviewed financial advisers, one thing I was advised was that they were not necessarily financial advisers, and that they may well have been financial salespeople trying to sell products. As we ensure that better financial advice is available, we are going to have to be clear about making a distinction between independent advice and the incentive-based sale of products. In many cases, this is where mis-selling has occurred—that is, where the incentives have incentivised the so-called financial advisers to sell an inappropriate product, rather than the most appropriate product, to the person requiring help. With increased demand, and given that this sends a signal that people will have to start thinking about their social care, the Government hope that the market will evolve. I cannot say that for certain because no one can predict how markets will evolve; that is the wonderful thing about spontaneous order, with existing products adjusting and new products developing.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and other noble Lords acknowledged, this will not happen overnight. We will listen to and work with partners and industry over the coming months to consider the development of financial products to help people to plan for their care costs, in line with the introduction of the cap on care costs in October 2023. The Government have also held initial discussions with the ABI. What is interesting about those conversations is that we were clear that this will not be spontaneous, and that these measures will emerge with time as people start to understand the parameters and the amounts that they need to raise for their future. We hope to continue these conversations with a broader range of sector representatives in the months to come.
I give this pledge to noble Lords across the Committee: I want to learn from the expertise in this Committee. Some very valuable points have been made in this debate. I will hope to take them back when discussing with the Government the future course of the Bill. We will be listening and there is great and deep expertise. As I indicated before today's debate, I would like to have a long conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and others because there are some valuable points being made.
It is important to see the reforms as a package. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said—and this is something we should all be aware of—that this should not be something for the wealthy; it should be for everyone. There is not just the cap, but also a much-extended means test. It is about how we can support people with their care costs right from the beginning and be aware.
The problem with being purely private, as I think the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheeler and Lady Brinton, said, is that there might be some who cannot afford to take out some of these products—those with less or the just about managing. In that case, unless one is a complete anarcho-capitalist, one would see a role for the state to help those who are unable to make those informed decisions.
Regarding equity release schemes, the deferred payment schemes are effectively a local authority-administered equity release scheme and available in certain circumstances. The Build Back Better document says that we want to make these more accessible, better value and not necessarily for profit.
A number of noble Lords asked questions about raising awareness. We have committed to providing information. We want to make sure that those looking to prepare for their own future, or maybe helping their parents prepare for the future, make informed decisions. It is critical that we make sure that they are getting independent advice. I welcome noble Lords’ advice on how we ensure that we make that distinction between advice, objective advice and pure sales. We also want to work on how to improve access to this advice, for example through the citizens advice bureaux.
My noble friend Lord Balfe talked about people paying for their own care. For this Government, it is about balance. We recognise—as I said previously and many other noble Lords have said—that people do not start thinking about this until it is sometimes quite late. We agree that people should pay towards their care, but we want to make sure that they can somehow plan and overcome this issue of unpredictable costs at the same time. How do we get the balance right between personal responsibility and state support for those unable to provide for themselves?
My noble friend also talked about equity release schemes and existing equity release schemes. He made some very interesting points, as did the noble Lord, Lord Desai, on these. We should take them on board.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, talked about the possibility of the insurance market. We agree that the most important point is that the cap in itself will not mean that an insurance market will magically spring up. It will take time for the industry to understand and work through the consequences—particularly the very clever minds in the insurance industry—and then to see what demand there is from the public.
We need to make sure there is a better understanding of who pays for what, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said. An extensive campaign should be launched. We very much hope once again to draw on the experience of noble Lords across the House in reaching the public. We are finding this with some other health issues. How do we reach those difficult-to-reach markets?
We will publish details of policy parameters later. I will end with a couple of points. My noble friend Lord Balfe talked about Denmark. It is important that we learn from the best and worst international experiences. If my noble friend can send me details of other international schemes, we will look into those.
The noble Lord, Lord Desai, said that women tend to look after men. My wife would probably say that that is not just in old age—I think they start rather young. As my wife says to me, she has two sons but three boys.
I apologise if I have not covered all points made by noble Lords today. If I have not, I hope noble Lords will write to me and follow up. I will try to get the answers if I can. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for securing such an important debate today and thank all noble Lords who have taken part.
People with Learning Difficulties and Autism: Detention in Secure Settings
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Hollins
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to prevent people with either (1) learning difficulties, or (2) autism, from being detained in secure settings when an assessment has recommended they should live in the community.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, more than 2,000 autistic people and people with learning disabilities are currently detained in hospital, mostly inappropriately. Two years ago, the then Secretary of State asked me to review the care of 77 people who were at that time detained in long-term segregation. The number is now 100. My ICETR oversight panel includes people who have experienced long-term segregation themselves, family members, and experts in mental health, housing and social care. Those 77 people have all now had independently chaired education, care and treatment reviews.
We examined the first 26 of the 77 reviews in depth. What we found was profoundly shocking, and we identified several areas for urgent improvement, published in a thematic review. Typically, they had past histories of poorly commissioned education, therapy and care. There was little clinical continuity between hospital and community services, no clear therapeutic purpose for admission, and inadequate clinical assessments, with little recognition of previous trauma or its implications for mental health and behaviour. The oversight panel and NHS England have worked with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to develop a new clinical contract to try to ensure active management and therapeutic benefit.
More than half of those we reviewed were autistic people, both adults and children, but the hospitals where they lived, and those responsible for helping them move back home, lacked much understanding of the autism-friendly environment or care needed by autistic people. Most of the people reviewed were ready either to be discharged or to start a transition process back to their community.
Repeated past commissioning failures were compounded by poor commissioning responses to the ICETRs. Apathy and bureaucratic delays were part of the problem—professionals not turning up to meetings, agreed action not taken, wrangles over who pays for what. We saw interminably slow processes keeping people in situations that were at best inappropriate and all too often violated human rights. One woman had reportedly been ready for discharge for 19 years. I ask the Minister: how will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that ICETRs are being taken seriously by commissioners and that commissioners will be held accountable?
As part of our review, we gathered and published good stories of people who had managed to live happily in their communities after being discharged. We called the document Helping People Thrive, and it was written to inspire commissioners and clinicians. Mr W was one of those good stories. Prior to his discharge, he had been detained in hospital for more than 20 years, spending most of his time in what amounts to solitary confinement. Mr W has now lived in his own home for nearly three years, near his family. His home environment and care have been built around his needs. It costs no more to support him in this way than it did to detain him in hospital. Most importantly, despite still recovering from the trauma of being in the wrong environment for so many years, he is now happy.
We are pleased that our recommendations, both for senior intervention—a form of intensive case management to assist in overseeing discharge arrangements—and for the continuation of independently chaired reviews, have been supported by Her Majesty’s Government.
Some people we reviewed had social workers, advocates and families who were trying hard to move them back home, but a lack of local housing and care providers with the expertise needed was hindering their plans. A key part to successfully supporting someone in the community is the provision of good-quality housing. Sometimes commissioners are persuaded that moving the person to a single-person residence in or near the hospital is the solution, but such interim moves make it less likely that the person will ever move properly back to their own home community, and they incur continuing high fees for commissioners. How will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that there is enough housing, without months or years of delay? We must do everything we can to give people the choice to live where they want and with whom they want, just as we all do.
Sometimes, people tell us what they are unable to put into words through their behaviour. Recognising what they are trying to communicate and helping them to find a way to understand their feelings is often what enables people to move on from patterns of destructive or difficult behaviour. Good relationships with care staff are key, as shown in Dr Rebecca Fish’s recent research.
Speaking as a mother and former practising psychiatrist in this field, I believe that more attention needs to be given to really listening to people and enabling them to communicate what is troubling them, using whatever method works for them. Books Beyond Words—I declare an interest, as it is the charity I founded—creates word-free health and social stories to help people communicate their hopes and fears through the universal language of visual communication. Respond, the only specialist charity in the country offering trauma psychotherapy for autistic people and those with learning difficulties, is overwhelmed by referrals. Medication continues to be the main response to challenging behaviour. When will Her Majesty’s Government invest in widely available psychotherapy and specialist trauma therapy for people with learning disabilities and for autistic people?
Current community mental health and learning disability teams are rarely well equipped and resourced to provide the support needed for traumatised people. This deficit contributes to people’s care arrangements breaking down and to hospital admissions. If we invested in good local care, we could properly support people being discharged from hospital and prevent a new generation being admitted because of a lack of the right community support.
The social care system is nothing without the workforce. The pandemic has shone a light on the extraordinary dedication and determination of those who work in care. It is now time to address the many issues that have faced the workforce for several years, but which the pandemic has strained to breaking point. We do not currently have enough staff with the right training to ensure that people’s needs are met—staff who can empower and support that person to life their live to the fullest, who respect and value them, and can create good relationships with them.
Back in 2016, I chaired a report for Health Education England called Care Roles to Deliver the Transforming Care Programme, but little action to introduce effective training, supervision and meaningful career pathways seems to have happened. I recently visited care settings in Germany and was impressed by parity in length of training, pay, and terms and conditions for care staff, nurses, primary school teachers, occupational therapists and others. There were no staff shortages and services were much more joined-up.
How will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that care providers with expertise to support people like Mr W are available all over the country? Will they consider changing the rules, so that care workers can enter under the skilled worker immigration scheme? I hope the Minister will reassure me and the Committee that the expected reforms to the social care workforce and the promised cross-departmental strategy will tackle training as a priority. Could the noble Lord confirm whether recent recommendations from my oversight panel, and from all the other recent high-profile reports, are being taken forward in the Government’s new strategy?
Finally, I ask the noble Lord whether Her Majesty’s Government will consider making it a statutory requirement to report restrictive practices, including long-term segregation, and to publish details of commissioning organisations that still have patients in long-term segregation. Noble Lords may be surprised to know that many commissioning organisations that I have asked do not know if they have people in long- term segregation.
They could do this, for example, by making an annual report to Parliament about the numbers of autistic people and people with learning difficulties being detained in hospital, including those in long-term segregation, naming the responsible authorities, and reporting about the action being taken to develop effective care and support in the community, so that crisis admissions to hospital due to local service failures no longer happen.
We have debated this issue many times and read so many shocking reports. It is time to end scandals and tragic deaths and to give people back their lives. The new strategy needs political support. It needs resources to untangle the bureaucratic web and to reverse the perverse financial incentives that seemingly trap people in hospital. I am grateful to noble Lords for speaking in this debate and for helpful briefings from Mencap, Rightfullives, the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, the National Autistic Society and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I look forward to hearing everybody’s contributions and the Minister’s response.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is one of those occasions when I almost feel like saying, “You’ve heard the noble Baroness, and that’s about it”, but I will indulge myself by following on from much of what she said, particularly about training and staff.
Looking around this room, I see many people who have done more on autism than I have, but anybody who has realises how difficult it is for somebody with autism, especially at the lower-functioning end, to interact with the outside world. Some can get through it and make you understand what they are doing, if you give them the time and if you have some training. I have less experience of learning disabilities but, if we stick with autism as a factor, these are people who have communication and perceptual difficulties, meaning that they cannot interact well with you. If they have got themselves in a position where people cannot cope, often because they are becoming adults and their demands on society and their expectations are realistically higher, you must have people who are properly trained to interact with them.
If you do not have those people and everything gets terribly difficult and occasionally frightening, pushing them away into a darkened corner is a perfectly understandable response. I can see why people do it. It is wrong, damaging and expensive, but people do it. However, once you are shoved away into a corner—and the point that the noble Baroness made about opening up everything is probably one of the keys here—if you do not know what is going on, how can you possibly intervene to change it? The idea that you should open up is key.
The Government have accepted that the situation that we had a few years ago at Winterbourne View is unacceptable, and they have made some progress, so congratulations for that. Whenever congratulations come, as the Minister has been here long enough to know, then comes the criticism behind it. It is not there yet, and it is about getting people not only outside but sustained outside.
So how are we doing with training? Has it become the norm that a person in a controlled unit is trained in how to de-escalate a situation without reverting to a chemical cosh or physical restraint? What is the relationship in the numbers between those people? I recently had a conversation with a young man of about 23 who went to a unit training in how to deal with this type of person, and he said that they spent most of their time in arm locks, and he was one of the oldest people working in that environment. This cannot be right. Do we have a situation where people are trained to do the communication, de-escalate and ensure that you can have a civilised conversation? Are they there on all occasions? If they are not, you are just playing Russian roulette and something will escalate and go wrong. That is almost a guarantee. Once something goes wrong and you have the problems that I have inarticulately described, somebody will be even more frightened than you or I would if we were being contained. Trauma and its effect on mental health are almost guaranteed; it is just a matter of how bad it will be in individual cases.
We have a situation where we all accept that something should happen. We are even reasonably agreed on what should happen, which is getting a person out to live as independently as they can with enough support to do it. What action are the Government taking to make sure this happens and that, when something goes wrong when they are living independently, we can intervene and correct it without getting into more conflict, fear and trauma? That is what is required. It is the fact that you can communicate with that person.
Across the disabilities sector, this is a very common structure. If you have somebody who does not quite fit into the bracket you are talking about, and you try to make them fit, putting square pegs in round holes—we can throw our own clichés at it—we will always get this trauma, lack of communication and outcome. This leads to things such as legal costs, lack of things and other greater costs. Will the Government please give us an idea of what they are doing to make sure that staff are trained to intervene and guide people towards correct—or perhaps I should say better—solutions?
People have a right to live independently and securely. With a little help, most of this group can do it, at least for long periods of time. If the Government are not making that intervention, they are probably wasting money, first and foremost. Can the Government give us an assurance that they are taking steps to make sure that this waste of money, which leads to a lack of human dignity and human rights, is being corrected? Without it, they are offending everybody at every level.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, not just for her comprehensive introduction to this important debate, but for her work over so many years for people with learning disabilities and autism. I also pay tribute today to Professor Sir Michael Rutter, who died this week and whose work in this area gave hope to so many families, including one known to me. It was Professor Rutter who diagnosed their four year-old son and offered them hope of a life in which, with the right support, he would be able to flourish, despite his challenges. As that young man turns 30, that same hope is in painfully short supply. He is among the 2,085 people with a learning disability and/or autism currently confined in an in-patient setting—a number that has risen by 40 over the past month. The average stay is 5.4 years. He has been detained since 2011, with around one-third of that time in locked seclusion.
As we have heard, many of these people are not there because they need in-patient mental healthcare; they are there because the right kind of community support is simply not available. For some, these settings are not only inappropriate; they are deeply triggering environments in which they can be subjected to profoundly damaging practices that compound existing trauma, including segregation, restraint and seclusion. The environment can be horribly reminiscent of the extreme deprivation suffered in early years: no furniture, no personal belongings, no family contact except through an intercom, treatment delivered through a small Perspex window, no activities, no stimulation, no choice.
The NAO has estimated that in a single year, 2012-13, the NHS spent £557 million on in-patient services for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour can challenge. These are vast amounts to spend on keeping people in situations that, far from helping, are causing untold harm. There are perverse financial incentives underpinning this. While responsibility for community provision typically rests with local authorities, in-patient care costs are met by the NHS. The Commons Select Committee heard that this is a disincentive to local authorities to invest in community provision, as it would lead to more patients becoming their financial responsibility. This makes no sense. The Care Quality Commission estimates that hospitalisation costs roughly three times the price of community-based care.
The Government promised transformational change after the 2011 Winterbourne View scandal, but progress has been unacceptably slow, with the target of a 50% reduction in in-patient beds now pushed out a further five years to 2024. In the meantime, vulnerable and blameless individuals continue to suffer.
When will the Government produce a robust, detailed, costed, evidence-based, cross-departmental plan to deliver on this long-overdue commitment? What will they do to ensure that the right community support is in place, not just to enable successful discharges into the community but to prevent admission in the first place? What steps will the Government take to build the much-needed capacity and skills in the workforce about which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, just spoke? Will they act to remove the perverse financial incentives and redirect funding flows from poor care models to the development of robust community services? Will they stop commissioners buying places in services that are failing to meet appropriate models of care?
Also, will the Government deliver reform of the Mental Health Act, under which the vast majority of in-patients are held? Currently, people with a learning disability can be detained if they display challenging behaviour. However, all too often, this behaviour is not because of a complex mental health problem, but because one or more of someone’s social care, communication, environmental or sensory needs are not being met. Once admitted, their quickly get stuck in a system in which effective routes for challenge are hard to find. What will the Government do to ensure that care, education and treatment reviews take place and involve the right expertise, as well as families, and that recommendations are followed within specified timescales?
As we have heard, in the end, this is a question of human rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights stated:
“The detention of individuals in the absence of individualised, therapeutic treatment risks violating an individual’s … right to liberty and security.”
It also found that
“their rights to private and family life … and their right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment”
are threatened. Sadly, in my limited experience, all of these ring horribly true. Those individuals who achieve their ambition to return to community living leave traumatised by the experience that they have undergone, with their families equally traumatised and, frankly, exhausted by their unrelenting fight to improve their loved ones’ situations.
It cannot be right that any one person should be failed so many times: failed by the absence of appropriate services, then failed again through the treatment they have received in a place where they ought not to have been. I think that 2,085 is too high a number, but it is also low enough that the development of individualised pathways to support community living should, in a civilised society, be an achievable goal. The costs might be high but the costs of the alternative are far, far higher.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society.
Autism is not a mental health condition, but many of Britain’s estimated 700,000 autistic people develop mental health problems and too many reach a crisis point that could be avoided. This is often because they cannot access the support in the community that they desperately need—a point well made in the opening remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.
Due to way the Mental Health Act currently works, autistic people are at risk of being admitted to hospital and detained not because they have a separate mental health condition but because they are autistic. Not having enough services can be the reason for an autistic person’s detention or for preventing their discharge. Yet, as we know, the Mental Health Act code of practice clearly states that hospital is unlikely to be helpful in supporting autistic people.
More than 2,000 autistic people are currently in in-patient facilities, and more than one-third of them have been flagged as no longer needing care. Once detained, the average stay is almost five and a half years. This is an abuse of human rights, a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, just now. As a former member of the Council of Europe, a body that Churchill helped to set up to protect human rights, Britain should be ashamed of its record in this respect.
I welcome NHS England’s long-term plan to reduce the numbers to below half the 2015 levels by March 2024. However, since the plan’s publication, there has been no significant reduction in the number of autistic people in mental health hospitals. Indeed, for much of the time, the number of autistic people in such hospitals was increasing. In 2015, autistic people made up 38% of the number; now, it is 59%. Autistic people should be able to live full lives in their communities with their families and friends. The Government must change the Mental Health Act to make sure that autistic people are not detained inappropriately in hospital.
Changing the definition of mental disorder to remove autism and learning disability in non-criminal justice-related matters is definitely the right step and to be welcomed, but we must provide the right community service support for autistic people with mental health needs. This must be underpinned by legal duties to have the right levels of support available in every part of the country—it cannot be some sort of pick-and-choose system. We must make sure that all mental health services have the right training fully to support autistic people, and there is a huge gap.
I welcome the rollout of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training in autism and learning disability, which is currently being piloted, but it must go further by promoting best practice, such as work recently done by the National Autistic Society in collaboration with Mind. More than that, we need to give talking therapists the guidance they need to make those vital early interventions work much better for autistic people. What steps have the Government taken to make sure that autistic people are not left behind in in-patient mental health hospitals when they should not be there in first place? How will the Government make sure that all mental health services have the right training to provide quality mental health support to autistic people because they do not have it now? In particular, will the Minister commit to funding the full rollout of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training? How will the Government guarantee that the right community services are available in every area for autistic people with mental health needs? Will the Minister commit urgently to review and improve the commissioning of support for autistic people and people with learning disabilities? Finally, will the Minister commit to develop clear guidance for commissioners in each area and provide commissioning support for those areas that need it most?
Locking up autistic people in the way we do now is a stain on British society. We should be ashamed of it, and we should put an end to it.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Hollins on getting this debate. I want to spend a moment on those congratulations. At a time of Covid, climate change and geopolitical tensions, it is really important that we do not neglect some of the smaller-scale issues. This issue affects 2,000-plus people and their families, but it is not millions, and it is not the billions who live on this earth. In that sense, it is small scale, but for these families this is massive and all-embracing. I also note that Covid has affected people differently and has been a healthy reminder of the inequalities in our society, and this is a massive and rather hidden inequality. So I congratulate my noble friend on the way she opened the debate, spreading out all the issues that are involved.
I want to say a few words about the current situation and focus on the plan, the non-existent plan. We are talking here about 2,000-plus people, 210 of whom are children who have learning disabilities and/or autism. I have been out of touch with this sector for some time, but I sense from the briefings that I have been getting that all we are doing is warehousing these people. They do not need to be there. They are admitted because there is nowhere else for them to go, and they cannot leave because there is nowhere else for them to go. Meanwhile, while there, they deteriorate. It is a dangerous environment for many, and goodness knows what it does for the children and their education, socialisation and development.
I know that similar things are happening to acute adult mental health admissions because I have done a recent review on that, and people are stuck in adult in-patient units, but the difference is that we are talking about people being in this situation for 5.4 years on average. They go in now and come out, possibly in 2027, or, looking backwards, they would be coming out into today’s world from the very different world of 2015, or, as a child, growing from 11 or 12 to 16 or 17 through the early years of adolescence. We can all imagine the personal tragedies behind these bald figures.
So what is the plan? I mean “what is the plan?” and not “what is the policy document?” My noble friend Lady Bull made the terribly important point that this is small enough to count. They can all go on somebody’s list and somebody can tick them off when they are moved out of hospital.
I have had a lot of great briefings from organisations, great descriptions of the problem and great advice. We know what good looks like. There are lots of overlapping recommendations. There is a lot of discussion of inspection and holding to account, but I do not see anything about personal responsibility and who is responsible for delivering the change.
I joined the NHS in 1986 from a background in industry and charitable sector as—in those days’ language—the unit general manager of a mental handicap unit and I am familiar with this sort of problem because in those days we had a target to remove children from mental handicap hospitals. I make these comments as a manager.
Public sector planning can just mean a document all carefully worked through with timelines, targets and many wise words. A plan is not a document but something that is going to happen, but it does not mean anything if there is not somebody charged with implementing it and for whom there are consequences, frankly, of both success and failure. I was staggered to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, point out that some of the people who appear to be responsible for implementing this do not know how many people they are responsible for in this situation.
We need money to sort some of this out, I am sure, but a person is the most important first step. Money can be wasted, and a responsible person can fight for the money. Of course, quality and safety are also vital; this is not just about getting people out of one bad situation in hospital or inpatient unit and putting them in another bad situation in the community.
I will not labour what happened 35 years ago—but it happened. There was both money and responsibility and it happened. I remember quite a lot of pressure coming down the system to me as a unit general manager to make sure that it happened. At that stage, no more children were living in hospitals. It may not be quite like for like for where we are today, but it is tragic to hear how far backwards we have gone in 35 years.
Therefore, my questions for the Minister are of course: what is the plan and who will be responsible for delivering it? Will whoever is personally responsible also be impacted by their failure or success in achieving the plan? Let me add that this is just the sort of small-scale thing where ministerial leadership can make a massive difference. If a Minister took an interest and wanted to make it happen, they could really make it happen. I know it is not the Minister’s brief, but will he raise this with his ministerial colleague, the Minister for Care? My simple point is: who is going to get a grip on this?
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on securing this important debate, especially with her expertise following the excellent review that she led two years ago. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The Health and Social Care Select Committee’s report published on 13 July this year makes it absolutely plain that, 10 years on from Winterbourne View, the provision for autistic people and those with learning difficulties sees far too many placed in residential settings, which is unacceptable.
Jeremy Hunt MP, the chair of the Select Committee, said:
“Despite commitments by governments over the years, the totally inadequate level of community provision means that autistic people and people with learning disabilities are wrongfully admitted to inpatient facilities and detained for a shocking average of six years … it is time to recognise that a voluntary approach to reducing the numbers has failed and long-term admissions should now be banned with alternative community provision set up in their place.”
The Select Committee report follows on from the oversight panel review of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, saying once again that this is an emergency and needs dealing with immediately. I start by asking what is probably also my final question: can the noble Lord the Minister say when the Government will announce not another plan, but the recommendations and how they will be delivered?
I welcome the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about what happened 35 years ago; 25 years ago, when I was chair of education in Cambridgeshire, it really felt as if this country was beginning to become progressive in its approach to ensuring that those with learning disabilities and autistic children should, wherever possible, be living with their families or in their communities with support and going to their local schools. We believed that we had changed things. The evidence is—as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said—that too many people are being warehoused in unacceptable settings.
For some people, specialist residential provision has been developed over the years, but there are now complex commissioning rules with health and local government again fighting over the costs—as we heard about in our previous debate. Additionally, the lack of funding from central government to local government for this specialist provision, as well as the general funding crisis that local authorities are facing following cuts of about 30% to their overall budgets, means that there is a real problem and it appears that short cuts have been taken.
Noble Lords have also spoken about the further worry of restrictive practices. The horrors of the Winterbourne View covert videos, showing staff treating in-patients badly, were seared on the public’s soul. Everyone said that this must never happen again. But the evidence is that it continues. Indeed, there was a video of a staff member dragging a young autistic person by his hair only last month in a school. As both the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and my noble friend Lord Addington have said, this speaks to the lack of supervision and a lack of training of staff in these institutions. As the Select Committee report said:
“None of this is worthy of a 21st century healthcare system”.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for giving a successful outcome for one patient, now living successfully and happily in the community. The problem is the inertia and structural problems with commissioners and funding, meaning that 2,000 are still in inappropriate settings at best, and at worst living their lives with their human rights ignored. Immediate action is needed now.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for her sensitivity, her work on this crucial matter, and today for her use of her voice in giving voice to those who do not have a voice. The manner in which this debate has been conducted has spoken volumes.
When people are in the wrong environment, they suffer trauma, deep unhappiness, ill health, abuse of their human rights and lack of dignity—the list goes on. I ask myself: why is it that those who have learning disabilities and/or autism are seen to be less worthy of the right environment than those who do not? My noble friend Lord Touhig said that we should be ashamed of the years of failures and that this is a stain on British society. I agree with him because we are judged as a society on how we treat those in greatest need, to whom we owe the most.
The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, spoke of people getting stuck and their situation deteriorating because of the so-called care environment in which they have been put. This is not acceptable. It is a sorry and lengthy catalogue, which I hope the Minister will today commit to put an end to—a sorry catalogue of missed targets. Every figure that we refer to is not just a figure; each one of that number represents a person—and not just a person but their family, friends, colleagues and communities. They all carry that suffering along with the person.
I found myself shocked, as I am sure many noble Lords did too, by what I understand of the situation. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, made a very good point that shocking though the figures are, they are actually small enough to make an impact. I hope the Minister will outline to the Committee today how he will undertake, with his colleagues, to put an end to this outrage once and for all.
The figures that shocked me were not just that there are over 2,000 people with a learning disability and/or autism in in-patient units or that there are 210 children there, but that the number of people in units has gone up by 40 from the end of September. So we have seen no sign of change. The figure that really tells the story that we are here to address is that the average length of stay for people with a learning disability and/or autism in in-patient units is 5.4 years. That is 5.4 years that no person will ever get back.
We have heard in the debate about the thousands of reported incidents of restrictive interventions—physical and chemical restraint. The most recent data show that in one month alone, July 2021, we saw over 4,000 reported incidents, 930 of which were against children. I go back to the point that has been made repeatedly in this debate, which I ask the Minister to address: much of this is because of the environment, nothing else. How can it be justifiable when we know, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, said, that the costs of keeping somebody in an inappropriate environment are no less than to keep them in a caring, happy and appropriate environment? The finances do not stack up, so can the Minister address how the finances are worked out, as well as the quality?
We find ourselves in a shocking situation. We know, for example, that the mental health White Paper, issued in January 2021, took the important step that learning disabilities or autism will no longer be grounds for detention under the Act, but can the Minister update us on the timetable for bringing forward the legislation? We know that recently, in June, the Government published the results of the consultation on the White Paper, and there were positive responses on the necessity for these reforms. It would help to know, first, when that legislation will come forward but, secondly and key to this debate, when and how will there be a grip on this and by what means will the Minister measure the right progress having been made to protect and advance the interests of every individual about whom we are speaking today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for securing this important and heart-wrenching debate, and for leading the work on the independent reviews of people with a learning disability and autistic people in long-term segregation. I also thank the oversight panel that works with the noble Baroness on this vital issue for its report and recommendations, which the Government wholeheartedly welcomed and responded to in July this year.
Some of the stories we heard were heartbreaking. I am extremely concerned to hear about the number of people who remain in long-term segregation and, in too many instances, the unacceptably poor care to which they are subject. As the noble Baroness rightly says, no one should be detained where they do not need to be and where they can live a full life in the community but, sadly, we know that this is still happening and, frankly, it is not good enough. The Government are committed to taking action, both for those already detained who can and must be discharged, and to prevent people who do not need to be admitted from being so in future. We must move away from responding to crises to ensuring that the right care and supporting legal framework are in place from the very beginning of someone’s life.
We are determined to reduce the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals, which is why we are investing more than £90 million of additional funding in 2021-22 in community services and support for discharges. The Government are also undertaking wider action, which I will set out as I address the important points raised in this debate. I aim to address as many of noble Lords’ points as possible today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, started the debate by talking about housing. There is clear evidence that the right housing arrangements can deliver improved outcomes and meet people’s preference to remain in their own home. We agree, as the noble Baroness said, that the right housing for people with learning disabilities and autism is not always available, or available as quickly as we would like. In England, we are providing funding to build specialised housing through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund—CASSH—for older people and adults with learning and physical disabilities or mental ill health. We have provided £71 million for the fund in 2021-22.
Also in England, we fund the disabled facilities grants to support eligible people, including people with learning disabilities and sensory impairments, in adapting their homes to make them safe and suitable for their individual needs, subject to a means test, eligibility criteria and their needs assessment; £573 million has been provided for this in 2021-22. Housing is one of the six priority work streams of the Building the Right Support delivery board, and will form part of its upcoming action plan.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned training and expert staff. We accept that the right workforce is critical in enabling the highest standards of care and support for people with learning disabilities and autistic people. Skilled staff, leadership and creativity can be key in supporting someone towards discharge. For those in long-term segregation, the launch of a senior intervenors pilot is vital. Senior intervenors are being recruited, and we hope that they will help to remove barriers and bring creativity to planning and moving people towards discharge. The role will bring with it the necessary expertise and experience to assist in overcoming some of the barriers to progress.
More generally, we have provided £1.4 million of funding for the development and trialling of Oliver McGowan mandatory training to improve awareness and understanding of learning disability and autism for health and social care staff. Hundreds of staff have already been trained through the trials. The Government recently announced at least £500 million over three years to fund social care professionalisation initiatives to improve workforce well-being and other issues, especially for those who work with patients with autism and learning disabilities.
As we set out in Right to be Heard:
“Our vision is that in future all professionals will, before starting their career or through continuing professional development, undertake training which covers a ‘common core curriculum’ for learning disability and autism so that we can be confident that there is consistency across education and training curricula.”
The Government are currently working with Health Education England, the Medical Schools Council, regulators and medical schools to establish the best approach to developing a core curriculum. In addition, to improve patient services supporting autistic people, we are investing £1.5 million to develop training for staff in adult in-patient mental health centres. I know that the noble Lord said that there are much wider issues around mental health, but it also includes supporting autistic people, in line with tier 3 of the core capabilities framework.
As part of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training in learning disability and autism programme, we are working with a number of people, backed by that £1.4 million investment. Subject to evaluation, this should be available to all of the 2.8 million health and social care staff on autism and learning disability. As I said, the workforce is one of our six priorities. Also, as part of the new national autism strategy, we are taking a number of steps to improve the understanding of autism among educational professionals, as well as the training that we have already announced.
There are a number of incredibly important reports and recommendations, especially those by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Health and Social Care Committee and the CQC oversight panel. The Building the Right Support delivery board has been established to drive further and faster progress on the exact issues that a number of noble Lords raised today. We are considering how to bring these recommendations together as part of the Building the Right Support action plan; this will require a cross-government, cross-system effort, as many noble Lords have said.
We also want to ensure better reporting on the number of people being detained. The Government are fully committed to reducing restrictive practices and poor care for people with learning disability and autistic people. Reporting on our progress on the use of these restrictive practices is an important part of that, which is why the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Act statutory guidance, on which we recently consulted, set the reporting requirements for restrictive practices under the Act. That guidance makes reference to the mandatory requirement to report this information, in line with current NHS England and NHS Improvement requirements. We will publish the final guidance, reflecting feedback from the public consultation, later this year.
The noble Baroness will be aware of existing reporting data which is also already published. NHS Digital publishes its annual Mental Health Bulletin, a monthly public dashboard about the use of restrictive interventions and assuring transformation data about the number of people with a learning disability and autism in in-patient settings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and perhaps one or two other noble Lords, also raised the issue of changing the rules so that care workers can enter the skilled worker immigration scheme. We should all acknowledge the valuable role that immigrants play in our economy. Within the social care workforce, nurses, occupational therapists and social workers are eligible for the health and care visa. The new health and care visa will make it cheaper, quicker and easier for eligible social care professionals from around the world to come to work in the UK. We hope to attract the best talent from around the world.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked whether we have training for staff to de-escalate and minimise restrictive practice. NHS England and NHS Improvement have commissioned the rollout of the HOPE(S) model, a national training model to be delivered through NHS-led provider collaboratives to reduce the use of restrictive practices and long-term segregation and to develop positive cultures. The HOPE(S) model will follow a human rights-based approach, be person-centred and be informed by experiences of trauma. A number of noble Lords raised the issue of trauma and we think it is important that we address it. I would welcome feedback from noble Lords across the Committee who take an interest in this issue to make sure that we are on the right path.
I want to dwell on the senior intervener role, which is being trialled in response to the recommendation of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for the introduction of an additional senior person to support local services to plan discharge, guide where there is challenge and agree actions to facilitate a reduction in restrictions. It is important that we do this planning and that we are planning for discharge as the ultimate goal. The project builds on the positive evaluation of the pilot of children and young people’s senior interveners. The ultimate goal of senior interveners is to establish and oversee this robust programme, making sure that we are all working towards discharge from long-term segregation and hospital.
I was asked by a number of noble Lords, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, about independent case reviews. We have accepted the recommendation made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the oversight panel to resume independent case reviews for those in long-term segregation. We are working with NHS England and the CQC to ensure that IC(E)TRs will be restored as soon as possible. It is important that the reviews that take place are high quality and that we have the right panel of experts in place. We are trying to work on this as fast as possible in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A number of noble Lords asked about Winterbourne View and targets. We have a clear target in the NHS long-term plan of a 50% reduction by 2023-24 and are taking action across several fronts to achieve this. There have been more than 10,000 discharges since March 2015 and a 28% net reduction in in-patient numbers. We accept that this does not meet the target of a 35% reduction previously set out in March 2020, but we hope to continue and to make real progress.
The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, talked about mental health issues and Mental Health Act reform. Reform of the Mental Health Act is important and a White Paper was published in January 2021. We have consulted publicly on the proposals, and we published a response in July 2021.
I will try to answer the other questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, talked about limiting the scope of detaining people with learning disabilities or autistic people. The proposed reforms will create new duties for commissioners to ensure an adequate supply of community services and make every local area understand and monitor the risk of crisis at individual level.
I would like to say more about commissioners, if I may, but, if I have not answered noble Lords’ questions in the time allotted, I hope that they will write to me, so that I can give them all a more thorough response.
I end by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for this important debate. I think all noble Lords agree that all parts of the system must play their part and take action, so that no one is detained when they do not need to be. Hospitals must always have a therapeutic purpose and detain people only for as long as is absolutely necessary. We hope that the actions we have set out today for both the long and short term—I will write to noble Lords about our significant reforms—demonstrate the range of activity already under way or planned. We hope that this will help to ensure that we prevent people with a learning disability and autistic people being detained when they could live a full life in their community with their friends and family, as every one of us deserves.
Once again, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for securing this debate. I look forward to working with her in future.
Arrangement of Business
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)
My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others, and to wear a face covering when not speaking.
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bowness
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; and whether they have any proposals to improve that organisation.
Lord Bowness (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation. I am grateful to the Library for its helpful briefing note.
It is important that we are reminded about the OSCE and its functions, for the record. I acknowledge my fellow member of the UK delegation to the parliamentary assembly, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who continues his work and concern for refugees as vice-chair of the assembly’s migration committee. I also acknowledge the tremendous work done by another Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Baroness, Lady Hilton of Eggardon; she is no longer a member of that delegation, but she carried out a formidable number of election observation missions. I declare my interest as the current president emeritus of the parliamentary assembly.
Arising from the Helsinki agreements entered into at the end of the Cold War, the OSCE now comprises 57 participating states. They are not member states because the OSCE does not enjoy legal personality, which can cause difficulty. The 57 states stretch from Vancouver to Vladivostok. It is the largest regional organisation recognised by the UN. There are three areas of work, or dimensions: the politico military, including arms control and countering terrorism; economic and environmental, including economic growth, good governance and co-operation to avoid disputes, for example over water; and the human dimension, including support for human rights and democracy. There is also cross-dimensional work, touching on cybersecurity, education and combating human trafficking.
Most of the OSCE’s staff are to be found in field missions or programmes in south-eastern Europe, eastern Europe, the south Caucasus and central Asia. There is also the vital special monitoring mission in Ukraine. The work carried out by the field missions is varied, whether it is helping states to establish democratic process, training judges and police, looking after minorities or helping to establish small arms and border controls. That is by no means a complete list.
In the OSCE, there are structures and bodies that support its work, including the High Commissioner on National Minorities; the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which supports democracy and human rights; and the Representative on Freedom of the Media, who ensures that the states’ commitments to freedom of the media are observed. Since 1992, there has also been a new tool: the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. As its name implies, its task is to resolve disputes between participating states. I see that it has not actually heard any cases, but it has been ratified by 30-plus participating states. Can the Minister tell us why, as an example to others if nothing else, the United Kingdom has not signed or ratified the Stockholm Convention, which established that court?
All this work goes on, and the participating states meet weekly in Vienna in a permanent council and other specialised structures. However, for decisions to be taken, consensus is needed. Although this was seen as a strength in the optimistic early days of the OSCE, it now has the ability to create deadlock. The optimism of the early days is behind us. There is no longer a general acceptance by all of the international norms and behaviour. Participating states have flouted the norms and ignored the borders of others. We have the issue of Moldova and the Russian-backed separatists in Transnistria. Georgia has two areas of its territory occupied by Russian puppet regimes recognised by virtually nobody but Russia. The dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan flares up despite the best efforts of the Minsk Group, and Ukraine is constantly with us and causing concern.
In the autumn of 2020, agreement could not be reached in the permanent council to reappoint the four executive heads, so the organisation was left with no secretary-general, no director of ODIHR, no High Commissioner on National Minorities and no Representative on Freedom of the Media. Of course, dedicated staff carried on vital work, but the organisation was leaderless. My predecessor as president of the parliamentary assembly, Mr Tsereteli, issued a call for action in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the OSCE. It was supported by many distinguished players in the OSCE from Governments that had acted as the chair-in-office, not just the parliamentary assembly. The object is to examine ways in which the effectiveness of the OSCE may be improved. It is not to dictate the governmental side, but to endeavour to be helpful.
I am quite certain that the ills of the OSCE will not be cured without the full involvement and attention of the Governments of the participating states, but the OSCE never seems to be very high on their agendas. Perhaps that is because so much good work is done in the field and, indeed, by the permanent representatives in Vienna—including our own ambassador, Mr Neil Bush.
The Minster may tell me that, in the March 2021 integrated review of security and defence, the Government committed to supporting multilateral organisations that uphold national norms on security, including OSCE, and that we are one of the largest contributors to the special monitoring mission in Ukraine. Nevertheless, it is likely that the funding needs of the organisation will grow, not decrease, given the current situation within the region.
However, none of that goes to the working of the organisation, which has to be by consensus. There is provision for decisions by consensus minus one, but that has been used only once, at the time of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Consensus is the weakness and, at the same time, the strength of the organisation, but if it can be misused to hold up the continuation of the mandate of the special monitoring mission in Ukraine, agreement on the budget or the appointment of executive heads, the organisation does not function at its best. Indeed, coupled with the abandonment of the norms of international behaviour towards other states and, in the case of Belarus, norms of treatment of its own citizens, the ability to act effectively is severely curtailed.
The United Kingdom, with our ambitions to adopt a greater global role, should be well placed to raise our game politically within the organisation, put the future of the OSCE clearly on our political agenda and work with our friends on both sides of the Atlantic. I believe that the United States will prove an open door, as Congress has a very strong Helsinki Commission, which is fully involved in OSCE events and has a parliamentary involvement greater than that of any other participating state.
A start would be to ensure that the work of the OSCE was better known. Even in this building, how many people know or are interested? Because we need political leaders to be involved, I suggest taking the time between now and the 50th anniversary to build consensus for a summit. There is an annual ministerial council each year, attended by Foreign Ministers. The OSCE chair-in-office is a Foreign Minister of the relevant participating state. Our Library Note says that heads of state participate in summits, which set the priorities of the organisation. The last summit was in Kazakhstan in 2010; it was attended by the then Deputy Prime Minister, now Sir Nick Clegg, so, given the state of the organisation and the time that has elapsed, perhaps it is high time that we had another summit. I may be told that there are or will be difficulties and dangers in bringing these matters to a summit and giving those not so well affected to OSCE the opportunity to seek different political settlements not to our liking, but there are dangers and difficulties in doing nothing. I am sure that, if the OSCE did not exist, it would have to be invented.
I therefore ask Her Majesty’s Government what their assessment is of the political state of the OSCE. Do they have any ideas or ambitions to change the same, and will they move to bring the OSCE up the political agenda of our Government and that of the participating states, and discuss the possibility of a summit with our friends and allies with a view to this taking place in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki accord?
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on securing this debate. He has described the situation in the OSCE so clearly that all I can do in my remarks is supplement some of the things he said, rather than repeat them. I have been a member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly for some years. It has been a great privilege and opportunity, even if, inevitably, I have some criticisms of the organisation.
Let me say a little more about the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. He is widely respected across the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. He has a superb reputation, and he enhances our reputation as a country because of the key part he plays. If he had wanted to stand for president, he would have been elected pretty well unanimously, but he did not want to. I say to the Minister with all sincerity that, given that the previous lead of our delegation had to stop after he became a government Whip in the Commons, I think the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, would be the best person to resume leadership of our delegation. I am a friend of his, but I think it would be good for this country and our delegation if he were to do that. He is so well-regarded across all members of the OSCE.
Our membership is important because it is yet another way in which we maintain international links, in this case with parliamentarians not just across Europe, but from North America and Asia. There are some positive and negative aspects, one of which is that we from the UK and some other countries are there as parliamentarians, not as messengers from the Government. We are there as independent parliamentarians, who come to our own views. We can be critical of our Government; we seldom are, but we reserve that right. The delegations from some countries see it differently—this is not a criticism of the way it works—and regard their members as being there to speak on behalf of their Governments. It is a sort of government handout, which nullifies the benefit of the parliamentary assembly because it means we are simply getting the party line from some countries, but not all because many members are independent.
Let me give you an example. There was once a resolution to a plenary that was critical of a regime in central Asia. The ambassador from that country came to see me and demanded that I vote against the resolution criticising his Government. First, I said, “I don’t think so”. His Government was accused of human rights breaches. Secondly, I said, “It’s interesting. The only time you want to see people like me is when there is a criticism of your Government. The OSCE is not meant to be the voice of Governments.” Since then, I have been inundated with emails from him, but that is my punishment for having said that. That shows the way in which some countries see it in a way which we do not. Of course, parliamentarians from many countries act independently and reserve the right to differ from their Governments.
I appreciate the helpful Foreign Office briefings we get before plenaries. When we meet in Vienna once a year—the other plenaries tend to be in different countries—our ambassador to the OSCE hosts a helpful working dinner, to which he brings his senior people, so we get a pretty good briefing on all the key issues. I hope the Minister passes on our appreciation for the work that is done, the time put in and how helpful that is.
There are several committees within the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. I am an active member of the migration committee, which is especially effective. It is well-serviced by excellent OSCE staff, and it carries out an overview of migration issues in Europe and beyond. When we visit sensitive areas, which I do not always have the time to do, we get good access to government Ministers and others so it is a useful effort. The migration committee of the OSCE is one of the great successes of the parliamentary assembly, and I am privileged to be a member of it.
The plenary sessions are less useful sometimes, as they tend to get into traditional areas of dispute. Whatever the theoretical topic, of either the full plenary or the human rights committee, which is also large, they tend to get into traditional arguments about Cyprus, Armenia, Ukraine and so on. Whatever the topic, parliamentarians tend to have a go at each other, which is a pity because it does not add much value to the plenary. Within that structure, there is also an opportunity to raise issues of concern. I have been involved in debates on human rights, detention in Guantanamo, freedom of the press and anti-Semitism.
Sometimes there are what we in political parties call fringe meetings as an addition to the plenary which take place in the same venue in the gaps between plenary sessions. An American senator initiated a very useful discussion on anti-Semitism and hate speech generally. We have also had discussions on the Magnitsky sanctions and Bill Browder spoke. In fact, one of the first times I heard of him was when he came to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and we had a plenary. Within it, we had a fringe discussion about what had happened to Bill Browder, the terrible stories of what happened to his friend and his argument that there should be Magnitsky sanctions. These arguments have now been much more widely adopted as a way of punishing countries that are in great breach of human rights.
Another useful activity is election monitoring. Again, there is not as much time to do this as I would like, but I have been on some very interesting election monitoring visits. Although we do not uncover enormous scandals, the fact that we are there keeps the process cleaner than it would otherwise be because they know we are going to go to a polling station. They know which town we are allocated to, but we chose which polling station we go to. We just appear there and have a look at it.
The tricky thing in some countries is that they open the ballot boxes at the start of the counting session, then at the end of the election when the polls close—at 8 pm or whenever it is—the votes are counted in the polling station. So we not only monitor the way in which the ballot papers are checked when they arrive at the polling station before the polls open, as all sorts of things could happen if it was not kept under close control, but also the counting. I have seen counting that has gone very efficiently. It is normally inefficiencies in the process that I have noticed rather than any breaches of the electoral regulations in the country. It is an interesting process. Election monitoring also has a benefit in that one sees parts of the country one is monitoring that one would not normally see in the normal course of events. I have really enjoyed, for example, going to eastern Turkey. I have done monitoring in Serbia and in other countries.
I value my membership. I very much appreciate the privilege of being there and being able to meet parliamentarians from many countries. As the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, has said, I would like to feel that we are not beneath the radar of the Government, and that the Government pay tribute to the important work that goes on in the OSCE and to the importance to the United Kingdom of our activity in the OSCE. It is a useful forum where we can express our views. I think we are pretty well respected by OSCE countries for the contributions we make, so it is up to the Government to respond positively.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for raising this matter in this short debate. I am particularly pleased to follow him and the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who are both the United Kingdom members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE. My interest comes, apart from in other ways, from 17 years as a UK member of the European Parliament and my ongoing interest in UK international involvement post Brexit. I apologise now that some of the things I am going to say will be rather repetitive, but I do not see any harm in underlining the importance of this organisation, so I hope the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, in particular, will forgive me if I am going to repeat some of the facts about it as I go.
Our discussion today is a bit like opening a cupboard for the first time in years and discovering something you have either forgotten about or put out of the way as you had little use for it. Most people, sadly, have no idea that the OSCE even exists, including—I have to say in following my noble friends—quite a number of Members of this House and particularly the one along the Corridor. Nevertheless, to those who do know it, it is sadly also often regarded as fairly irrelevant to the challenges facing the world and the UK in the 21st century. Some regard it as another international talking shop with no power to enforce anything against anybody. I regard it in a very different way, and I urge my noble friend to persuade his colleagues in government not only to expose the issue more to the light of day but seriously to consider ensuring that, as a diplomatic and strategic vehicle, the UK and its new post-Brexit situation can play an even greater role in the organisation.
I am not going to repeat the organisation’s whole history, but it is worth emphasising the main areas of interest: security, conflict resolution, conventional arms control, economic and environmental security and, of course, human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the monitoring of democracy and elections. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to his exercises in looking at elections. I certainly found my experiences in East Germany as an observer in the 1990 elections extremely useful, although that was not under the auspices of the OSCE.
As has been said, 57 states signed up to these functions in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. These states cover, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, mentioned, a geographical area extending from the United States and Canada as far as Russia and Mongolia. Within its ranks are many diverse political systems, social deployments and environmental challenges. It is the world’s largest regional security organisation. Some of its biggest challenges are provided by the actions of its members, such as the issues of the conflicts in Georgia and the Russian occupation of Crimea and its ongoing approach to Ukraine. The response of the OSCE cannot be military, but its special monitoring missions have been doing useful work in Ukraine, with international monitors, including those from the UK, providing dispassionate evidence of activity and warning member states if they are in breach of the agreements they signed up to.
Some will say that this is not enough, but it is a fact that such reporting influences behaviour and acts as a form of restraint without the risks inherent in military threats. After all, the United Nations can pass resolutions, but itself has limits and, apart from peacekeeping missions, it cannot always act decisively in situations where resolutions are ignored. The OSCE, however, can point to successes that are more than merely jaw- jaw.
Conventional arms control in Europe through the Vienna document is one area of importance where restraint and constructive co-operation can be demonstrated. Functions include monitoring of military exercises and deployments. The open skies treaty, which gave greater transparency to military activity and with which I was coincidentally involved for a while when in government in the 1990s, has an important reflection of the right to know between all members. As a result, little can occur—or deployments be made—which is not known to everybody else. The OSCE is also working in the field of cybersecurity, which is a vital area, as we know. It is tackling organised crime in relation to the exchange of data and the vital information obtained is terribly important to all of us.
In the area of the environment—where the UK has COP 26 coming and the Government’s declared aim is to lead in the global fight to net zero—the OSCE could really be utilised more in helping us to remain at the front of that campaign. It also has special competence in the field of energy security, which remains a very big issue in achieving our aims, and as a forum for sharing best practice. That is across the 57 member states and is of course enhanced by the parliamentary assembly, on which the UK has a strong representation from both our Houses, including the noble Lords, Lord Bowness and Lord Dubs.
After all that, noble Lords may wonder why the OSCE has seemingly been neglected for so long. I know that it can work only through consensus, which is clearly missing on a number of occasions when member states do their own thing; however, as we know, influencing conduct by example, or just by airing concerns, can stabilise situations for the benefit of our citizens.
Now that we have left the institutions of the EU—I will not bore noble Lords with any further arguments on that today; “Get over it” is what noble Lords would tell me—it is really important that the UK decides which old alliances are to be enhanced or renewed and what new alliances are to be formed to replace or influence our global affairs. There is of course the Commonwealth, which remains very important; the United Nations, where our permanent membership of the Security Council is very valuable; other new and replicated trade deals that are now being negotiated; NATO, where our military priorities remain, now to be enhanced by other defence alliances further afield; and not forgetting the Council of Europe, which, again, has representatives from the UK.
The Government seem at the moment to be pursuing a bilateral approach to renewing and refreshing our European relations. This may succeed, especially with a few of our closest allies on the continent, such as Germany and France—perhaps I ought to leave France out today. We must acknowledge, of course, that even if they no longer apply to us, those countries that are member states of the EU are subject to the rules and restrictions that apply to that bloc, and always will be.
So, organisations such as the OSCE should be revisited now. As has been referred to by colleagues, we already provide it with funding, personnel and an active delegation. Perhaps the time is right for a ministerial reinnervation of our interest in and commitment to the organisation. I have complimented my noble friend Lord Bowness on a number of occasions in other debates—usually on a remote basis—but I think he is just the right person to reinnervate this organisation. In fact, he is the personification of innervation. If he agrees to this challenge, more power to his elbow; I say the same to all others of a similar disposition.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope.
I spent my time as a graduate student studying a relatively small and understudied parliamentary assembly, as it was originally known. It was the European Parliament, which gradually gained rather more powers. Assemblies can gain powers and become more influential and better known. On the other hand, we need to make sure that, however important these assemblies are, they do not become the focus of opprobrium in their own right. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, in opening this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, about the OSCE’s role and the fact that it is rather understudied and little understood.
It is slightly strange to be standing here in a Question for Short Debate where we have only six speakers. For people looking at Hansard, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said that we need to put some things on the record. During the period of the virtual Parliament, it was almost impossible to get one’s name down for a Question for Short Debate, so attractive was it to everybody to speak in one. If you were lucky, you had a minute to speak. Today, we have six speakers in an hour. In preparing my remarks, I wondered whether I had nine minutes of comments to make, because we have relatively few people wishing to contribute.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, pointed out at the start of the debate, it is important to put on record why the OSCE mattered in the 1970s and why it still matters in the 2020s. It is one way of bringing states together. The noble Lord pointed out that the technical version is not a member state and is not the same as a member of the European Union, where the role of a formal signatory state is clearly delineated. These are participating states, but they range from the United States all the way to Russia. In many ways, that creates huge advantages and disadvantages. The noble Lord also talked about consensus, which I will come back to in a moment.
Clearly there are real questions about how an organisation of 57 countries, which include Russia, many central Asian countries and Turkey, can have the same values and aspirations. Here, I suspect that there is a strength and a weakness. When the 57 come together, the OSCE talks about human rights. If that is the case, is it not the perfect venue for us to talk to Russia or Turkey about human rights—or, indeed, for us to talk to our erstwhile partners in the European Union about human rights, press freedom and freedom of the media? The Library briefing talks about this; the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, also mentioned it.
Will the Minister tell the Grand Committee how far Her Majesty’s Government think that the OSCE could be a forum in which we begin to explore press freedom? Several countries that are members of the OSCE, even if they are current members of the European Union, are not necessarily countries that are renowned for their freedom of the press. Hungary—I am hoping to catch the eye of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to confirm that Hungary is a member of the OSCE, and he has. I read through the 57 and did not want to accuse a country of being a member when it was not. Hungary signed up to all the Copenhagen criteria for membership of the European Union, signed up to the Council of Europe and is a member of OSCE—but under Viktor Orbán it is not renowned for its media freedoms. Is the OSCE then a way of having a venue to talk to Hungary about having a more open media framework, not all run by Fidesz?
Similarly, Turkey is a member and a NATO ally, yet it is a country where human rights are perhaps not respected in way that we would want them to be. Again, can the OSCE be an area where the Minister and his colleagues could have bilateral conversations in the margins? If part of the aim is not just to monitor democracy but to look at freedom of the media, these are two examples of where greater activity could be an opportunity.
I said I would come back to the issue of consensus. The Library briefing reminds us that decisions are taken by consensus. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, pointed out that it might be “consensus minus one”. We know from the European Union that when decisions have to be taken by consensus and two member states perhaps have decided that they are not too bothered about the rule of law and are not necessarily signed up to the values that other countries espouse, they can very quickly and easily block things. I can absolutely see that decision-making by consensus can be a problem, and clearly there is a need for discussion and, one hopes, persuasion. So, in terms of brokering consensus, can the Minister tell us how Her Majesty’s Government view their role in helping broker consensus on issues that matter to the United Kingdom?
I have a word of warning: be careful what you wish for. The OSCE may move away from consensus. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, mentioned the budget and a set of things where over the years the United Kingdom was so good at stalling activity in the European Community, later the European Union. Well, if you move to qualified majority voting, which is what happened in the European Union, you might be able to expedite decision-making, but that does not necessarily mean that, once taken, the decisions will be implemented. Countries that have been outvoted—we have seen this with the Visegrád countries on refugee issues—might simply say “We didn’t vote for it”, “We abstained” or “We were out of the room”, and they will not necessarily implement decisions. So I suspect that consensus is probably here to stay.
My final question is: “To what extent does the Minister feel that the OSCE offers an opportunity for the United Kingdom to have those side conversations that we used to be able to have within the European Union—our conversations with 27 partners which we no longer have on quite such a regular basis?” It has obviously been a very long time since Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister attended a heads of state—sic. I do not think we would envisage Her Majesty the Queen attending, but even a head of government? Could we envisage such an event by 2025? Would the current Prime Minister wish to lead such a delegation, assuming that the head of state would not? Would the Minister wish to encourage the Prime Minister to do so? Or should we perhaps be thinking that the Minister would be the perfect leader of such an event, perhaps to host the event? At the same time, I reinforce the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, would be fantastic suggestion to be the leader of the parliamentary delegation.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for initiating this debate. While preparing for it, I took the opportunity to reflect on some things and look back. When world leaders signed the Helsinki accords in 1975, which laid the groundwork for the OSCE, they shared a common ambition to end the divisions in Europe. I think that is still very much what our aspiration should be. I want to take the opportunity to quote Harold Wilson—who, sadly, is not quoted enough, in my opinion. He saw the initiative as a means
“to look towards new and more constructive relationships on the basis of an agreed code of behaviour and undertakings to advance co-operation of all kinds”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/8/75; cols. 230-31.]
That is exactly what that forum should be about. Certainly, half a century later, the OSCE has played its part in facilitating that, but of course it has evolved in a way which I think world leaders then could never have foreseen.
The OSCE acts as a champion for the principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, all of which are a precondition for security and prosperity, while also supporting conflict prevention and monitoring in some of the world’s most difficult environments. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, recognises in the Question for this debate, the organisation must strive to improve, and it is up to the members, particularly the United Kingdom, to facilitate that sort of change.
I also took the opportunity to reflect on our past debates on this subject, initiated by the noble Lord, and, sadly, I realised that I had participated in all of them—so I have to strive to be consistent in case someone looks back in Hansard. In 2012, we had a debate about the role of the OSCE; we had a debate in November 2013 about the hopes and priorities for the Helsinki+40 process; and in March 2017 we had a debate, again initiated by the noble Lord, about the role of the OSCE particularly in addressing the conflict in the east of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Of course, at that time, a year after the referendum, we were considering the implications for peace, security and co-operation of Brexit, which obviously also dominated the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, reminded us in all those debates that, even in Parliament, there is a lack of awareness of exactly what the OSCE does and how it responds to the very complex and varied issues it has a responsibility to look at.
The noble Lord mentioned his work in the UK delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. I echo all noble Lords: I do hope that his incredible work is maintained and advanced. We would lose someone really important in promoting the UK’s values if we were not to support him in his work. I also acknowledge the work of my noble friend Lord Dubs, particularly on the migration committee, because this is such an important issue in terms of the sort of co-operation and dialogue we need to ensure not only that the human rights of migrants are protected but that we address and promote the root causes of migration.
I mention, in passing, my noble friend Lady Hilton of Eggardon, who did an amazing amount of work on election monitoring. We undervalue the importance of election monitoring and the work of the OSCE, because it is not only what you see when you get there but the fact you are going there can influence behaviour, as it can ensure that people will behave properly knowing that somebody will turn up.
The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, mentioned tensions, particularly last year over appointments to divisions, which is a clear concern that we should seek to de-escalate. We have been a little successful in that, but we need to ensure focus. The noble Lord’s point is that the OSCE’s strengths are also its weaknesses. That it includes the Russian Federation and a lot of eastern European countries, the western powers and the US makes it a forum to de-escalate and to address those incidents that can escalate into situations that we all want to avoid. I hope the Minister can give us a clearer indication of how the United Kingdom, particularly considering the integrated review, sees the importance of this multilateral institution in delivering our overall joined-up strategy, the three “D”s—defence, diplomacy and development. This again addresses migration.
We also have to consider some of the clear challenges ahead. The organisation’s work will not be easy and includes tackling extremism, promoting climate security and responding to emerging conflicts. There is an issue, as the Secretary-General has called for an increased budget for the organisation, so I hope the Minister will clarify the Government’s stance on this. Whatever their stance on the budget, what the OSCE needs most from this Government of all is a clear indication of a political commitment to its work.
I reflected on the debate in 2017, when the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, responded. I did not realise it was nearly five years ago; I always accuse the Minister of having longevity, but on this occasion I may have beaten him. The point is that we need to ensure that that political commitment and the words that the noble Baroness said in 2017, which I have no doubt the Minister will repeat today, have some meaning and purpose behind them and that we put our resources and effort into the organisation. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on the 50th anniversary summit is worthy of consideration. I hope the Minister will respond to it positively.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, in particular my noble friend Lord Bowness for tabling this debate. I join others in paying tribute to his service to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly over many years. We look forward to hosting the assembly in Birmingham in 2022.
Several speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and my noble friend Lord Bowness, talked of the anniversary in 2025 as a possible date for the OSCE summit of political leaders. We will carefully consider the merits of holding a summit. I listened carefully to all the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and join others in paying tribute to his contributions to this important assembly and his wider leadership on the important issue of migration. In the wider assembly of your Lordships’ House, he often keeps me and other Ministers on our toes on the importance of ensuring migration remains high up the Government’s thinking and priority list. I pay tribute to the contributions he makes to the OSCE as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, talked about the small number of speakers in this debate, but as is often the case in your Lordships’ House, it is the quality rather than the quantity of contributions or speakers. I am very much taken by the kind comments made by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope about power to my elbow. I feel enhanced and lifted, spiritually and as a Minister, but as I am not Minister for the OSCE I will go no further in case other colleagues are listening with great attentiveness to this debate. The sentiments and practical suggestions that have been made are very valid. I will certainly share them. I hear very clearly the importance of the OSCE and the value that it brings in the context of the multilateral system.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also mentioned consensus. My right honourable friend the former Prime Minister, Mrs May, said that consensus is at times not a bad word. Sometimes, in an international context, consensus is exactly what is required. As the Minister for the Commonwealth and the United Nations, I assure the noble Baroness that I am quite used to differing opinions in the room, as are others who represent Her Majesty’s Government.
The Government agree with my noble friend Lord Bowness that the OSCE is a vital pillar of the international system. We recognise the crucial role that it has played since its creation and the end of the Cold War, which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, referred to, in reducing the risk of conflict across the Euro-Atlantic area and de-escalating where necessary.
My noble friend Lord Bowness asked what the Stockholm convention is seeking to do. I see no reason why we would not be supportive of it in terms of its principles, but I will certainly take that back to understand better why we have not yet signed it. Perhaps it is because, as my noble friend suggested, it has not yet adjudicated. There are other international fora that provide for such issues of reconciliation and adjudication.
However, the Government believe that, as the international challenges mount, multilateral responses are as important as ever. The OSCE is well known for its election observation work—a point made by all noble Lords—in helping to strengthen the democratic process. Its special monitoring mission continues to play a prominent and vital role in responding to Russia’s aggression, particularly against Ukraine. I was in Ukraine a few weeks ago in commemoration of the Holocaust and the tragic, horrendous situation which prevailed and which many Ukrainians faced at that time, particularly members of the Jewish community. It underlined the importance at a unilateral level of standing in solidarity with Ukraine as it responds to Russian aggression in the Donbas and the continued occupation of the Crimea.
The OSCE does a lot more than just election observation. We value the key role that it plays in regional peace processes. This includes the 5+2 process in Moldova, the Geneva international discussions on the 2008 conflict in Georgia, and the Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh, which my noble friend Lord Bowness referred to. On the wider issues, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, made a practical suggestion on media freedom. This is a key priority for the UK Government. My colleague and honourable friend Minister Morton, who leads on OSCE engagement, met with the representative on freedom of the media, Teresa Ribeiro, just a few weeks ago, on that very point.
The OSCE’s network of field operations in Ukraine, central Asia and the western Balkans all work effectively to support participating states in delivering upon their OSCE commitments. We must not overlook the important work of the parliamentary assembly, which has been mentioned, which brings together representatives of national Parliaments from 57 participating states. As we have heard, those countries are from across Europe and further afield, and have not traditionally been members of the European Union. I assure noble Lords that, as we embark on the vision of global Britain, the OSCE remains an important part of how we strengthen our multilateral work. It provides a valuable forum for dialogue and leads to some very important election observation missions as well.
Therefore, the UK is wholly supportive of the OSCE, both financially and in terms of the principles that it stands for and values in issues of security, and we seek to deploy UK expertise to influence others. I believe that, currently, we have 78 Brits working within the OSCE networks within its institution. In particular, we use the weekly permanent council to hold Russia and other states to account for their actions. A small point, just from my own observations as a Minister, is that, in many multilateral organisations, it is interesting to see the number of countries who might seek to block things or go against the grain yet are very much in the front line when it comes to seeking election to these bodies. It shows perhaps that, if one were to look for a silver lining, a real need is felt by some countries to ensure that they remain part and parcel of discussions and represented around the table.
To look at specific issues, following the fraudulent presidential election in Belarus and brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters, the UK and 16 other states within the OSCE triggered the Moscow mechanism. The resulting recommendations provide a real pathway to a peaceful resolution and free and fair elections. We take every opportunity at the OSCE to urge the Belarusian authorities to implement the report’s recommendations.
Since last year, our ambassador to the OSCE—I will of course take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the hospitality that he extends to the delegation back to the ambassador and I thank him for his remarks—has chaired the OSCE’s security committee. This means that the UK influences the agenda on work to tackle serious and organised crime, enhance cybersecurity and deliver the priorities set out in the integrated review, which put diplomacy at the centre of international efforts to counter state threats and build international coalitions.
However, the hard fact is that, as noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, have pointed out, discussions within the OSCE have become steadily more polarised over the past 20 years, which has often led to deadlock. As a consensus-based organisation, there are of course limits as to what it can achieve, often because it is exploited by certain countries—notably Russia. It and others seek to reduce the OSCE’s implementation mechanisms, particularly on important issues of human rights and the mandates of field missions.
The political and military aspects of the OSCE’s work have also encountered significant challenges. Three treaties in particular have contributed greatly to peace and security in Europe since the end of the Cold War: the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, which established verifiable limits on specific equipment and personnel; the Vienna Document on confidence and security-building measures; and the Open Skies Treaty, referred to by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, who talked of his own involvement, which allows unarmed observation flights over members’ territories. It is therefore deeply regrettable that Russia has withdrawn from the Open Skies Treaty after its long-standing pattern of non-compliance led the US to do the same last year. We will continue to call on Russia to reconsider its position and to lift its suspension of activities under the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. It should also comply with both the letter and the spirit of its commitments under the Vienna Document.
Let me assure noble Lords that the United Kingdom remains a strong supporter of conventional arms control arrangements and further assure my noble friend Lord Kirkhope that we support all elements under these particular arrangements. We supported Ukraine’s use of the measures within chapter 3 of the Vienna Document to seek clarification from Russia following the troop build-up in the Crimea. We will also continue to press Russia to engage constructively, provide transparency and aid de-escalation by supporting the joint proposal to bring the Vienna Document up to date. We will also ensure, as outlined in the integrated review, that the UK remains a strong supporter of the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine and continues to play a vital role in responding to Russia’s ongoing aggression against the country.
The UK is also a strong supporter of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights—although I do fear the acronym sounding like “Oh dear” sometimes takes away from its effectiveness as a particularly robust institution. It undertakes vital work in deploying missions to observe elections and we are a regular, reliable and generous contributor. This allows the UK to support democracies around the globe, which remains a vital strategic goal.
There are other wide areas of the OSCE’s work, which I do not have time to go into, from combating trafficking to the women, peace and security agenda, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, mentioned, countering terrorism. These all remain vital areas of work. Let me assure noble Lords of this: while this debate may be short and have a limited number of contributions, the Government’s commitment in terms of the strategic support we extend to the OSCE—financially, through our people and through attendance at meetings—remains very strong and we will continue to be there. The OSCE has played a vital role since its creation nearly half a century ago and we believe it plays a vital role today and will continue to do so tomorrow. We call on all participating states to hold firm to its principles and I assure your Lordships’ Committee that the UK’s commitment to those shared goals remains absolutely resolute.
Exports to Africa
(3 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Popat
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking (1) to raise awareness among United Kingdom businesses of commercial opportunities in African markets, and (2) to support UK exports to Africa.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the Prime Minister’s envoy to Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a role that neatly brings together my main political interests: UK SMEs and Africa. Being African-born, I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I am slightly biased, but I believe that building stronger trade and diplomatic links with Africa post Brexit should be Britain’s first priority to secure our nation’s prosperity and economic future.
Brexit offers us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape our global posture, to shift our focus away from Europe and back to Africa and to rebuild the ties with, and re-establish a strong presence in, the booming economies of Africa. To put the scale of opportunity into context, Africa’s 54 countries cover a land mass of 30 million square kilometres with very fertile soil. That is bigger than China, the US, Europe, Japan and India put together.
Today Africa accounts for 17% of the world’s population but only 3% of global GDP. However, Africa’s population is expected to double by 2050 to 2.5 billion—one-quarter of the world’s population. As Africa’s population goes up, so will demand and consumption in a range of sectors, so there is a real commercial opportunity for the future.
We in the UK look at Africa through a Band Aid lens: a poor continent characterised by poverty, civil war, corruption and dictatorships. However, we are dealing with a new Africa that is embracing free markets, democracy and trade to help drastically increase life expectancy, improve access to education and reduce poverty.
Africa’s young democracies have grown more democratic in the past 30 years. Multiparty elections are common. Opposition parties are gaining ground. Most leaders leave office peacefully rather than in coups. Politics is becoming more competitive. There is a free press and an open society. The job is far from complete and there are still major challenges to doing business in Africa but, as we assess our potential trade partners for the next few decades, it is important that we see Africa as it is now rather than how it was perceived in the 1980s.
Despite many positive sets of economic figures over the past year, our balance of payments remains poor. We have a significant trade deficit for the past four decades that currently stands at over £100 billion a year. In other words, we do not have enough exports to pay for our imports. The UK’s trading relationship with Africa is worth around £27 billion, with £18.5 billion in exports. Not long ago our share of trade was 30%; today it is less than 4%. In comparison, Chinese goods exports to Africa are eight times higher than ours, while we have dropped from being the biggest exporter to the 13th biggest. Most of our large companies left Africa in the early 1980s, including Barclays Bank, which sold its interest last year having been there for more than 100 years.
Perhaps we should see that as a glass half full. By establishing the Department for International Trade in 2016, the Government at least acknowledged a chronic weakness in our economy. The UK is the second largest investor in Africa and our historic ties, particularly with Commonwealth countries, are a major bonus, as is our soft power, with English as a business language.
Africa will continue to develop through this century, with or without our support. We need to be at the forefront of that development, with British firms playing a key role. Through increased trade levels with Africa, we can help to bring about the political and social reforms needed as a by-product, with increased prosperity and stability correlating with increased trade.
What should we be doing now? First, we need a fresh approach to Africa that builds on the deep and historic links we have with the continent and the affection that many Africans have for Britain. Secondly, we need a clear trade plan for each African country, working with our embassies and high commissions to identify the key sectors and opportunities available. Thirdly, the DIT website lists a number of schemes to help businesses, including trade show access, linking businesses with trade advisers and getting local market help. There are a lot of worthwhile ideas involved in the GREAT campaign, but are businesses aware of them? Is it really a comprehensive strategy or just a catchy slogan?
We need to market UK companies, especially SMEs, to showcase the potential Africa has. We need to be advertising regularly, holding trade shows and writing articles on the opportunities available. While the UK-Africa summit was a high-profile beginning to this initiative, there was very little follow-up. We need action on the ground. Global Britain is a fine idea, but it should not be a slogan; it requires re-engagement with emerging markets. Related to that, Ministers are moved too soon and too often. Since 2010, we have had eight Africa Ministers.
I appreciate that my noble friend the Minister will have a list of schemes designed to increase exports ready for his remarks, and I will pre-empt that slightly by saying that the Government do have some worthwhile schemes to help exporters, including UK Export Finance. However, the African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into being at the beginning of this year, will also help by creating the largest free trade area in the world, with 54 countries participating, a population of 1.3 billion and a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion. It will reduce tariffs among member countries, address regulatory measures to ensure high standards, reduce red tape and simplify customs procedures. We need to work with it and make the most of it.
We need to open up African markets and speed up trade agreements. Currently, only eight trade agreements with African countries are in place. We need to create an appetite for UK businesses to increase trade and investment on the continent.
The trade envoy programme is a welcome initiative that can open doors to building contacts. Trade envoys are de facto “Ministers” for the country they cover and can visit more frequently than actual Ministers, allowing our ambassadors to set up important meetings and to work with British businesses and organise trade delegations. However, the trade programme needs to be more entrepreneurial and dynamic if it is to reach its potential. We need to expand the trade envoy programme to cover more African countries.
Without wishing to be self-indulgent, I have witnessed first-hand the tremendous impact the trade envoy programme has had in the region I represent. Our trade with Uganda has gone up fivefold. In fact, a UK company is building an international airport in Uganda, to the tune of £270 million. Just six weeks ago, we managed to sign a trade deal between the Ugandan Government and the British company McDermott, to the tune of $1.9 billion—the largest deal we have done in Africa. Three years ago, I took a mining delegation to Rwanda to negotiate an export contract worth £30 million that involved Arsenal Football Club—despite being a Tottenham supporter.
When I met President Kagame and President Museveni in Kigali, they complained about British Airways having stopped flying to Entebbe, to which it had flown for 60 years. So, I suggested that they set up their own airlines, which they did, acquiring two Airbuses with the help of UK Export Finance, and now there is a direct flight between Kigali and London. Next month, there will be a direct flight between London and Entebbe. It will not be long before there is a direct flight between London and Kinshasa.
On the subject of Kinshasa, DRC is a country with which we have limited trade. It is the richest country on the continent: it has $30 trillion-worth of minerals. Chinese and French influence is wavering, and it is very keen to do business with our country. Some 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt and lithium, which we need for electric cars and batteries, comes from DRC. There is a new democratically elected president in DRC, President Tshisekedi, who I will receive next week for COP 26. He is coming with the largest delegation—150 people.
In conclusion, global Britain will be decided not in the Indian Ocean or the South China Sea but on the continent of Africa. Africa is on the move and poised to play a bigger role in a world that is moving out of the shadows of the past and being replaced by the light that it offers in an interconnected world.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on securing this debate for us and on the succinct way in which he set out the key issues. I want to speak specifically about exports to Africa, with examples of where I believe we have failed in the past but where we might still succeed in future. I say this advisedly, having spent some 20 years as a chartered engineer and senior executive with a leading London firm of consulting engineers responsible for business development and project management, predominantly in Africa—a continent of more than 50 nation states, each complex, individual and, to some degree, developing. In terms of business development, each requires a blend of flexibility, determination and, above all, tenacity to succeed. Add to that another 25 years on parliamentary committees and delegations to the continent, and it brings my experience full circle.
In these situations, it is often helpful to illustrate with a few horror stories, and I make no exception. When the wind of change was still blowing itself out, I was in west Africa project managing international infrastructure projects, and it so happened that the regional Land Rover salesman was passing through on his quarterly sales tour. There he was, going from ministry to ministry, order book in hand and the pages steadily filling—no matter that nothing would be shipped or delivered for 18 months. The trick here was that the basic Land Rover had been the staple transport across the colonies since the late 1940s. Every bush garage knew how to repair them—never mind a manual—and had a scrapyard round the back where Land Rovers beyond repair were gradually being cannibalised for spare parts. But it could not and did not last. Within a decade, Toyota Land Cruisers began to dominate the streets and the market. It really was a genuine offer that you could buy two Land Cruisers for the price of one Land Rover, complete with a modern maintenance and repair service. The illustration of complacency is quite clear.
In more recent times, in the Ministry of Communications in Senegal, I came across a UK technician maintaining a huge industrial photocopier shipped in from the UK. He had been on his own for a week, progressively finding faults which required replacement parts to be airfreighted in from the UK—whereas in Addis Ababa the Ethiopian Government had adopted a new economic and development policy, leading to industrialisation, and a leading French engineering group had opened an office and distribution centre where replacement parts were available off the shelf.
Even more recently, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers here in London—of which I happen to be a graduate—launched a report on its investigation into global food waste and how to reduce it. Reporting to the United Nations, the president of the institution stated that 40% of all food produced in the world went to waste. She then set out a range of measures that could be used to mitigate this. They included investment in high-efficiency, low-cost mobile refrigeration units for road transport, enhanced warehouse and storage design and construction to minimise the impact of extremes of climate, and, most importantly, investment in low-cost transport and transport networks to get produce from farm to market. This is a good example of how science and manufacturing can work together.
Now for the good news case: the science and materials department of a UK university developed a synthetic material that expands and contracts differentially according to its proximity to water. When flexibly welded to a neutral material, it would bend and curl in the same way as a bimetallic strip bends when exposed to heat. Using this material, the scientists produced a tubular product that would curl up on itself when immersed in water, effectively sealing the tube.
In many parts of Africa, tending and irrigating cash crops is challenging. With a self-closing and opening water supply tube, it is a different picture. With a repurposed oil drum acting as a reservoir and a length of bi-expanding tube run from a saucer-shaped depression in the soil surrounding the plant, you are ready. When the saucer is empty, the tube will open, allowing water to flow and irrigate the plant. When the plant is fully watered, the saucer fills, the tube bends and the flow stops. This system is now widely used in Kenya and is sold under licensed patent all over the world. Sadly, the licence is owned by American investors, as no British funding could be found at the time.
These are just a few examples from my business development scrapbook to demonstrate the importance of flexibility, determination and tenacity not just from the exporting organisation but, most importantly, from the state agency alike.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, who brought such technical knowledge and experience to the subject.
I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Popat. He put his finger on the problem, which is a perception lag. In my experience, national stereotypes can last for decades after they have ceased to apply. We still have the stereotype of Americans as rough, ponderous frontiersmen when, as we all know, they are the primmest and politest people in the West. We still have the stereotype of the militaristic German. In fact, if we want to have stereotypes about our German friends, we would be more accurate in seeing them as a nation of right-on pacifists. We still have the stereotype of terrible British food when this city offers a more diverse and subtle range of cuisines than any comparable place on the planet.
So it is with Africa. We grew up seeing images of gun-toting teenagers and flies crawling across the lips of children with swollen bellies, but look at the facts. According to the IMF, Africa will regain its growth rate of 6.5% by 2025. In the same year, the majority of African countries will qualify as middle-income states. Depending on how you measure it, six or seven of the top 10 fastest-growing economies on the planet are in Africa. Africa is the great unremarked and unreported economic success story of the 21st century, but still we have these perception lags. We still tend to think in terms of ongoing duties, almost as a paternalistic former power.
The noble Lord, Lord Popat, put his finger on the solution when he talked about the way in which air links to Entebbe have been restored. The last time I flew there, I had to go through the Netherlands because, as the noble Lord said, British Airways had withdrawn its flights. However, the cut flowers market is a big deal in Uganda, as the noble Lord knows. It seemed extraordinary to me, as well as to many Ugandans, that they had to go through the Netherlands to get to London. How wonderful that there is now a solution that was indigenous to Africa.
My only quibble with the precise wording of the debate before your Lordships is the implication that it is for the Government to make companies aware of opportunities. Governments are not terribly good at that sort of thing; they were not terribly good at installing telephones or building cars, and they are not terribly good at anticipating what business ought to be doing. What Governments, and our Government more specifically, can do in the current situation is identify specific obstacles and barriers to trade and investment and set about dismantling them.
I am thinking not just of removing tariffs, on which, to be fair, most of the heavy lifting has been done—although, as I said on a previous occasion in this Room, there is more to do. I want to look at our opportunities, particularly in services. Africa has a young and increasingly educated population. Again, the spread of educational opportunity on that continent is one of the great unremarked stories of our age. There will be generations of people coming with skills as coders, computer programmers and so on, looking for opportunities to exploit that combination of skills and cheap wage costs in a global market. As an English-speaking and common-law country, we are exceptionally well placed to benefit from links with African states that share those criteria.
Will my noble friend the Minister consider whether we can do more to move towards a template for Commonwealth trade deals with some of the countries that it might otherwise take us a little bit of time to get round to? I understand that we have bandwidth and capacity issues—we are putting together a trade policy at an extraordinary pace after 50 years of not having one—so it may be a while in the normal scheme of things until we get round to the Malawians, or whatever. But surely there are ways for us to offer not a Commonwealth trade deal, because it would not be regional or legal under WTO terms as things stand, but a template on which you can write the name of a country and say, “Here is the basic offer, and you qualify as a Commonwealth nation”. In particular, I would like to see that deal involving a lot of mutual recognition and reciprocity on services.
I finish by reiterating the point my noble friend made. Pliny was supposed to have said, quoting an ancient Greek proverb, that there is always something new—ex Africa semper aliquid novi—but the new thing now is that Africa is becoming very much like everywhere else: a middle-class consumerist society with people who want better things, just like people in North America, Europe or Asia. Therein lies an immense advantage to us as a country if only we would pursue it. We should stop thinking of Africa as an obligation and start thinking of it as an opportunity.
Lord Mancroft (Con)
My Lords, that was a tour de force from my noble friend, and I follow it with trepidation. In the run-up to this debate, I read an excellent article in the Law Society Gazette written by Andrew Skipper. In a sentence that jumped out at me, he said:
“Put simply, Africa is a continent, which for a range of geopolitical, demographic and business reasons, will be at the centre of global business in the coming years.”
That was what my noble friend was saying and what my noble friend Lord Popat said in opening this debate.
I welcome this debate and thank and congratulate my noble friend Lord Popat on securing it. I declare my interests as set out in the register, which is a rather inadequate way of saying—it is something I disapprove of anyway—that I am involved in two businesses in Africa, one in infrastructure and the other in agricultural commodities.
I put on record my appreciation for the work that my noble friend Lord Popat has done and is doing as trade envoy to Uganda and Rwanda—he has now bravely taken on the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well. I know the work that other trade envoys do across the world, which is remarkable and extremely effective, but nobody works harder or has achieved greater results than my noble friend.
I cannot emphasise enough how a proactive trade envoy such as my noble friend can make a huge difference to opening doors both in relevant countries and within the Government here in the United Kingdom. We have spent an awful lot of time in the last few years, for reasons we all know, talking about our business relationship with Europe. Of course, it is always difficult to open up business opportunities in new countries and new markets—whatever business one is in—but to open up a new market or business in a country that is far away, with a new culture, in a continent that is far away is very difficult at the best of times, so any help that the Government can give to entrepreneurs seeking to do business in Africa is very welcome. Equally, I respect and agree with what my noble friend Lord Hannan said. It is not the Government’s business to fix everything; they cannot fix everything, but where they have a diplomatic presence in countries and an ability to do so, they can open doors, and that is hugely important.
For example, yesterday, here in London, I attended an event hosted by the Ugandan High Commission and the United Kingdom High Commission in Kampala at the same time—so we were here in London and the others were in Kampala; we had them on a screen and they similarly had us on a screen—where there was a discussion with coffee producers, roasters, traders and users of coffee. We discussed all the opportunities to open the doors here in the UK for Ugandan coffee. It is a big business in Uganda; we are huge consumers of coffee in the United Kingdom. We need to put those two together, and they have not really been put together yet. The challenge we face, and we made great strides on it yesterday, is showcasing the best coffees that Uganda has to offer. The opportunities lie with large supermarkets and large roasters opening their doors to Ugandan coffee and creating their own brand of original Ugandan coffee here in England. That is a great new business for both sides. I put on record my congratulations to the Ugandan deputy high commissioner here in London, John Mugerwa, and the United Kingdom high commissioner, Kate Airey, for a really first-class example of what diplomats working for different Governments can do in opening doors and putting that sort of thing together.
There is a huge market not just for coffee but for cocoa, maize, wheat, barley, rice and soya throughout much of Africa. These commodities need to be bought and sold, both for the people of Africa and for the good business they can do. They need to be bought, sold, transported and stored. The market for these is considerably larger in Africa than in Europe. We in the United Kingdom have tremendous expertise in these areas. What plans do the Government have to encourage and facilitate British companies into that market?
My other area of interest is infrastructure. Africa has an almost insatiable and incalculable need—if those are the right words—for better infrastructure. As Africa is now so much more stable than it was, as my noble friend Lord Hannan was saying, it is a good place to do business. It needs roads, ports, airports, hospitals, schools and every other imaginable source of development. Here in the United Kingdom we have a vast pool of expertise in securing such developments, and we need to do whatever we can to help.
I ask my noble friend the Minister to tell the Grand Committee what the Government will do to help open the door for those UK businesses. UK trade export finance is absolutely excellent and has done marvellous work, but it is quite bureaucratic and slow, and it would be great if we could speed it up.
My last point is something that we talk about a lot in this House from time to time: soft power. Soft power in Africa for us means that, although at the moment we are looking at our colonial past, we need also to bear in mind that people in Africa seem, for various reasons, to have respect and affection for us. Most of them do business in law based on English law. That is a huge advantage and one we should use. I hope we will do that in future.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Popat, made an outstanding introduction. His drawing attention to the necessity for a fresh start was spot-on. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that too much is often asked from government. What government can bring is assistance and funding. With funding, we will be in a good position.
Nothing will give more satisfaction than the words of the Chancellor noting that the UK is entering an “age of optimism” with the mantra of global Britain becoming a reality. However, we will not achieve positive results by carrying on as in days of old: relying on historical associations which, with today’s digital world and the proximity of near-neighbour markets, have not stood by for the UK to return to the fold.
It can be said that we carry certain advantages in Africa and can reasonably expect a warm welcome in traditional Anglo-African markets. We should not, however, take anything for granted. We must compete and explore new marketplaces. The bedrock to success must surely be expressed in terms of identifying and fulfilling overseas market opportunities in non-traditional locations. Africa is made up of disparate associations past—anglophone, francophone, lusophone and North African—all rich in culture and opportunity.
My contribution today attempts to move away from Commonwealth links and look to opportunities often overlooked by British interests. The francophone world is keen to extend dialogue beyond the clutches of Paris and is looking to link with the Anglo-Saxon world. At this point, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the register.
The francophone Africa region, once the preserve of France, presents increased opportunity for investors and businesses. With increased investment in infrastructure and improved business environments, it is expected to show some of the fastest regional growth rates in Africa. As an example of increased infrastructure spending and diversification, Côte d’Ivoire is projected to be the fastest-growing economy. Cameroon represents a market of more than 50 million people, making francophone Africa viewed as a must-do region. Ernst and Young has identified Côte d’Ivoire with agriculture, Senegal with tourism, and countries such as Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo as reliant on the oil and gas industry. Mining is also growing in prominence in countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger. In terms of a regional hub, I normally associate either Casablanca, Abidjan or Dakar as good places from which to make inroads into the francophone world.
Moving on, the African Continental Free Trade Area is making Africa’s Portuguese-speaking countries an attractive destination for investor interest, with incentives for investors. Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and São Tomé are diverse. They have a common heritage and language, and all have close ties with Portugal and Brazil. Public-private sector partnership investments and technical assistance projects are enabling the private sector with access to finance. Although our excellent ambassador in Lisbon, Chris Sainty, will probably not thank me for saying so, Portugal could be considered a gateway.
I am conscious of not overstaying my welcome this afternoon, but I wish to conclude with a final word on north Africa. Africa is Africa and should not be defined in terms of sub-Saharan Africa, which, by definition, excludes the important markets that stretch from the Maghreb to the Arab-speaking countries of Libya and Egypt. North Africa is a region of strategic importance to us, not least as an important energy provider. The Government might wish to consider, for example, unlocking energy supplies to the UK by supporting the trans-Saharan pipeline project, long in the making but not as complicated it seems, with the strategy of just joining up the dots of the disparate pipelines that exist from, for example, Nigeria up to the Mediterranean. Many opportunities for trade exist, beyond building regional value chains but integrating them into global value chains. Regional economic integration, combined with new technologies, would bring a plethora of opportunities.
Knowing that he understands, let me share a direct thought with the Minister. I urge the establishment of a global unit in his department, should one not currently exist, to identify opportunities that transcend language and legal frameworks, possibly providing a matchmaker operation as a winning formula centred around all-important local partnership, which is essential in avoiding pitfalls and providing solutions to local complexities.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, as always, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord on the areas of principle in trade with the continent, both the distinct north and south. He and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, raised the areas of general principle in this debate, while the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and my noble friend Lord Chidgey raised specific examples to illustrate. I join them in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on bringing this debate to us and introducing it so well. I also commend him for, remarkably, putting loyalty to his country before loyalty to his football club. Not all people would do that; we will make sure that we do not send Hansard to north-east London, just to save his skin.
The noble Lord showed how many areas of this are positive in looking at the growth potential within the continent as a whole; it will become a quarter of the world’s population, as he said. This is also a massive market; it will be the most innovative, youthful and potentially entrepreneurial continent on earth. Notwithstanding the tragedy of Sudan, where I was scheduled to be next Friday, the growth in the stable economies and progress of some of the SDGs, the 2063 African Union strategy and the immensely ambitious African continental free trade area all represent huge, positive opportunity. Africa is the continent of opportunity for the United Kingdom; I agree that this mindset is how we must see it.
However, analysis by Dirk Willem te Velde of the Overseas Development Institute has shown that trade with Africa is now back to 2003-05 levels. In many areas, there is a decline. Imports from Africa since 2021 have been the lowest in a decade. The impact of preference erosion with the UK global tariffs, as well as other technical barriers, is also seeing imports from Africa struggle in many sectors. To see this grow, there must be a change not only in mindset but in strategic approach. One area of concern was raised in this House by the International Relations Committee, which I served on, in its inquiry into sub-Saharan Africa. It analysed what it described as the new strategic approach. In paragraphs 82 and 83, the committee highlighted this:
“It is not a strategy, but rather some broad ideas and themes, and there is little clarity on how the Government plans to put it into action … Communication of the new ‘strategic approach’ to Africa has been confused and confusing … and has relied on jargon”.
There is a need for much more specific plans as far as taking the opportunities that exist is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Popat, indicated that the churn of Ministers is seen by many of our African colleagues as meaning that the UK Government are not taking this opportunity seriously. In the last 25 years, there have been 20 Ministers for Africa. The lack of consistency in the strategic approach is an issue.
However, I welcome that the UK is supporting the ODI in its work with the secretariat of the African Union on the Africa Continental Free Trade Area. It has presented an enormously challenging agenda, especially for phase two of that approach, looking at competition and digital trade. This will also lead to key strategic decisions that will have to be made on the regulation of digital trade, the design of the investment protocols, dispute mechanisms and eroding tariff barriers in intra-country trade.
I agree very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that the Commonwealth members have a great opportunity here with not just bringing forward Commonwealth standards and a Commonwealth approach but using a network of consensus and agreement in working with others who are working with Africa when the Africa free trade area is making some of these key strategic decisions. In many respects, in shorthand, this is about whether it is a Chinese, an American or a European approach. I think part of the mindset is saying that there will be an African approach. Therefore, we have to take that relationship very seriously, so I welcome the Government’s support for that work.
I hope that the Minister can give positive remarks on UK aid for trade. He knows that I have asked him repeatedly about us honouring our treaty obligations in the continuity trade agreements. So far, I have not been satisfied that the Government will honour commitments to support the implementation of these trade agreements.
I want to end with a request to the Minister on a proposal that has been put forward by the ODI and others, including myself as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trade out of Poverty. There is a ripe opportunity for a joint UK-Africa prosperity commission. Theo Clarke MP and I met with the former Africa Minister, James Duddridge, to present a case for a UK-Africa prosperity commission, looking at trade barriers, investment opportunities and critical aspects such as the approach of credit rating companies, the UK City of London, legal frameworks and of course aid for trade support and capacity building.
To take advantage of the enormous potential there is for Africa, the UK needs a coherent and specific plan of action. I hope the Minister might find time to meet with me and colleagues to discuss the opportunities for a UK-Africa prosperity commission, focused primarily on investment, so we can start to realise the enormous potentials that the noble Lord, Lord Popat, has indicated.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Popat, for bringing the important subject of trade with African countries to the attention of the House. With his Ugandan background, he has many notable insights, as Africa continues to present huge challenges to the world from both its colonial past and its own internal problems.
African countries are vastly different from each other in so many ways, including in religion, culture, terrain, economy, development and relationships. In its new status since leaving the EU, with continuity agreements, interim associations or new agreements, Britain now has eight trade agreements with Africa. On the face of it, that is perhaps not a huge number, yet trade between the UK and these countries was worth just under £17 billion in 2019, almost 49% of total African trade that year. Some £11 billion, two-thirds of that £17 billion in trade, was with South Africa, a Commonwealth partner and the UK’s biggest trading partner on the continent. However, this is but a mere 1.2% of all UK trade in 2019.
The Government’s stated ambition is for the UK to be the biggest G7 investor into Africa by 2022—not very far away—on the basis of its post-Brexit ability to agree trade deals and Britain’s historic ties with many African countries. The Government are a long way from achieving that ambition. Indeed, Africa is not just a small part of UK trade, it is a shrinking destination for the UK, with UK goods exports to the whole continent accounting for only 2.6% of total UK goods exports in 2019, down from 4.1% in 2012. Does the Minister have a clear understanding of why that has happened?
We have heard of the many challenges throughout this debate. The fading attraction of UK trade is illustrated by the fact that only 16 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or Government attended the January 2020 UK-Africa Investment Summit in London, compared with the dozens who attended the Russia-Africa Summit that year and attend China’s regular trade summits.
As my noble friend Lord Boateng, chair of the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, has said, we have a lot of catching up to do if we are to make the most of what is an historic opportunity to recast the relationship between Africa and the UK away from it being seen solely as a philanthropic exercise, to an opportunity that requires investment, risk-taking and support from the Government for British companies. Can the Minister say what is going to change?
The UK-Africa Investment Summit in January this year was a high-profile beginning to the effort to increase trade and investment significantly. Concerted follow-up will be required. Can the Minister set out the steps that the Government are taking in this respect? The Government provided a detailed response to your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee’s report last year, recognising the challenge as
“a long-term and cross-Government endeavour.”
There were many misgivings that the Government’s merging of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the Department for International Development to form the FCDO could work effectively to recognise both the need for aid to encourage development and entrepreneurial relationships to encourage trade. Can the Minister say how his department, the Department for International Trade, is supporting and working with this new department to encourage as a priority throughout potential trading communities that benefits will accrue and be shared with all citizens who create wealth and not merely the top African leaders?
There is also much that Africa needs to do itself to encourage trade, especially around its governance and regulations. Infrastructure in energy, water, communications and logistics should be improved to attract investment. There is much that can be facilitated by the UK. In the final week before COP 26 in Glasgow, that transformation must also include measures to reduce carbon emissions and increase resilience and adaptation to climate change. In its report, your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee also called on the Government to extend their announcement that they will no longer invest in new coal mining, by going further and committing to ceasing all promotion and credit funding of fossil fuel investments. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position on this?
Finally, the world is still in the grip of a Covid pandemic. While the Government have, to date, committed generous funding to the global COVAX scheme, they have yet to agree the WTO approach to suspending intellectual property protections. A waiver of vaccine patents is one necessary step towards boosting the global vaccine rollout. Many of us put forward a 10-point plan to boost global vaccines to encourage production and distribution. Can the Minister say in his reply to this debate what proposals the Government are now considering to enhance the COVAX scheme?
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Popat, for raising this important question today and giving me the opportunity to share the Government’s vital work with countries across Africa to increase trade and prosperity. I will speak later, if I may, about the excellent work that my noble friend does in this area. I also thank all noble Lords who have contributed today for the expertise that, as always, has been on display.
We already have strong trade and investment relationships with countries across the continent, but the Government are committed to going further. I very much support the pressure that noble Lords put on us in this area. I particularly share the aspiration that my noble friends Lord Popat and Lord Hannan of Kingsclere have in this area. I also absolutely recognise the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, about the opportunities available to us in the francophone area, and I will ensure that those are followed up. The long-term opportunities that exist in Africa are truly staggering. By 2050, one in four global consumers will live in Africa and we are committed to increasing trade between the UK and Africa and between Africa and the global economy.
In January 2020, at the UK-Africa Investment Summit held in London, the Prime Minister set the ambition for the UK to become Africa’s investment partner of choice. As the UK’s Minister for Investment, I endorse that aim. The summit laid the foundation for new partnerships between UK and African nations based on trade, investment and our shared values. We have announced £6.5 billion of investment deals, with a further £8.9 billion of commitments at the time of the summit. I am pleased to say that despite the pandemic—and we do not always see this—not one of these deals has been lost since then. In January this year, as a follow-up, we held the Africa Investment Conference to mark the anniversary of that summit. The conference brought together 3,000 delegates, including over 1,000 business delegates from more than 40 African nations, and north of 1,000 business representatives from across every region and nation of the UK. I do not think there can be any better evidence of the opportunities than the fact that businesses small and large came together at that time. The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, is of course absolutely right that these conferences mean nothing without follow-up afterwards, and part of my role is to ensure that that is done.
I hope I can reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that the DIT’s Africa network plays a vital role in helping UK businesses seize opportunities in African markets. It supports commercial projects through its expert advice to companies and works with local officials to encourage UK investment. I believe that our newly independent trade policy is enabling us to reduce barriers to entering African markets and offers increased access to the UK. As we have heard, we have already negotiated nine trade agreements covering 16 countries across Africa that represented almost £22 billion of bilateral trade in 2019. My noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere gives way to no one in his enthusiasm for using free trade agreements to bolster Commonwealth ties, and I really share his aspirations in this area. I see free trade agreements with our Commonwealth friends as a way of rejuvenating and expanding the role of the Commonwealth going forward.
Our generalised scheme of preferences is reducing tariffs on imports from developing countries, further enabling trade. A public consultation on our proposed new developing countries trading scheme—DCTS—has just closed. Policy options are being developed with the aim that the new DCTS is simpler, more generous and less bureaucratic than our current system. I share the belief of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, in the importance of this; he has raised it with me in the past. My noble friend Lord Hannan is completely right that while removing trade barriers is of course a Government-to-Government activity, the heavy lifting in this area has to be done by the private sector and it is our job to facilitate this. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is also right to stress the importance of door opening in this area.
I will quickly turn back to my noble friend Lord Popat, who is of course one of our 11 trade envoys in Africa, appointed by the Prime Minister. They enhance our trade with the continent by building on the UK’s existing relationships in these markets and joining trade missions to identify export opportunities. Nobody is more hard-working or conscientious in this area than my noble friend Lord Popat in his role as the trade envoy to Uganda and Rwanda over the past five years. Today, we heard some of the practical outcomes of his work, and I thank him for that on behalf of the Government.
Supporting economic growth in Africa is a key priority for the Government. Our vision is to do this through a trading partnership geared towards a safer, greener and healthier continent, one that is ever more resilient to shocks and stresses. We are determined to support countries across the continent to build back better from the pandemic. As I said earlier, the private sector will have a key role to play here, but the Government will be on hand to support exports. I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, who of course spoke from real practical expertise in this area. I think I probably detected a fellow Land Rover enthusiast.
We are launching a refreshed export strategy designed with the needs of our business at its heart. We want to give businesses the flexibility, resilience and capabilities that they need to thrive in this fast-changing global environment. Picking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, I will ensure that opportunities in Africa are fully taken account of in that strategy.
Demand for UK Export Finance in Africa is booming. It supported more than £2 billion-worth of projects in Africa in 2020-21, which is of course helping us to deliver on our strategy to make the UK Africa’s trading partner of choice. Of course, it is absolutely right and proper that many of these projects have a sustainable impact on the continent. For example, a UKEF loan to the Ghanaian Government will help UK-based Aqua Africa to provide clean drinking water for 225,000 people across the country. However, I will pass on my noble friend Lord Mancroft’s points about the importance of speed and the reduction of bureaucracy as far as possible in this area.
In investment, as many have retracted from Africa, I was very pleased to see that, last week, the CDC Group, our development-oriented private equity business, together with DP World, announced a £1.7 billion partnership to accelerate Africa’s trade potential and improve the economic prospects of millions of people, starting in the ports of Berbera, Dakar and Sokhna. The CDC, working together in partnership with others to bring sustainable investment opportunities to Africa, will become increasingly important. I know that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary shares my aspirations in this.
African Governments need to create conditions that attract the private sector and provide a stable environment for investors. We all know that a better-educated, healthier workforce will create the entrepreneurs, start-ups and consumers of tomorrow. Improving access to education and health will help us to deliver the transformational change that the African continent needs to secure growth in the future.
We have heard today many references to the African continental free trade agreement. I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about the opportunities that this presents. We are pleased to be supporting the secretariat with some practical help. When it is fully implemented, this agreement stands to boost intra-Africa trade by up to one-third, establishing a common African market with a combined GDP of £2.5 trillion and a population of 1.3 billion people. I am very pleased that, in September this year, Ministers signed a memorandum of understanding with the secretariat of the ACFTA, to continue to provide support. It is a testament to our commitment to the continent that the UK is the only non-African country to have entered into such an agreement.
Throughout the G7 presidency we are working with other development finance institutions to increase ambition on investment into Africa in the post-Covid world. I have already had various approaches from sovereign wealth funds elsewhere in the world, to see whether they can join us in this important initiative.
Finally, I emphasise that all the previous steps—we often say this in our House—need to be underpinned by our concern for the environment. Investment and development finance will increasingly flow, and should flow, to those who have clear, sustainable growth plans. COP 26 will provide an opportunity to champion a green economic recovery from Covid-19 across the continent and the rest of the world.
I truly believe that this Government and British business have a significant role to play in Africa’s brighter future. I believe that it is only through trade and investment that countries across Africa can continue to grow and prosper. I am happy to meet the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, to discuss further how we can push prosperity in Africa.
I have tried to deal with as many questions as possible that were raised today. I am conscious that, as always, I have not answered all those that the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, raised. If I may, I will write to him on some of his specific questions.
I reassure noble Lords that the UK will be on hand to support African countries every step of the way. I must thank again my noble friend Lord Popat for being such a champion for African trade and industry and for allowing us to debate this important topic today.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, I apologise for intervening but I would like to draw attention to Emeka Anyaoku, who was Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. He emphasised the importance of a consultative process at the invitation of countries in Africa to consider, sector by sector, what can be done between those sectors in African countries and their opposite number in this country to see how we can work together. I want to put that on record.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
I thank the noble Viscount for that intervention. I will certainly make sure that it is recorded.
House of Lords
Arrangement of Business
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall say a couple of words of explanation over this morning’s list. The list of speakers for the second Oral Question has been printed under the third Oral Question. The list of speakers to be called for the third Oral Question is printed under the second Oral Question. The Lord Speaker has the correct list and will call colleagues accordingly.
Retirement of a Member: Lord Tyler
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement with effect from today of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank the noble Lord for his much-valued service to the House.
Migration
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to promote (1) knowledge, and (2) understanding, of the contribution of migration to society.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will bear with me and that I get this correct.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, with the correct list of questioners.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the House is nothing if not flexible. We greatly value the contribution that migration makes to our society. People from every part of the world have chosen and continue to choose the UK as their home and build their lives here. It is an undeniable fact that immigration has enriched and continues to enrich our nation immeasurably.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I thank the Minister for her Answer. I have visited the clearly well-funded, spectacularly housed migration museums in Paris and Hamburg. New York has two migration museums. If the Government want to think about the place of global Britain in the world, the fact is that Britain has contributed huge numbers of emigrants to the rest of the world and immigrants have contributed a great deal to us. The Migration Museum currently exists in temporary headquarters here in London and relies on hand-to-mouth funding. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the Migration Museum, or arrange for another suitable Minister to meet us, to discuss how we might enhance its place and its funding?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I am proud of the funding that this Government give to museums. I was grateful to chat with the noble Baroness yesterday, because I was not quite sure where this Question was going. The Migration Museum project received a culture recovery fund grant of £65,000 to support it through the pandemic. It has also received project funding from the Arts Council in previous years, with a £40,000 grant in 2017, £124,000 in 2019, I think, and £24,700 in 2020, which has supported education and outreach as well as other activities. On top of that, we would be hard pressed in this country to find a museum that did not in some way refer to migration as part of our cultural offer. I also find it interesting that an immigrant is asking an immigrant a Question.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, a recent survey by the Petitions Committee of more than 500 teachers found that they lack confidence when teaching about migration, which they think of as a “difficult subject”. Do the Government agree that the proposed permanent Migration Museum for Britain, which illuminates the central role that migration, both into and out of the country, has always played in our history, as the Minister said, is a really important addition to Britain’s cultural landscape and that its education programme should play a valuable role in supporting teachers in engaging with this very sensitive topic at a time when it could not matter more? Can the Government recommend this to schools?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I find it interesting that migration is a “difficult subject” given that, it is true to say, we are nation of immigrants. On the funding of specific museums and organisations, I was lucky to be able to speak to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, yesterday. I will have to go back to my colleagues in DCMS and ask them about the noble Baroness’s question.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, while I am pleased that this museum exists in the constituency that I used to represent, I point out that the Question is about knowledge and understanding of the contribution of migrants. I hope that the Department for Education and other areas of government that promote information will continue at all times to stress the positive contribution that migrants have made to this country, including both the Minister and me, who hail from outside the UK—or our families do, to be more exact.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. As he was talking, I was just thinking how one of the awful moments for the Home Office was the Windrush scandal. One of the huge contributions that was made to this country after the war was by the Windrush generation. It has come to the forefront of people’s minds in the last few years, more than ever before, how people such as those in the Windrush generation helped this country, as did the Irish.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, do the Government agree that a lack of care workers is adding pressure on to the NHS? During the passage of the immigration Bill, the Government committed to this House to review skill shortages in the adult care sector and to look at visa options and immigration policy to plug the gap. The Government have commissioned a review from the Migration Advisory Committee. Has this review started, when can we expect the results and will there be an interim report?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I think that the work has started, but I will correct that if I am wrong. The threshold, as the noble Lord knows, was previously set at degree level jobs. Modelling by the MAC suggests that the new border RQF 3 threshold strikes a much more reasonable balance between controlling immigration and business access to labour, so that will capture some of the cohort that he talks about. On the broader point, as we have seen in a number of sectors, employers will now have to think about paying their workers a more competitive salary to attract people such as care workers to do the valuable work that they do and have been doing throughout the pandemic.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness will have guessed the direction of my questions, I think. I hope that she will agree that what matters about immigration is its scale and nature. Does she agree that, despite their public focus on highly skilled immigrants, the Government have thrown open our borders to the semi-skilled from the entire world, with much lower skills requirements, lower salary requirements and no cap on numbers? As a result, about 7 million jobs are now open to worldwide competition and none of them needs to be advertised in advance. How can the noble Baroness defend this total surrender to business interests at the expense of British workers?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I have been fortunate to be able to discuss and debate the question of a cap on numbers with the noble Lord. He is absolutely right to say that our immigration scheme is now a whole-world scheme. It is up to us in time to be able to flex our policies to ensure that the people who live and work here are not being crowded out by others who might, in the words of the public, “take their jobs” and that we have a fair but controlled immigration system.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
Being Welsh, we sometimes think that we are the original Britons and I welcome everyone else to our nations. I am pleased that the Minister touched on Windrush. One of the recommendations in the lessons learned was that the Home Office should teach its staff more about celebrating Britain’s long role in welcoming people to these shores. Does she therefore accept that, if we were able to get the Migration Museum going, it could be a great resource for the sort of education that could go on for the Home Office’s staff when they have to deal with these issues?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Nobody is keener than the people who work in the Home Office to learn the lessons of Windrush. I do a number of events with staff from all levels of the Home Office and it is the question that always comes up, because people are very keen to learn the lessons of Windrush. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, museums all over the country have a positive and negative slant on migration. The International Slavery Museum in my area shows the real abuse of some of the people who came to this country, willingly or unwillingly.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, four years ago we formed the Citizens of the World Choir, which is made up of mainly asylum seekers from 27 countries. Last Saturday, they sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, showing that when people are given the opportunity, they can grasp hold of it. Can we send a message to all the voluntary organisations that are doing magnificent work with incomers and say how much we support them and wish them well in all their endeavours?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, we can and we do. That is the point that I am trying to make. It is an absolutely wonderful story. The Citizens of the World Choir has no better champion than the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno.
Climate Change: Trade Policy
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Haskel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the compatibility of their trade policy with their climate change ambitions.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)
My Lords, the UK is committed to using its multilateral and bilateral trade policy to encourage the uptake and spread of clean technologies as a lever to remove market distortions and to help countries to adapt to the challenges and impacts of climate change in pursuit of our Paris Agreement and the 2050 net-zero target.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s fine words, but some trade agreements seem to ignore them. For example, will we continue our membership of the 53-nation Energy Charter Treaty and the interstate dispute settlement protocol, both of which protect fossil fuel companies against measures that damage their profits and have been used to challenge environmental regulations?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, environmental policies are at the forefront of our minds when we negotiate free trade agreements and in the areas to which the noble Lord refers. But, of course, these agreements are negotiated. We push very hard for the inclusion of all the lines we want but sometimes, necessarily, there has to be a bit of give and take in these agreements.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
Lady Bryan of Partick? Not present? I call the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will agree that many of these agreements are asymmetrical in nature—we are giving and other countries are taking. Could we look at the environmental and animal welfare chapters of the recent agreements in principle for trade deals with Australia and New Zealand? In particular, will my noble friend yet again confirm that we will not accept any agricultural or other products into this country which do not meet our high standards of animal welfare and environmental protection? Will he also tell us when flesh will be put on the bones of the environmental and animal welfare chapters of these two agreements?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My noble friend is an assiduous champion of these matters. Our ambitious trade deal with Australia includes the first substantive climate change article that Australia has included in a deal, which affirms both parties’ commitment to the Paris Agreement. Of course, our very recent agreement in principle with New Zealand goes beyond this and breaks new ground on climate change. It will include the most comprehensive environmental goods list of liberalised tariffs in an FTA to date and precedent-setting commitments on coal and fossil fuels. I look forward to debating these matters further with your Lordships’ House when the full texts of these agreements are available.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, we welcome the fact that the Government have added trade and shipping to the reporting of UK emissions. They represent about 50% of all UK emissions. The Minister will be well aware that the UK is heavily reliant on trans-shipment—that is, shipments that come to the UK primarily via European ports. The European Commission is planning an extension of the Emissions Trading System to include ports and shipping. Does the Minister agree that it makes no sense for the UK to have a wholly separate scheme and that there are mechanisms within the UK-EU TCA to open up discussions for a pan-European trading scheme for emissions for shipping and ports? There is a way—is there a will?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, the shipping industry is of course very important to the United Kingdom. I am sure noble Lords have noted that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of Exchequer gave some relief to the shipping industry yesterday in terms of tonnage tax. If I may, I will follow up in a letter the particular points the noble Lord has raised this morning.
Lord Deben (Con)
The Australian Government specifically exclude farmers from any climate change responsibilities and the New Zealand Government have a different system for them, but we are going to ask our farmers to meet very considerable responsibilities on climate change. How on earth can the Government allow goods to come into this country to compete with our farmers and expect our farmers to meet the high standards that we are going to demand?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I am happy to repeat again from this Dispatch Box our commitment to maintaining very high standards of animal welfare, and of course food safety, in relation to free trade agreements. I do not fully agree with the points the noble Lord makes. We do seek to secure these points in free trade agreements, as I said earlier, and we are absolutely committed to upholding the UK’s high environmental standards when we negotiate our free trade agreements.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
Many countries are moving forward with proposals for carbon border taxes to address the emissions caused by their imports. The Government have said precious little about this. As COP approaches, does the Minister agree that the UK needs to show leadership in these proposals, not least as the UK has the highest rate of imported carbon in the G7? What proposals are the Government bringing forward?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, as we transition to net zero, of course the UK recognises the importance of addressing the risk of carbon leakage to ensure that our ambitious policy of decarbonisation is not undermined. We have ambitious carbon pricing through our emissions trading schemes, and we have committed to review this to ensure that it is consistent with our net-zero pathway and carbon priceable mechanisms.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that as the UK has decarbonised its domestic economy, we have dramatically increased our trade-embedded emissions from under 12% in 1990 to over 42% today? The Net Zero Review blandly states that a case for conducting a formal call for evidence into a carbon border adjustment mechanism “may emerge”. Do these figures not demonstrate that the case is clear, compelling and should be acted on now?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, internationally, we believe that the first step is to use climate diplomacy to encourage our trading partners to ambitiously mitigate climate change in co-ordination with each other for this very reason: to reduce the leakage risk across economies. But the noble Lord makes a point, and we will also consider of course the full range of options to address the risk of carbon leakage, including by seeking opportunities at the relevant international level.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Being endlessly flexible and trying to help out the Government, I was prepared to do either Question; I would just like to register that. But on the question of trade, it is clear from yesterday’s climate-unfriendly Budget that this Government have no climate change ambitions for trade. They are absolutely ignorant about what they need to do. Would the Minister agree?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I think the noble Baroness is uncharacteristically rather unfair on this matter. I am prepared to repeat again that we are committed to upholding the UK’s high environmental standards. I do not agree with her about the Budget given in the other place by my right honourable friend yesterday. I repeat again: we will continue to pursue the whole range of mechanisms available to us to achieve our ambitions for net zero.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I really must return to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Deben. As a former Defra Minister, I know that it is quite easy to offend both the agricultural interests and the environmental lobby—but not usually at the same time. The Australia and New Zealand agreements are both adamantly concerned with the future path of trade with those countries. I am more concerned that the process that was promised to this House during the passage of the then Agriculture Bill was not operated during the negotiations of the agreements in principle with Australia and New Zealand—and that, I think, is a dereliction of duty by Ministers.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, if the noble Lord is referring to the establishment of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, that commission has now been set up in shadow form. It will fulfil the statutory duties which it would fulfil if it were on a statutory basis. As I have explained to the House previously, it is a technical matter that it is on a non-statutory basis. This is to allow some allowances to be paid to its members, which was not allowed for in the Trade Act. As soon as we are able to put it on to a statutory footing, we will of course do so. In the meantime, as I have said previously from this Dispatch Box, we will engage with that commission to make sure that its views, advice and recommendations feed fully into our trade policy considerations.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, given the UK trade policy of levelling the playing field to prevent unfair competitive advantages and our climate change ambition to encourage global cooling, thus heralding an outstandingly good ski season in the Alps, can my noble friend the Minister update the House on progress being made during the negotiations between the UK and European Alpine nations to allow the qualifications of UK ski instructors, mountain guides and related professionals to be granted recognition in EU member states—an area in which I know my noble friend the Minister has already done much excellent work?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is assiduous in raising this important matter with the House. I dare say that, as the weather gets colder, we may hear more from him on this topic. We are in regular touch with the British Association of Snowsport Instructors, British Mountain Guides and GB Snowsport over this. It is a complicated matter. We have now established a recognition arrangements team in BEIS to provide advice, expertise and support to these bodies. My hope is that, with continued negotiation with European counterparts, at some point we will be able to reach a satisfactory solution to this matter.
Police: Recruits
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Blunkett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many recruits to the police service were taken on as (1) uniformed officers, and (2) community support officers, between 1 April 2020 and 31 August 2021 in the 43 police force areas in England and Wales.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, the latest police officer uplift statistics, published yesterday, show that police forces in England and Wales recruited a total of 17,872 officers between April 2020 and September of this year. There are now 139,908 officers in total, of which 11,053 can be attributed to the Government’s police uplift pledge. The most recently published data shows that forces recruited 1,198 police community support officers between April 2020 and March 2021.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
I know the Minister will join me in congratulating the police and services across England and Wales on what is a very impressive recruitment programme, taking us back to the figures we had in 2010. However, given the incidents that have occurred recently, including the committal of a serving officer to custody on the accusation of rape yesterday, what guidance is now being given to forces on the vetting of those they are recruiting, the monitoring of those under training and access to social media accounts in order to protect the public from those who should be protecting them in the first place?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to ask that question, which has already been raised this week. New recruits are subject to a rigorous vetting and assessment process to assess suitability for the role of police officer, including testing against core behaviours and values. The College of Policing sets the standard through the vetting statutory code of practice. We utterly recognise some of the anxieties around vetting and have commissioned HMICFRS to carry out an urgent thematic inspection of force vetting arrangements, which will help to identify any areas to address.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, two weeks ago, Policy Exchange criticised the Metropolitan Police for its “unusual and unjustified strategy” of using stop and search in the face of the spike in knife crime. Compared with other metropolitan forces, such as Merseyside, it had the highest rate of stop and search and the lowest rate for apprehending drug dealers. Crucially, the Met also had the second lowest rate of officers involved in neighbourhood policing. Police community support officers form the backbone of community policing, playing a vital role in building trust and confidence and securing community intelligence, which is vital in fighting knife crime, but since 2010 their numbers have been decimated. What plans do the Government have to recruit more PCSOs, particularly in London? They have mandated recruitment of police officers; why not PCSOs?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
In general terms, PCSOs will be recruited according to local need. The noble Lord is absolutely right that they are a very valuable resource for policing. They are very good at community engagement and deliver more than just that visible police presence. Prevention, problem solving and safeguarding the vulnerable remain key and PCSOs are most definitely at the forefront of this.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Blunkett highlighted the fact that this welcome uplift will bring police numbers nearly back to the level they were at before this Government cut them. We all welcome a sinner that repenteth, but is it right to gloat about such a repentance? Could the Minister also acknowledge that, for a police officer to be effective, they need the appropriate support structures and staffing, including not only PCSOs, as has just been mentioned, but forensics and all the other support services? None of that is covered in this uplift. What the Government are doing is recruiting police officers without the support structures they need. Will the Government remedy that?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord on an awful lot, but I disagree with the term “gloat”. I do not think we have been gloating about it at all. This House has talked frequently about the need to increase police numbers. In light of the changing patterns of crime, we have done just that, in line with what the public want.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, I have good reason to be grateful to Gloucestershire Police, who helped me in January 2000 after the attack in my constituency office in which my assistant Andrew Pennington died. Is the Minister as concerned as I am to note yesterday’s report that Gloucestershire Constabulary has been graded inadequate in five out of 10 key performance indicators in a recent inspection, including safeguarding vulnerable victims? The chief constable says it is now undergoing a massive recruitment drive and the commissioner says he cannot guarantee he will be able to deliver on his election promises. Why have the Government left Gloucestershire with an inadequate number of police personnel?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, the police uplift programme—I gave the figures in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—will enable the police to tackle crime in their areas. I understand the noble Lord’s concern over the report, but I am sure an action plan for improvement will be in place, and the numbers of new recruits should certainly help across the country in reducing crime and keeping the public safe.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I come back to the question raised by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. Am I to infer from the answer given that, despite recent abhorrent events and disclosures, no actual changes have yet been made in the vetting and monitoring process for new recruits to the police service? If I am wrong in saying that, could the Minister spell out what changes have already been made to this process?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I outlined the scope of the inquiry and the two parts that the Home Secretary has announced. Part one will look at the vetting procedures to see if they are inadequate in light of what happened to Sarah Everard and how her killer managed to do what he did. The inquiry will look at precisely that.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I worry that the recent policing scandals to which my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Rosser referred have undermined the recruitment of women police officers and black police officers in particular. Because of that worry, I ask the Minister if her breakdown of the recruitment figures bears that out. Whether it does or not, will the Government now consider legislating for affirmative action to allow the recruitment of more black and female officers in particular, as requested by many chiefs in previous years?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, there is good news here. As of this September, there were 47,425 female officers in post, accounting for 33.9% of all officers. That is a big increase. On the same date, there were 10,690 officers who identified as belonging to the BME community. This is the highest level on record. I can understand the context of the noble Baroness’s question and why the figures might be different from what she would have expected, but I think this is really good news.
Buildings: Cladding
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Pinnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the removal of dangerous cladding from buildings identified as high-risk.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I draw attention to my relevant interests in the register.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
We have provided £5.1 billion to remediate cladding in high-rise residential buildings, targeting funding at buildings we know to be at greatest risk of fire spread.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
Despite the Minister trying to blind us again with statistics, the hard fact is that thousands of leaseholders are living in limbo, suffering anxiety and in despair. Some are even being held to ransom; they are being asked to sign a commitment to pay many tens of thousands of pounds for the remediation of building safety defects that are exposed when cladding is removed. No cladding work is done until they sign that bit of paper. Leaseholders are being held to ransom; they cannot move and they cannot get anything done. Surely the Minister will agree with me that this cannot be right. What is he going to do about it?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I mentioned only one statistic; I do not think that one statistic or one figure—£5.1 billion—is blinding anybody. I point to the progress: despite a pandemic, the ACM funding of some £600 million has seen around 16,500 homes being fully remediated. That is an increase of 4,700 since the end of last year. The new building safety fund, topped up so that the total remediation amounts to £5 billion, is estimated to cover around 65,000 homes in high-rise blocks. So there are many tens of thousands of leaseholders who are benefiting from government funding.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
Can the Minister update the House on the progress of the capped low-interest scheme for buildings with defective cladding under 18 metres? Can he clarify whether a pilot scheme will, as previously hoped, be functional by the end of the year?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we have not made any further announcements about the details of the way we want to support leaseholders in medium-rise blocks. The new Secretary of State is looking very closely at how we can best protect leaseholders in these buildings from unaffordable costs. In the vast number of buildings, there is no need for wholesale, expensive remediation, as the recent expert committee, led by Dame Judith Hackitt, pointed out.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, last week the Minister said that details of the residential property developer tax would be announced yesterday, and that the figure he had given—the receipt of £2 billion over 10 years—was the absolute minimum. Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a rate of tax, but I am unaware that he gave an estimate of how much money would be raised. Could the Minister say what the Government’s current estimate is of the amount that that tax will raise? Secondly, the Chancellor said yesterday that the tax will be used to fund the £5.1 billion of which the Minister is so proud. Is it really the case that this tax will not benefit a single additional leaseholder?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we recognise the need to get those who contributed greatly to the crisis that we find ourselves in to make a contribution. This is just one of the ways we are doing this. It was announced that the residential property developer tax would be levied on developers with profits over £25 million, at a rate of 4%. The estimates from the Treasury are that that will bring in at least £2 billion. That is the commitment over 10 years. We also have the gateway 2 levy, which will raise funding as well. This will also contribute towards the situation that leaseholders find themselves in.
Lord Thurlow (CB)
The principal difficulty with this cladding issue is cost. Why do the Government not take the most obvious step, and pursue the French company that manufactured the faulty cladding in the first place? It is a company that seems to be burying its head in the sands of Paris.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, there is no doubt that a number of groups, beyond developers, have contributed to the cladding crisis, not least the construction product manufacturers—the noble Lord mentioned the French manufacturer—and many other professionals who did not build these building to the standard of building regulations at the time. We are looking, with fresh eyes, at how we can hold them to account.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest as laid down in the register. We have, on a daily basis, yet more distressing personal experience from the fallout of the cladding scandal—I am sure all of us would agree. We have heard quite a lot about numbers today but, if I could go back, the Government’s announcement of £5.1 billion in yesterday’s Budget to deal with the cladding scandal was simply a re-announcing of policy, as the Minister suggested. An additional £2 billion is estimated to come from the developer tax, but would the Minister agree that this is only a drop in the ocean, given the estimates I have heard that this could cost up to £50 billion? Why are the Government not doing more to insist that innocent leaseholders should not be left with the bill?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
The Government are looking carefully at the prevalence of buildings that require substantial remediation of cladding which causes the spread of fire, but the £5.1 billion is not the only measure that the Government are taking. It should be noted that the Building Safety Bill introduces new measures that will legally require building owners to prove that they have tried all routes to cover costs. If this does not happen, leaseholders will be able to challenge these costs in the courts. We are also extending the Defective Premises Act from six years to 15 years retrospectively. These are all measures designed to help protect leaseholders.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
Minister, the £5 billion is welcome, to rectify this terrible problem, but the actual bill is £15 billion. I think that, when Ministers announce money, they should announce the full picture. The Minister states that the Building Safety Bill will address the protection of leaseholders from paying costs to make their buildings safe, but the Bill fails to do that—it does not say that that will happen. In the light of the Budget yesterday, is the Minister in favour of another museum in Liverpool for The Beatles, is he in favour of cheaper champagne for all, or is he in favour of safer homes for everybody? I think I know which side of the argument this side of the House sits on.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his colourful question. Of course we want to do all we can to support leaseholders. That is why we are taking the measures that I have already outlined.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is not present. That concludes Oral Questions for today.
Conduct Committee Report
Baroness Donaghy
That the Report from the Select Committee Revised Code of Conduct for House of Lords Members’ Staff; Minor changes to the Guide to the Code of Conduct (5th Report, HL Paper 74) be agreed to.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I am moving the fifth report of the Conduct Committee on behalf of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance. I should explain that I am moving the report because the noble and learned Lord could potentially be affected by one of the proposals contained in it, on registration of foreign interests. He similarly recused himself from the committee’s consideration of this issue.
I want to emphasise at the outset that all the members of the committee appreciate that we have asked the House to make many changes to the rules on conduct since we were first appointed. If the relatively modest proposals contained in this report are approved today, we will have dealt with our top priorities.
The main part of the report proposes the first major update to the code of conduct for House of Lords’ Members’ staff since it was introduced in 2014 by a predecessor committee. The access given to such staff brings significant privileges, and it is important for our democracy that their outside interests are transparent for all to see. This report therefore proposes to clarify and broaden the categories of interest that staff must register to cover; for example, directorships or outside paid work, and certain non-financial interests.
The report also seeks to extend to Members’ staff the provisions on paid parliamentary advice and services and on external investigations and imprisonment, which already apply to Members of the House. Finally, it aims to improve the enforcement provisions to make them clearer and more comprehensive.
The second part of the report proposes two changes to the Guide to the Code of Conduct for Members. The first proposed change is very minor. It concerns the new provision on registering work for foreign Governments and government-controlled entities. When I moved the second report implementing the provisions on 20 April, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, raised the question of Members who had started arbitrations before the House first introduced the new rules and who would not complete them by the time the grace period expires on 31 December this year. He said that they could be faced with the choice of having to take leave of absence or withdrawing from the arbitration, potentially causing it to collapse. I promised then that the committee would keep the matter under review, and we have done so.
It is clear to us that a small number of Members—not just lawyers—could face the type of dilemma outlined by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. The report therefore proposes that Members in this position should be able to seek from the registrar case-by-case extensions to the grace period. They would need to satisfy four tightly drawn conditions for such an extension to be granted, which are set out in paragraph 21 of the report, on page 5. This temporary provision does not require a change to the code or guide.
Finally, the report seeks to rectify an anomaly in the existing processes for investigating alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct. We propose that Members under investigation should in future be shown the commissioner’s draft account of the facts and their draft findings at the same time rather than in two stages as at present. This will not in any way reduce a Member’s opportunity to challenge the commissioner’s draft report. Instead, it will benefit all parties, including Members of the House, by simplifying and reducing the length of investigations.
In conclusion, the Conduct Committee has delivered what we believe is a coherent set of rules which will provide clarity for Members of the House while commanding the confidence of the public whom we all serve. We cannot guarantee that changes will not be needed in future; we are all at the mercy of events. However, we will try to ensure that if changes are required, the House considers them once or twice a year to provide as much stability in the rules as possible. I beg to move.
Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Rosser (Lab)
The Government had 18 months to prepare for withdrawal but clearly did not. It is over two months since the Afghan citizens settlement scheme was announced but it has still not been opened, yet the lives of those left behind in Afghanistan are at stake.
The Government’s Statement says that some of the people already evacuated will form the first part of the 5,000 people being resettled under the resettlement scheme. How many of the 5,000 places in the first year have in reality already been filled by people already in this country? What is the exact financial package that councils housing those evacuated will definitely receive, and when?
Finally, the Commons Minister said that approximately 11,000 people were still in bridging hotels and agreed that actions to target them by far-right extremists were unlawful and illegal. How many arrests have been made of those targeting Afghan refugees in bridging hotels?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, it is fair to say that the Government worked at pace. In particular, there were officials in the Home Office who worked almost day and night to facilitate the largest and most complex evacuation in living memory. They were assisting the Ministry of Defence and the FCDO to help more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan to safety in the UK.
Currently, a huge programme of work is under way across government to ensure that Afghans brought to the United Kingdom receive a warm welcome and the vital support that they need to build brighter futures in our country. That work spans across government, charities, other organisations, local authorities—as the noble Lord pointed out—and communities. The aim is to give Afghans arriving here the best possible start to life in the UK while making sure, as the noble Lord said, that local services can work effectively to support people.
On the local authority effort, we have had over 200 pledges from local authorities and have housed over 1,700 individuals. I can clarify that that is under ARAP.
On local authority funding, councils that support people through the ACRS, the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, or the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, or ARAP, will receive £20,520 per person over three years for resettlement and integration costs. Local councils and health partners that resettle families will also receive up to £4,500 per child for education, £850 to cover English language provision for adults requiring this support, and £2,600 to cover healthcare. A further £20 million-worth of flexible funding will be made available to support local authorities that have higher cost bases with any additional costs in the provision of services. In addition, the previously announced Afghan housing costs fund will increase from £5 million to £17 million and will run for two extra years to help local authorities to provide housing and to give certainty that funding will be available in future.
The funding and support will be modelled on the VPRS, or vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which resettled over 20,000 refugees who fled conflict in Syria over a seven-year period from 2014 to this year.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, there is absolutely no doubt that we owe Afghan interpreters and their families a great debt. Can the Minister estimate how many Afghan interpreters in the UK are still without permanent accommodation, and do we have any intelligence as to the numbers of interpreters still remaining in Afghanistan who are hoping to come to the UK?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
As I said, 1,700 individuals, mostly from Operation Pitting, have moved into permanent local authority housing. Two hundred local authorities have pledged to support families, with a further 6,000 places in accommodation pledged. We are also seeing people matched with jobs, with over 200 of the cohort having been offered employment. The other thing I am keen to see, because it is very helpful in promoting integration, is community sponsorship; 120 community sponsorship schemes are already in place, and I would like to see that expanded.
On the specific question of interpreters placed, I will not give the noble Baroness a figure today because I do not have it—or, if I have it, I cannot see it in my notes. However, I will get her that exact figure.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister clarify whether Afghan nationals who were employed directly by or under contract to the British Council would qualify under the citizens resettlement scheme or under ARAP as the interpreters do?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Some contractors are eligible, and many have indeed come under ARAP. We are in the process of updating ARAP guidance now that the evacuation effort is over. Under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, which is now the ACRS, without going into the detail of each case, people may well come under that scheme or under general immigration routes if their employment and qualifications allow.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, none of us will forget the moving and memorable statement of the Secretary of State for Defence during that dreadful period in August when he said, “They will not all get out.” What is the current estimate of those who have not got out—including, of course, the interpreters mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly? This was a shameful incident, and we need to know.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
It is very difficult to give a figure for those who have not got out. I have given the figure for those who have got out—15,000—but it is difficult to know how many have not. Anybody contacted—and many people have contacted me—is signposted to GOV.UK to check the latest information on resettlement schemes. It is very difficult. There are people in your Lordships’ House who are desperately worried about family, friends and colleagues.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
What ongoing discussions are taking place with the Northern Ireland Executive about the resettlement scheme for Afghans?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
We know that Northern Ireland has been very generous in resettlement. I have not been party to any of these discussions but I am sure they are ongoing, because Northern Ireland will of course want to play its part.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, a five year-old boy whose family had fled the Taliban, Mohammed Munib Majeedi, fell to his death from a hotel in Sheffield last year. The Metropolitan hotel in Sheffield had been condemned only a few months earlier by the Home Office as “unsafe and unsuitable” for refugees to stay. Why, therefore, did the Home Office allow this family to stay in such a hotel?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord highlights a terrible event in Sheffield. We need to ensure, first, that the quality of accommodation is of a standard and we avoid such terrible incidents, and, secondly, that we ensure that we get people into permanent accommodation.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, do the Government really not know how many interpreters we had in Afghanistan? That seems extraordinary. They must have been paid by the British Government or others on their behalf. Surely the Minister can find out, if she is unable to tell us today, how many we had.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I was not saying that the Government do not know; I said that I did not have the figures at my fingertips, and of course I will find out for the noble Baroness.
Health Incentives Scheme
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering questions on the Statement, which was first made on Friday, before the Government began press releasing new—and some not so new—spending commitments, and eventually published their full Budget yesterday. I must admit to having been somewhat bemused when I read this Statement. It felt like being taken on something of a gentle canter around the issues. To put it mildly, it is more than unusual to see the announcement of an app and wrist-worn devices making the grade for the substance of a parliamentary Statement presented to both Houses.
I make this point because it is important to say that, on any measure, the Government have decimated the budgets necessary to tackle the underlying causes of poor health and the inequalities that arise from and contribute to its incidence and effects. As we know, poor health has many costs—social, economic and personal—and I regret that the Statement is a fig leaf for inaction. Although the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have acknowledged that stark health disparities exist, the Government repeatedly fail to face the target, let alone hit it.
The pandemic has highlighted just how important it is to have a healthy and resilient nation. Preventing and treating disease is vital for reducing further unnecessary deaths from disease and lessening the burden on the NHS as it contends with the enormous backlog in healthcare caused by the pandemic. However, the Budget presented contradictions, as funding will be mostly focused on a curative rather than preventive approach, which would have prevented obesity and non-communicable diseases happening in the first place. Public health experts and practitioners alike agree that investment in the prevention of disease could make the single biggest difference to the nation’s resilience and health, so can the Minister explain the reason for this omission from the Budget? Does he agree that failure to invest in public health will harm the Government’s levelling-up agenda?
Specifically, we were disappointed not to see any further public health funding in the Budget to allow local authorities to deliver key prevention services, such as smoking cessation and weight management. It is well documented that locally provided public health services are highly effective and cost effective. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House why this was ignored?
We on these Benches have campaigned for many years against this Government’s short-sighted cuts to public health funding. A reduction in spending of a quarter in this area has led to growing obesity in our population, loss of smoking cessation services, a ticking time bomb of poor sexual health, and overburdened drugs and alcohol services. Of course, any savings made by those cuts has been hoovered up by the impact on the rest of the health service.
Obesity is at a crisis level in this country. Two-thirds of adults are above a healthy weight; half are obese. A new IPPR report says that multiple disadvantages were “conspiring” to drive down health outcomes and prevent life expectancy from growing across parts of England. Hundreds of thousands of children in England are growing up overweight or obese because of widening health disparities across the country. Their excess weight means that they will face a higher risk of serious conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease or cancer, later in life. The IPPR analysis found that as many as one in 12 cases could be avoided if health outcomes in the worst parts of England were improved to match the best. This does not make pretty reading.
We are of course not going to argue against measures that attempt to help the public improve their health, but like the obesity strategy that precedes it, the latest pilot announced in the Statement is tinkering around the edges. We need to acknowledge that tackling obesity is about tackling poverty. People in the poorest communities are twice as likely to be obese as those in the best off. This scheme is about encouraging people to make healthy choices, but the cost of living crisis will make that even harder for too many people. How is someone supposed to make healthy choices if they simply cannot afford to?
According to a report by Broken Plate, the poorest fifth of UK households would need to spend 40% of their disposable income on food to meet Eatwell Guide costs, as opposed to just 7% for the richest fifth. Therefore, if poverty limits someone’s food choices, their exercise choices and their time, can the Minister tell the House why this does not feature in the heart of the Government’s plan to tackle this scourge?
Whatever this pilot achieves, and whatever their obesity strategy achieves, it will be completely undermined by the £20 a week cut to universal credit, which, despite yesterday’s announcement, will push millions on to cheaper, less healthy alternatives. Can the Minister tell the House what will happen to the health of adults and our children? Will those who are invited to join this pilot come from the communities that will benefit most? They are the people who have suffered most from the cuts to public health. Will the Minister commit that this scheme and the obesity strategy will be followed by the restoration of moneys cut from the public health grant?
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, from these Benches I thank the Minister for coming to answer questions on the Statement. These Benches welcome anything, including innovation, that targets the poor health and loss of life years that obesity brings. However, this is really the emperor’s new clothes, because it has to be set in the wider context of the detriment of poor health, public health budgets and poverty. Public health budgets have been decimated, so that many issues connected to the determinants of health cannot be dealt with. Low pay has become the norm for so many in our country. School budgets for extra activities, such as physical activity, and timetabling have caused problems, and food and drinks industry standards also have to be addressed. Tackling obesity is about tackling the lack of opportunity and tackling poverty. Innovation with a wristband is like asking somebody to learn the Green Cross Code they have a motorway to get across. It is not going to be successful.
As a country, we have to start early: we have the second-largest child obesity problem in the whole of Europe. So what are the Government doing to ensure that daily sport as an activity is available in every state school, so that every child has some daily activity? What is the Government’s response to the report by the Association for Physical Education with regard to children’s health and, in particular, with regard to swimming?
Diet at home and in school is important. The Jamie Oliver Foundation Bite Back report basically found that healthy options in schools were more expensive. What are the Government doing to ensure that fresh, healthy food is available at an affordable price in every school in the country? How are the pilots being chosen? The correct areas are the areas of deprivation, because that is where the highest incidences of obesity are. What are the criteria? How are they being selected? How are areas being offered the chance to become part of the pilot? This must be seen as a healthy eating and exercise approach, and not a weight-loss problem. There are far too many citizens in our country who suffer with eating disorder issues. So what are the Government doing to ensure that it is this framework of healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, rather than being seen purely as weight loss?
With regard to the wristband and the data, who will have access to the data? Where will it be stored? What precisely will the data be used for? Will any private sector organisation have access to the data and its interpretation, and, if so, what conditions are in place to ensure that we do not have the problem that we had with DeepMind, where it was used for purposes over and above what was anticipated?
Finally, talking of the private sector, HeadUp Systems is noted in the Statement. This is a company that has a £30,000 turnover and made an £11,000 loss last year. So how, and on what criteria, was HeadUp Systems chosen? What role will it have? Which other private sector organisations were asked to provide the support that HeadUp Systems is doing? What Ministers or officials did members of HeadUp Systems approach or have access to? If there is a contract, what is its value and on what basis was it given to HeadUp Systems?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their questions. This is a good story in terms of how we tackle health in the modern day. The noble Baroness mentioned the IPPR. I am not sure how well the name “Tony Blair” goes down on the Benches opposite these days—
Lord Kamall
I am pleased to hear that, because the Tony Blair Institute has actually recommended more of these schemes using wearable tech to ensure that we have a healthier population. So this is not politically motivated in any way; it is led by a desire to do the right thing, and to learn lessons from previous schemes about what works and what does not work. One problem, as many noble Lords have said in the past, is that some of these schemes have not worked. We need to make sure that we have evidence, and that anything that we roll out is evidence-based. On that basis, it is absolutely right that we pilot a scheme rather than do a one-size-fits-all scheme, only to find where the errors are.
Also, as Hayek has said, we have limited knowledge. Some people express the conceit of knowledge and think they know everything, and sometimes—in economics and in politics—quite often we become aware of consequences, both intended and unintended. It is important that, when piloting a scheme such as this, we are able to identify potential unintended consequences that would not have been foreseen. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, can already predict the outcome and has infinite knowledge, but what is really important is that we see what works and what does not work, rather than predicting in advance that something will fail—and I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was asking a question, as he is entitled to do.
I will try to answer a few of the specific questions. One of the things that we are seeing is that obesity is costing our health service and healthcare system more than £6 billion a year. Clearly, schemes have been attempted in the past, and some have worked and some have not. We looked around the world to see what we could learn from the rest of the world. In particular, we looked at the Singapore health challenge, and also the Amsterdam programme, to see what we could learn. One of the things that I noticed when I worked on projects in the past in one particular area was that, just because they worked in one area, it did not mean that they would necessarily work in another area. We have to understand the local factors that might make a project a success or not.
In addition, it is really important that we do tackle disparities, and I am very pleased that many noble Lords have brought up the issue of disparities. We now have the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities: the clue is in the title. “Disparities” means that we want to identify these disparities—all sorts of disparities: sometimes they are gender disparities; sometimes they are based on ethnic minorities; and sometimes within communities there are different disparities. It is always far more complex than we can predict in advance. One of the best ways of tackling things is to look at pilot schemes.
Let me see if I can now answer some of the specific questions. This is based on understanding what incentives people respond to. Many noble Lords will have read of schemes in the past that simply have not worked. We need to work out what works with certain communities and certain demographics. One of the bits of academic research that has been found to be quite helpful is that, quite often, people from lower-paid communities respond better to price incentives or reward systems, and we are going to put that to the test. We are not saying that this is definitely the case: we are saying that we are going to pilot this to see if what we think is going to happen will happen—and, if it does not happen, why does it not happen and what can we learn from that in the future?
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asks what assessment the department has made of the changes in the level of the public health budget. Public Health England has monitored and published data on trends, with a wide range of indicators of public health, set out in the Public Health Outcomes Framework. That function has now transferred to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which shows the fact that we want to identify those disparities and see how we can tackle them.
The ring-fenced grant that we have provided to local authorities to spend on public health services comes with a condition that they consider the need to reduce health inequalities in their areas. The grant’s distribution is heavily weighted towards areas facing the greatest population health challenges. Per capita grant funding for the most deprived decile of local authorities is nearly 2.5 times greater than that for the least deprived.
What is the breakdown, as we go over this? The publicly available information will contain the contract value, inclusive of £3 million to be spent on rewards for participants. The budget will be managed through standard contract procedures and there will be provisions in place to prevent overspend.
I shall go over the timescales. There was open procurement for the pilot, which closed on 16 August. The contract was awarded and unsuccessful bidders notified on 27 September. The pilot mobilisation period that we are looking at is 11 October to 31 December. The press release announcing the pilot provider was issued on 22 October. The pilot launches in January 2022 and closes in June 2022 with an evaluation report. That is critical. We want this to be evidence led; it is about time that we pushed for more evidence-led research. Before I came here, I had read reports from think tanks that had analysed government programmes, only to find that the evidence always backed it up. We want to make sure that this process is clearly evidence led and also to be aware of unintended consequences.
In terms of whether people can afford to eat a healthy diet, the Eatwell Guide represents government recommendations on a healthy, balanced diet to promote long-term health at the population level. Analysis by Scarborough et al in 2016—I shall not give a Harvard reference here—of the cost of achieving a diet in line with the Eatwell Guide concluded that in some cases it was 3p cheaper than the current diet.
In terms of audience and location, the pilot will target adults over the age of 18 in a chosen local authority. The approach will be tested to ensure that it combines wide appeal across the adult population with an ability to engage those who could get the most benefit from adopting healthier behaviours for physical activity and diet, such as those not meeting recommended guidelines. The pilot will take place in one local authority in England where there is a high proportion of our target groups. I hope that the information will become available publicly, or I will be able to update the House. We will be releasing further information in due course on the pilot location and on how residents can sign up to take part in the work. The scheme will be for England only but we will continue to work across the devolved nations to learn shared best practice. One of the things that we need to do is to make sure that we learn from what works well and what has not worked so well.
How will we safeguard data and privacy? I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, will have recognised that I come to this post as a bit of civil libertarian, and perhaps civil liberties is one of the few things that we agree on. All data will be collected, stored, shared and used in alignment with all applicable law regarding the processing of personal private data and security standards, including the UK Data Protection Act and the UK General Data Protection Regulation. Full data collection and processing requirements will be shared with potential pilot users as part of the sign-up process. Consent to take part in the pilot is, I stress, voluntary. The Department of Health and Social Care is the data controller for the pilot, with HeadUp Systems as a limited data processor that collects data on the department’s behalf.
The noble Lord asked about the supplier. We contacted HeadUp Systems to deliver the pilot, and it has partnered with a number of organisations to deliver the requirements, including the Behavioural Insights Team. The advice of Sir Keith Mills who successfully launched and ran the Air Miles and Nectar programmes has also been sought. We are therefore trying to work with the best experts out there, including the Behavioural Insights Team, to bring knowledge and expertise on behavioural economics. I am sure that many noble Lords have read many interesting works on behavioural economics over the years. If the pilot does not work, we will work out why and how we can improve the scheme to make sure.
Given that obesity costs this country over £6 billion a year, surely it is worth a little investment, experimentation and discovery to see if we can make sure that we nudge our citizens, wherever they come from, whatever their background, towards healthier living.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may first apologise to the Opposition Front Bench for my confusing an Urgent Question with an Oral Statement. I thought that we had only 10 minutes for all of us.
My reaction is that this system will be quite easy to game. One cannot measure fruit and vegetables, and size of portions, by wearing a wristwatch; one can only use it to input data. That is the same for step counting, which, on a wrist counter, is well known as being not as accurate as elsewhere. I hope that the Minister and his officials will look carefully at the possibilities for gaming the system. If they are collecting the data remotely, they should be able to tell whether it is being gamed.
As a former president of the British Dietetic Association, I ask the department to look carefully particularly into the obese and overweight category. There is evidence that a BMI of around 26 does no harm to people, and I should like to see more medical evidence produced on that. I invite the Minister to ask the department to look at that.
Finally, will the department look at producing an app for all citizens, not with rewards attached but just an app of good practice that could be made available for free through the App Store so that we can all share in the wisdom of the department?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for those important questions, which are exactly those that I would have asked—and, in fact, did ask the briefing team when I was getting more details on this matter.
Of course, one of the most obvious things that we have to ask is: how do people game the system? Often, when one analyses a scheme, sometimes there are unintended consequences whereby people are able to game it. Someone asked me—I think and hope that it was in jest—“If I ate 75 cream cakes and blamed my metabolism, would I be able to get on to the scheme?” We have to make sure that our data is robust. The pilot will include robust anti-fraud measures in relation to users’ activity and access to incentives.
What is interesting about the scheme is that it is voluntary, but it will also make sure that the users input the data. There has been a lot of research around that, because it has seemed to be a potential weakness, if users were inputting the data, regarding whether they can game the system. We have been assured that measures have been put in place to avoid that sort of gaming but, once again, the evidence will tell. That is why the system is not national but is a pilot to test all these questions to the limit.
The noble Lord mentioned weight loss and obesity, which I shall come to. One of the things that we want to make clear is that the health incentives scheme is not a weight-loss programme; it is a programme for healthy living. It uses an innovative approach to rewards and incentives to help participants to adopt healthier behaviours for physical activity and diet. Of course, it will help those who are overweight. I have been on two diets in my life—no, really I have. What is interesting about this is that, when one looks at these issues, it is not just a question of consuming less but about burning off calories. That is why we want to encourage healthy living as opposed to purely tackling obesity. That is very important.
The other day, I met a young lady who was very slim. She said, “Why do you keep going on about obesity and type-2 diabetes? I am slim and I have type-2 diabetes”. So sometimes we have to make sure that we are clear about these connections.
Lord Kamall (Con)
Oh I see. I bow to the superior expertise in this House of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and I will sit down.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I want to ask the Minister a question based on an answer he gave earlier. He said specifically that the Government’s “eatwell plate” was as affordable as any other meal. I would like to challenge that, in my role as a member of the Food Foundation. It points out that, if you are on a low income, eating the “eatwell plate” is going to take about 60% of your disposable income. The reality of the cost of healthy food is this: if you have a pound to spend, you could get three peppers, which add up to 65 calories; six apples, which add up to about 200 calories; or a packet of sweet biscuits, which would give you 1,000 calories. If you are a mother or father struggling on a low income, and you need to feed your kids, you are going to go for the high-calorie option; this is how the food system is worked. If the Minister has data that proves that the “eatwell plate” is affordable, on whatever income you happen to have in this country, I would be very grateful for that knowledge. If he does not have it now, please could he write to me?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that important question. When I am being briefed, I test my officials and make sure that I am able to answer as many questions as possible. I am told the “eatwell plate” costs about 3p less per adult per day than the current diet in the UK, but I will write to the noble Baroness with more detail. If the noble Baroness is not happy, she can challenge that.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, I really think the Minister can afford to be less prickly about all this. No one is disparaging the idea of a pilot; there have been many hundreds of pilots in this space, to my knowledge, and probably many more that I do not know about. The easy thing is piloting it; the hard thing is rolling this stuff out and having an impact. It is just that we are rather underwhelmed with the scale of this pilot, given the scale of the challenge we face. But in the interest of being positive about all this stuff, a Parkrun practice pilot has been taking place in GP surgeries up and down the country—only about 20% of them are actually taking part. Early assessment looks incredibly positive. It does not actually cost anything to implement. I encourage the Minister to try to accelerate the rollout of this initiative and, if he does not already, to take part in his own local Parkrun.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness. I would like to know on what basis she thinks I should take part—I hope I am not looking unhealthy. I also apologise to noble Lords if I have come across as prickly; maybe I just got too excited about this scheme. As someone who been quite critical in the past of schemes that do not work and who has looked at evidence behind such schemes, I am excited that this is a real pilot, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all national system. We can see what works and then roll it out. I also thank the noble Baroness for making me aware of the scheme in GP surgeries. Maybe the noble Baroness could do me a favour and send me some details, so I can look into it in more detail and see how we could roll it out.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, in giving his answer, the Minister failed to answer one of the questions from my noble friend Lord Scriven on school sport. So perhaps we can give the Minister a second go at responding. When will the Government throw their full weight behind reviving, revitalising and extending school sport?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I have responded to questions, including the noble Lord’s question about sport in schools, which is of course incredibly important—we all benefited from that. One of the things I have to be clear about is which department it falls under. As I understand it, some of this does fall under the Department for Education, so if the noble Lord does not mind, I will write to him.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
I want to follow on from the question on sport. Since 2010, the Government have given authorisation for the sale of over 220 school sports fields. Does the Minister see any correlation between the sale of these school sports fields and the rise in health inequalities? I understand the Minister might not be able to answer this and may need to go back, so if we could get a response from the Department for Education, that would be great.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. It is an interesting data point to look at to see whether it is correlation, coincidence or there is a link. As the noble Lord acknowledges, I do not have the answer at my fingertips, particularly because some of this will fall under the Department for Education. If the noble Lord will allow me, I will go back and investigate this and write to him.
Land Use Framework
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Young of Old Scone
That this House takes note of the case for integrating the planning system with other infrastructure, landscape and agricultural land processes, under an overarching land use framework for all land uses.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to be able to introduce this important topic today. I do not often win things, but I did win the ballot. I am grateful to all noble Lords who signed up to speak, including the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, whose maiden speech I much look forward to. Alas, some of the usual suspects—the usual contributors to debates and questions on land use issues—cannot be with us today. We are without the noble Lords, Lord Krebs, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Teverson, and the noble Earls, Lord Caithness and Lord Devon, all of whom have sent their support for the debate. Several noble Lords are unable to be here because it is, as we speak, the memorial service for the late Earl of Selborne, who is much missed in this House as a man of huge expertise and commitment to land-based issues. I hope we can honour his memory here in the Chamber through the quality of our debate.
I am delighted the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, will be replying from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I hope he does not mind if I hereafter refer to it as the Department for LUHC, since that is the way the initials pan out. It is refreshing, because we have heard a lot from Defra Ministers during the passage of the Environment Bill about their perspective on land use; it will be good to get the Department for LUHC’s perspective, which I hope will be different.
The UK is a small island—its land is finite—and the pressures on it are increasing. Everybody appears to want more land. In this time of focus on climate change, for example, we need more land to restore peatlands, to plant many more woodlands—I should declare an interest as chair of the Woodland Trust—possibly to grow biofuels and to develop solar and other low-carbon energy generation. We also need to respond to the other half of the climate change-biodiversity twin challenge: biodiversity recovery. The Prime Minister has urged world leaders to pledge 30% of land and seas to be protected by 2030, and says that that will happen in the UK. That would be quite a major shift in land use.
Agriculture currently accounts for 72% of our land use, and we need to feed a growing population; we are going to have 5 million more people in this country by 2040. We may want to decide whether we want to become more self-sufficient in food production and, likewise, in timber production; we currently import the vast majority of the timber we use. Both these questions for agriculture and timber would mean substantial land use changes.
The built environment also needs more land to provide for the Government’s new homes and jobs targets, which is also enhanced by population increase. The ambitious programmes of infrastructure investment that have been promised will need land. A University of Cambridge sustainability initiative study showed that predicted land use pressures mean we will need a third more land than Britain currently has—and we are not making any more. Indeed, with climate change, we may lose some.
The issue is not just growth in needs for land use. We are standing on the brink of some major shifts in policy affecting land use. The tectonic plates are on the move, and a substantial shift in the way we use land is going to happen. These tectonic shifts will increase the tensions that are already being felt by people, communities and government—both local and national—as typified by the result of the Amersham by-election, as competing policies and needs jostled for land. These tensions will be heightened, as pretty well every relevant policy area is on the move. Let me just outline some of those.
Major carbon incentives are driving tree planting and land use for energy generation, including bio crops, and the decarbonisation of agriculture will mean major shifts in land use patterns. Carbon will drive change, as the Climate Change Committee has outlined. A total change to the farming subsidy system is also under way post Brexit, and the national food strategy should change the way that we eat, the way that farmers farm and the use of land.
The Government’s commitments in the 25-year environment plan and the Environment Bill to such policies as net biodiversity gain, the “30x30” announcement by the Prime Minister and nature recovery strategies will mean major changes in the pattern of land use. We also anticipate major planning system reform once the new Secretary of State at the department gets his head around the unpopularity and impracticability of the original proposals. However, I suspect that they will still focus on a major increase in housing, with the unpopular land-take that that represents. The major investments in infrastructure that we have seen announced need to be climate-positive and biodiversity-positive in the way that they use land.
So, the tectonic plates of land-use policy are on the move but for the most part, in the past and right now, these policies are developed and operated in silos with modest or no overview of the whole picture and of how the best decisions can be made to optimise decisions on competing land-use pressures. The biggest flaw is that the rural and urban land-use processes have little connection with each other. The planning system is called the “town and country planning system” but it does not actually do much for the country.
Several of the current policy changes are establishing quasi-alternatives to the formal planning system, and in my view that is quite dangerous. For example, we were told by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, during the passage of the Environment Bill that nature recovery strategies will map and cover the whole of England, proposing what land uses will be best for nature and where. How will that relate to the planning for land for housing use and development, and indeed to all the other economic uses that the formal planning system covers? Conversely, decisions on agricultural land use will be made by 100,000 individual farmers. How will that fit in with these nature recovery strategies and with the formal planning system?
I can say from personal experience that the whole issue of tree planting right now is like the Wild West out there. I declare my interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust, which is trying hard to create more woods in the interests of biodiversity and climate change. However, major commercial operations are buying up bare land at very silly prices to plant trees and exploit carbon subsidies. The big question arises: would some of that land be better for food production, forestry, housing or solar arrays?
My thesis for today—indeed, for the years that I have banged on about this, which have been many—is that we need two principles. One is integration: an integration of decision-making and processes that sees the big picture of competing pressures and helps to encourage the best land use in the right place. That does not just mean chat between departments about whether they can live with each other’s policies; nor, at the other end of the spectrum, a top-down masterplan; but a set of principles to guide thinking and decision processes at the right scale nationally, locally, at community level and for landowners. The Government’s foresight study on land use, which was published in 2010, called for an integrated approach, and we now need to deliver that.
The second principle that I want to promote is multifunctionality. How do we get our scarce land to work more than once for its living—for example, with wildlife and carbon on agricultural land—and how do we get that integrated in development proposals? That is where the planning system reform proposals particularly jarred with me. Zoning is too broad-brush. What we need in order to accommodate all the pressures is multifunctional land use, not land zoned for one particular purpose.
The time has come for change to achieve an integrated way forward, to relieve the pressures, to reduce the tensions in decision-making—particularly public tensions—and to ensure that land is developed multifunctionally. Otherwise, we will have a collision in land uses, some unhappy communities, some grumpy developers and stressed-out local and national government.
I was amazed to discover that the Community Planning Alliance, which was launched in March this year, already has 525 local community campaign groups across the UK, all concerned about land-use conflicts. That in itself is a stark indicator of the concern about pressures on land. It is a bit like a pressure cooker, frankly, and the lid will blow at some point if it has not already done so.
There are good examples of integrated approaches for us to learn from on both the national and local scale. Wales and Scotland have developed land-use frameworks. Both are very different, as their local land uses and politics determine. Scotland stresses the need for people to have opportunities to participate in debates and decisions about land use that affect their lives and futures. Wales is shaped by its future generations legislation. I discovered from the Chinese Ambassador that even China has a land-use framework, although possibly not a great one since it appears to involve the forcible moving of a quarter of a million people off the land from time to time. That is not the sort of top-down masterplan, integrated approach that I am advocating. Perhaps we should look instead at the southern Ireland version, which is much more sensitive.
At the local level, there are many experiments in the Oxford-Cambridge arc. There is an integrated land use pilot in Devon, supported by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, and I declare an interest as a commissioner for that commission. Various local authorities are trying natural capital approaches. The spatial scale at which such initiatives are appropriate will vary but they all need some sort of strategic framework from government. If areas next door to each other are using different systems and approaches, it will be difficult to get the higher-level spatial scale that is needed for some of these issues to be resolved in a way that is understood by local people.
Many organisations far more reputable than me have called in the past for an integrated and multifunctional approach. I have already mentioned the foresight study in 2010. I was trying to remember last night how long in advance of that study I had been lobbying for one, and it is now probably 20 years since I started banging on about this. But I feel that we are on the way, and I hope many more speakers today will say that too. So, the foresight study was the first formal emanation, in 2010. The Select Committee on the Rural Economy in your Lordships’ House also proposed an integrated and multifunctional approach, as did the Climate Change Committee; I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is contributing today. The Royal Society’s Living Landscapes programme has long promoted such an approach, as has the commission on food and farming and many others.
In view of the rising pressures and the lack of join-up, what current mechanisms are there for integration across these issues for all land uses? In view of the huge changes in policy that are on the move right across land-use issues, what proposals will the Government make to produce a national framework and a more integrated prioritisation and decision process for all land use? We cannot continue in these silos. I beg to move.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness. As ever, she has set out her stall very wisely, with many facts and elements that we need to take on board. It is clearly madness that we do not have a land framework strategy. It is a bit like trying to build a house without deciding where you might want the kitchen or the bathroom.
My remarks will concentrate on food, as that is the area I probably know best. As the noble Baroness said, land is a scarce resource. We have used it for three purposes: housing, recreation and food production. The latter currently takes up 70% of English land. That is clearly too much if we are going to hit our climate change targets. As the noble Baroness has just said, we need to get multifunctional in the way we use all our land.
The Climate Change Committee has estimated that approximately 21% of agricultural land in England has to change its function to forestry, energy crops, peat land or agroforestry if we are to get to net zero on the timetable we have laid out. However, that does not mean taking land out of agricultural use entirely. It is about the right kind of farming, such as no-till, mob grazing, almost zero application of pesticides, letting hedgerows grow and herbal leys—a whole range of things that can encourage wildlife and carbon sequestration on land that is also producing food. It is about being, as the noble Baroness said, multifunctional.
I am anxious that we go down this route as if we do not and we agree that we cannot grow enough food to feed us, we will end up entering into trade deals with countries far away. That not only means that we outsource our carbon footprint, but that we lose jobs and undercut our own farmers. Indeed, in Questions in the House yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made this point very strongly in relation to the Australian trade deal.
However, all land is different. Some of the land that could deliver the greatest environmental benefits might not be that good for food growing. The most productive 33% of English land produces around 60% of our total output, while the bottom 33% produces only 15%. Similarly, making farming more environmentally sensitive has many other gains: reducing runoff from just 5% of agricultural land that produces the most water pollution could reduce phosphorus and other sediments in our rivers by 25% and the nitrogen load by 13%.
Food and food growing has dominated our landscape for hundreds of years. Indeed, the phrase “eat the view” is intended to encourage us all to eat more British-grown vegetables, fruit and grains. It was coined some years ago and I think it is a good phrase, but it misses out key elements, such as which bit of land should we be using for this and which bit for that? This is why we need a framework.
I advised a little on Henry Dimbleby’s food strategy. We recommended that by 2022—soon—Defra ought to devise a rural framework. What does this mean? First, Defra should work with local nature recovery networks to prepare basic maps of what is what right now. These maps should include data on how productive the agricultural land is in the network’s area—something we can glean from the agricultural land classification system. There should be an assessment of local priority areas for the environment. For instance, is there peat or ancient woodland? Areas with significant levels of pollution should be identified, together with ideas on what to do. All this needs to be linked in with local tree strategies, the peat action plan and any existing local nature recovery strategy.
Once all this has been collected, Defra then actually has something to work on. This is something it lacks. It will provide a framework for us to decide how we want to use our precious and extremely tiny amount of land. We can tell which land is most appropriate for semi-natural land, low-yield farmland and high-yield farmland, as well as land that is better for housing and economic development such as business parks. At all stages, this report will make clear how this model can help meet the Government’s legal commitments to reach net zero by 2050, while at the same time protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030 —the 30x30 target.
Land change cannot be imposed by central government. Defra should make its national land map freely available to land managers and councils, which can then decide how they will best use it. It should form a guide for how the new environmental land management scheme is delivered and managed. It seems to me that currently, the Government are pinning everything on ELMS in terms of the countryside. I am the first to agree that it is a tremendous advance on the CAP and a step in the right direction. However, a lot of questions remain. ELMS has nothing to say on land management more generally, what happens to land outside of the farm, housing, roads and areas of outstanding natural beauty—or, indeed, on planning decisions. It cannot do all this because it does not have the remit.
For ELMS to truly function in the way that it should, it has to sit alongside an overall land management strategy. There are currently at least eight schemes influencing how we use land—from the England Trees Action Plan through to ELMS itself—and they control funds ranging from £10 million to £2.4 billion. It is a lot of money. We need a framework: it would help shape priorities such as improving areas of outstanding natural beauty. It could help us decide the best place to grow crops and, indeed, which crops, and where to graze cattle.
It could also give us information about where to build new houses. The additional land needed for new housing is relatively small for an issue that attracts so much distress and anger. Just 2.2% of UK land is needed by 2060 to fulfil all current calculated needs. If we had access to a bird’s eye view, we would not need to keep building on flood plains or next to sites of scientific interest like the rewilding project at Knepp, which noble Lords will know I have banged on about. In fact, in a minute I am going to come back to it.
A rural land use framework will outline the most effective way to get to net zero by 2050 and to 30x30 by 2030. We need better data if we are to achieve these goals. If we are to reduce the amount of land we use for farming by a steady 1% a year, while maintaining our food security through healthier and more sustainable farming management, we need a really good plan. We need to know which areas are the best to grow on and which are possibly the best to be rewooded or rewilded.
I want to finish with a story of something that happened in the last few weeks at the recent Tory party conference. Isabella Tree, the environmentalist behind the rewilding project at Knepp, attended the conference to speak on a rewilding panel. As noble Lords know, given how many have spoken on this issue, she and her husband have been fighting a battle against Horsham District Council to prevent it building 3,500 new houses on the border of their land, which would destroy the carefully planned wildlife corridors that connect Knepp and other places like it to the sea and deep inland. The builder is Thakeham, which has given more than £500,000 to the Conservatives in the last three years. Thakeham had the most prominent stand at the conference, sponsored meetings, hosted a drinks party and—which was really shocking to me—had its company name on the lanyards of every single delegate at the four-day event. As Isabella Tree said:
“This isn’t democracy … There is a lot of money … shouting for more housebuilding. Where is the money shouting for nature?”
However, there is a small, good note. Buglife has just discovered a very small snail—the little whirlpool ramshorn snail. It is in the water catchment area underneath the development that Thakeham plans to build. This tiny creature—just 5 millimetres in diameter—is so rare and so in need of protection that the planning has been temporarily halted. Talk about David and Goliath! It shows what a crazy system we live in. Just as it has taken a footballer to get the Government to agree to feed hungry kids in the holidays, so it has taken a miniature snail to get someone to look again at a really ridiculous planning project.
This is an urgent situation. We only have one planet. We have to start now. A rural land framework and a land use strategy is an essential part of our journey forward.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward this debate. If Thursday afternoon debates were a novel, they would certainly not be a bodice-ripper or an edge-of-the-seat thriller, but more a literary heavyweight: challenging, sometimes difficult to get to grips with, but always an opportunity to learn and to explore difficult issues. The noble Baroness’s subject matter today is very much in the latter category, and I have to say that I admire her staying power. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech.
As a former elected mayor and a vice-president of the LGA, I will be looking at this issue through the lens of local government and from the planning perspective, while being confident that other noble Lords will be sharing their considerable expertise on the environmental and broader issues.
What has surprised me in my reading for this debate is that there has been a fairly steady and consistent appeal for a land use framework over many years and, indeed, several reports with recommendations to adopt one or something similar. Indeed, such a tool exists in all the devolved Governments. Can the Minister say whether there has yet been any capture of the benefits or otherwise of the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish experiences, each of which appear to have involved slightly different approaches? I believe we should be looking to learn from them.
It was, therefore, surprising to me that the Government are resisting this and, indeed, going further and saying it is not really needed as other policies and plans, in effect, do the job of such a strategy. Hearing the responses of the noble Lords, Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Lord Goldsmith, during consideration of the Environment Bill confirmed my belief. However, to judge by the evidence presented by these various reports and inquiries, it appears it is often not happening at all, and where it is it could be better.
In its recent study, Planning for a Better Future, the Royal Town Planning Institute points out that there are already many spatial instruments and plans in places, but—the “but” is important—they treat the environment in siloes, not connecting issues such as water availability and quality, social quality, flood mitigation, biodiversity and habitats. They are often administered and financed separately, with problems of single-issue streams of finance, and managed on short decision timescales, with notable gaps. They seem distant from and unaccountable to local people. Our current situation calls for something far more radical and potentially game-changing. This proposal will seek to address some fundamental key dilemmas and challenges of land use: will it be possible to grow enough food, restore biodiversity in nature, decarbonise the economy and adapt to climate change, while building all the homes, transport and infrastructure that the Government have promised over the next decade?
While such a framework would, by necessity, be very high level, it is also important to address the concerns of ordinary citizens. When I speak to residents, usually when they are bitterly complaining about development, I ask them, “What percentage of land do you believe is built on?” They always get it massively wrong and are shocked when you say, “Less than 20%, and half of that is parks and gardens”. In tight urban areas, it certainly feels that high city densities, while highly sustainable, are built to protect someone else’s view of a field that once grew food. So a fundamental question to us all is: how is it decided whose quality of life is more important? Is it the person in the tower block or the village dweller? Another question is: is that really the best use of the land? Could it not be used for something better? How could that be determined?
It is now generally accepted that we could never again build to the densities of, say, Milton Keynes or the garden cities, yet there has been no attempt at all to take the public with us on this challenging journey. At his party conference, our Prime Minister recently declared that there should be no need for houses to be built on green-belt land, to cheers from the party faithful living in the leafy shires. But what are the implications for those living in urban settings? Must the ever-growing numbers of tower blocks increase, not only in number but in storeys, to accommodate government targets for housing need? Where is the land-use discussion here? They are popping up now in suburbia and Metroland, not just in the city smoke. Do we need new settlements? Where, what type and when? Perhaps a land-use framework could usefully flush out these difficult issues and contradictions and provide a context for these conversations.
We have a Government determined to build 300,000 homes a year to meet an obvious housing crisis. Surely that aspiration needs some big thinking about land use. The Government’s own figures show that enough brownfield sites are available to build 1 million homes. That sounds like a lot, but it is really only three years’ supply. Even local authorities have to provide a five-year land supply. The Government have their disingenuous housing delivery test—it is disingenuous because it seeks to punish local government for the lack of delivery of homes, over which it has no power, and not over the number of planning applications granted, over which it has power. Perhaps the Government should revisit their own Letwin review.
Add to the pot the fact that we have a public who sometimes seem to have gone from nimbies to BANANAs —build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody—as a glance at any local news media will prove. Yet, when knocking on doors and talking to people, once they have got their, “We don’t need any more flats, and no one can afford these homes anyway” off their chest, their heartfelt concerns are usually around the quality of the environment: “Too many cars. The traffic is a nightmare. Where will I be able to park?”, or “I can’t get my child into the local school” and, “My GP waiting times are far too long because they have so many patients on their books”. These are the soft infrastructure issues yet they are very important to the public, for obvious reasons.
From my local government perspective, the Motion calls for land-use planning to be integrated with other land-use activities. At the moment, we have no regional or sub-regional land-use planning, so there is nothing to integrate anything with. That might seem like a statement of the obvious, but the scaffolding that might support such a proposal has been lost to us over the last decade or longer, to the detriment of wider place shaping and planning across a much larger economic region. In short, we have become too parochial, which can work against changes for the greater good. There are too few opportunities for too few councillors to engage with these bigger and broader issues in their area.
It seems that many of the problems associated with planning have arisen because strategies have not been based on a wide enough area. This is most apparent in two-tier areas, where each council has its own local plan, yet the reality of issues and problems to be addressed can cover three or four, or even a whole county or wider economic region.
I still have the scars from trying, while I was mayor of Watford, to work across borders with several authorities around a wide range of issues, where the provision of new infrastructure needed to be built in one area to serve, as they saw it, the needs of another—I would say of the wider area. The recent emphasis on making efficient use of brownfield sites has pushed the level of housing growth in Watford upwards to the sky, so a new secondary school is needed, which cannot be met within the town’s narrow boundaries. We already have a primary school where there is no play space for the children, except on the roof. But when it is proposed in the neighbouring districts, there is opposition on the grounds that, “It’s Watford’s problem. It’s their children.”
There are ways to resolve this, and sometimes it works better than I have portrayed, which is why I am particularly interested in the outcome of the powers and freedoms given to regional mayors and city regions in this regard. I wonder whether there is any possibility of expansion and further development.
“What about the duty to co-operate with each other?”, you might ask. It is well documented that the duty to co-operate does not operate as effectively as it needs to in practice—or indeed at all. However, there is a pressing need for it to be replaced with a new mechanism to deliver joined-up thinking and action for climate change, transport, infrastructure, housing provision and nature recovery. Does the Minister yet have any idea whether that duty will be changed, strengthened or weakened in the new reforms? Finally, why not have a national spatial framework?
Lord Harlech (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to be speaking in your Lordships’ House for the first time. This is a defining moment for me personally, but I join the House when it is also a defining moment for our country, as we seek to face, head on, the triple challenge of the pandemic, our independence from the EU and climate change. These are serious responsibilities.
Over the past few months, I have taken the advice to listen and observe proceedings, rather than diving straight in. I have been hugely impressed by the contributions in your Lordships’ House in debates such as those on the Environment Bill, the passionate but courteous deliberation in the Assisted Dying Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the heartfelt and moving tributes paid to the late Sir David Amess.
I place on record my thanks for the help given to me by so many: the doorkeepers, special advisers, the clerks and Table Office staff, the librarians, and the catering and security personnel. I am also grateful for the mentorship of my noble friends Lord Borwick, Lady Bloomfield and Lady Sanderson, and for the support from friends in the other place.
The Harlech barony was created in 1876. My forebears were a distinguished lot: MPs, Ministers, soldiers and public servants. I take my duty seriously to follow their example. I will also take inspiration from Lord Elton, a distinguished servant of your Lordships’ House, to whose place I am proud to have succeeded.
My grandfather David, both as MP for North Shropshire and as a Foreign Office Minister, worked hard to bring countries and peoples together. As British ambassador to the United States during the Kennedy Administration, he fostered the personal relationships upon which the special relationship grew, ensuring that British views were given proper consideration during events such as the Cuban missile crisis. Can personal relationships still prove decisive today? I suspect they can.
I had a rural upbringing in Shropshire and Wales, where I would accompany my father on his duties around the estate. We frequently stopped at farm kitchens thick with smoke for non-stop cups of tea. Like his father, he understood the importance of building personal relationships, listening to people, giving them time and always making them feel valued. It is no secret that my father had his afflictions, but he always championed Wales and rural issues, and cared deeply for the countryside and its people.
My mother did an incredible job of raising two children—essentially as a single parent, while forging a successful career as a consultant to some of the pre-eminent designers of her generation in the fashion houses of Europe. Her incredible work ethic, creativity and passion for all the arts greatly influenced the career path I took.
After completing school, I moved to London to study design at Central St Martins. The rich and diverse culture of the city, its music, people and places, had a profound impact on me and shaped my views as much as my rural heritage did. After graduating, I went on to work in medical communication, media production and property management.
On my father’s passing, I returned to north Wales. There, we have invested in organic farming, implementing renewable technology and undertaking the vital restoration of heritage assets. It was on a platform of being a voice for Wales, its people and the rural economy, that I stood in the hustings.
I should also mention that I am an Army reservist. The Army teaches the importance of courage, discipline, teamwork, integrity, respect for others and selfless commitment. These values shape my approach to public office and my duties to this House.
I turn to today’s debate, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. Allow me to state the obvious. As a country, we need to produce more food; grow more trees; better manage our forests; and reverse the decline in biodiversity. They are serious challenges—but, to judge by Tuesday’s debate on the Environment Bill and, indeed, by today’s debate, they are ones about which we are no longer in denial. I sense that, as a country, we are readier than ever to pick up the gauntlet.
I began by saying that this was a defining moment—a time of monumental challenges for Britain, the world and this House. I want to end on an optimistic note. Like so many of my generation, I see monumental opportunity in these challenges, and this is especially true of the challenges facing the British countryside. Treat the countryside with the respect it deserves; listen to it; understand its complexities and possibilities; and decide that you will give it half a chance. Above all, give it the connectivity and digital connectivity it needs, and I guarantee that the rural economy—and, with it, rural community life and culture—will spring into action in ways and to an extent that will surprise you. We can do farming and tourism very well, but that is by no means all we can do or wish to do.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I first welcome and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harlech. He is a worthy successor to those ancestors he mentioned. When I first saw his name on the list, I thought that he was the bloke who used to stop me seeing all those films I wanted to see—but, in fact, he brings much wider talents to the House. I welcome his obvious commitment to the subject matter of this debate and to the wider points he raised. It shows that the rather odd system by which all of us get here can throw up an asset to this House. He is very welcome.
I will also mention briefly the reference by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to Lord Selborne, whose memorial service is today. He was a great champion of many of the matters to do with the countryside and beyond that we are addressing today.
Our land—whether urban or rural—is subject to multiple pressures, and our planning system is supposed to be the arbiter. The Town and Country Planning Acts of the 1940s are some of the unsung achievements of that Labour Government. By and large, they protected the English countryside from the more ravenous designs of developers, industry and tourism. For a long time, they also prevented more egregious development in our towns and cities. They significantly limited ribbon development and urban sprawl—particularly through the invention of the green belt. At the same time, that system allowed positive development in those post-war years—massive increases in the building of decent homes, the development of our infrastructure and the facilitating of industrial change. It did so within a context where key decisions were in the hands of elected authorities, which allowed the public to have a direct, clear say.
We would be foolish to dispense with that system, but it would also be foolish to deny that there are considerable pressures and problems both in our cities and countryside with which the planning system is now struggling. I do not mean what is—I fear—the knee-jerk reaction in certain parts of the Conservative Party and the press, encouraged by some property developers and their apologists, that the planning system is run simply by bureaucrats on behalf of axe-grinders and nimbys. That attitude seemed originally to be behind the Government’s intent to bring a planning reform Bill to Parliament. I hope that they are now thinking again.
Previous speakers have focused on the countryside. It is true that 70% of our land is designated for agriculture and only about 10% to 12% is built on. That is not the assumption of most people. In reality, the look of our countryside has developed. It has not been preserved in aspic by the planning system; nor should it have been. It has changed over the past 80 years, but the planning system has limited and directed that change in a way that has benefited our countryside and our ability to enjoy it. The detailed changes have not been determined by the planning system but by, for example, successive agriculture policies through the post-war Ministry of Agriculture, the EU and now the Agriculture Act that we have just passed, which will have significant effects on rural land use, so that the look of our fields and the configuration of our hedgerows will change again.
While past agriculture policies have, through incentives and regulatory structures, largely determined the balance and shifts of agricultural production and the look of our land, they have also been subject to increasing constraints and objectives for environmental and public health reasons. These too have had an effect on our countryside. With the new Agriculture Act, these incentives and regulations will be targeted principally at environmental outcomes. Food and material production will be determined largely by the market and, regrettably, by some unfortunate trade agreements. State intervention will be primarily on behalf of the environment, rather than food. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and others have said, it is true that the ELMS are not broad enough to deliver that prospect, but we know the direction in which we are moving.
There have been problems with the past effects of planning. Sometimes agriculture has been overconstrained in development—for example, on the use of old agricultural buildings and cottages. But in general, it has worked well for agriculture, as well as for those of us who enjoy the countryside.
Of course, the planning system itself is overladen by other interventions—on designating SSSIs, on AONBs and on national park regulations. They have all helped to preserve and enhance our countryside, but they are not always directly compatible with the principles of the planning system. There is renewed attention to biodiversity; all this preservation of the look of the countryside has not preserved the non-human inhabitants of the countryside, plants or animals.
The planning system has also often been overladen with national priorities. We have overarching commitments to road and railway infrastructure that run roughshod over some of the planning and protection of our countryside. In principle, I am in support of the full HS2 project, but I do not think its route should have endangered so much of our woodlands. That was not in the nature of the relationship, and that is why we need a more overarching framework.
We also need to control the quality of our waterways, the effect they have on the countryside and what we put into them from our agriculture processes—fertilisers and pesticides—and from domestic use. We need the regulation of that to fit in with the planning system.
Meanwhile, the other side of the coin is urban areas. Massive changes have taken place with the planning system’s permission, with public involvement and with a relative clarity and consistency of those planning decisions, but that is weakening. I have often complained in this House that we now have a whole sequence, particularly in urban areas, of unnecessary, carbon-emitting demolition and rebuild, when more sophisticated methods would retrofit those buildings to meet current objectives for the environment and public health. In many cases, that has destroyed the ambiance of our cities and towns and the look of our urban areas. You do not have to go very far from here, to the south bank of the Thames, to see what I am talking about.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said, part of the problem in rural areas is that the planning resources of rural councils amount to a man and a dog, particular in two-tier areas in England. It is also true more generally, in both urban and rural areas, that the relationship between local authorities, developers and large builders has changed dramatically. When Harold Wilson was building 300,000 houses a year, he could deliver it and decide on it because local authorities were in the driving seat. They were dealing with hundreds of small builders; there was competition, and the local authorities were giving out the contracts. Now the balance of power has shifted dramatically. Local authorities, often with minimal planning staff and in most cases—even in rich urban areas—with no housing department, architects’ department or direct labour organisations, are dealing with massively resourced developers and an oligopoly of half a dozen or so housebuilders, all backed by multinational finance. In those circumstances, the balance of power is very substantially with the developer. The planning system as it is can have only a limited effect, although I acknowledge that in some cases it has a key one.
I am not saying that the old system made all the right choices in either town or country. I am saying that it is no longer strong or integrated enough and that it needs a new framework. The developers that have transformed our cities, not always for the better, now have their eyes on agricultural land. A change of use from food production may follow, particularly with the reduction in extensive grazing if, for one reason or another—because of green consumer choice or trade agreements—we eat less British-reared red meat in this country. The outcome for that land that is no longer used for agricultural purposes is unlikely automatically to be rewilding or forestry, as environmental outcomes would require. At least some of it will be taken up by developers, and mostly in inappropriate parts of the country. If we are not careful, that will happen, and in a way that does not take in the local authority, and the local community and its representatives will have no part whatever.
We need to revert to the basic principles of the Town and Country Planning Act, but to put it in a wider context, one that is relevant for a modern age in both our towns and our countryside.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner as set out in the register. I am absolutely delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and to hear his excellent and informative maiden speech. He is a shining example of the ability of the much-criticised hereditary election system to introduce young, experienced and highly qualified new Members. I welcome the noble Lord.
Like others, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for bringing about this debate. It follows her interesting amendment to the Environment Bill, which unfortunately I was unable to support as I thought it might be too prescriptive and therefore have undesirable side effects when it came to farm diversification and other issues. However, I think she is absolutely correct to explore the need for an overarching land use framework. The devil will inevitably be in the detail—hence a broad framework is a sensible aim. I agree with so much of what she said during her excellent speech, together with that of just about every other noble Lord and noble Baroness who has contributed to this debate.
The need for some top-down planning has been identified by a number of people, including Henry Dimbleby in the recent National Food Strategy, although I do not agree with his complicated three-compartment model for land use, which takes no account of the requirement for land on which to build houses, infrastructure and industry. However, top-down planning on its own and on the scale envisaged is not practical. Careful thought needs to be given to how a land use framework will overlap with the local nature recovery strategies that the Environment Bill already introduces, as well as planning and housing White Papers and legislation and much more—and, of course, the Agriculture Act. We do not want to see a conflict or duplication of effort in any of these areas.
The need for a framework is absolutely clear, as we have three broad areas of economic activity pressing for their share of the land cake—an asset, as has been pointed out, that will never increase in area but will increase in value, which is a further complication and consideration.
First—and to my mind probably the most important, in view of our experience in two world wars and more recently with Covid—is the production of our own food, rather than relying on imports maybe at lower costs but almost certainly produced to lower standards and coming from considerable distances, with logistical dangers as serious possibilities in an unstable world. According to a recent NFU survey, 60% self-sufficiency in food seems to be a sensible guideline. In addition, as has been pointed out, agriculture occupies 70% of our land.
Secondly, there are the environmental activities, so important with climate change, which may be complementary to farming but may also be in direct competition. By this, I mean tree planting or solar or wind farms on arable or pasture lands.
Finally, there is the most important requirement of housing, industry and infrastructure, often driven by demographics, technological change and the whole levelling-up agenda. Who can drive up the M1 through Buckinghamshire and not be amazed by the work they can see being done on HS2 or the number of new sheds being built around Milton Keynes?
Inevitably, as a farmer my greatest concern is the maintenance of sufficient land for food production. Currently, as the old basic payment system of support for farmers is phased out, farmers are in a sort of hiatus until the environmental land management scheme is rolled out in 2024. They have insufficient detail on ELMS, particularly on profitability. This was confirmed in the recent report from the National Audit Office and has caused the NFU to call for a delay in the reduction of the basic payments.
The result, not surprisingly, is that most farmers are sitting on their hands. This is greatly encouraged by the current high prices for many commodities that farmers sell, such as wheat, barley, rape and livestock. Why risk uncertainty until details of ELMS are known? Why enter the unknown unnecessarily when you are still making a decent profit, although most would accept that the high prices may not last for ever? There is an old adage in farming that sticking to what you know how to do best is the safest course of action in uncertain times. Farmers, on the whole, are there for the long term, not just for a year or two.
Those looking at stable high returns are likely to be exploring such activities as solar or wind farms or housing, which could remove good agricultural land from production. This is the point: whether we are talking about high-return activities such as housing, solar and wind or lower-return activities such as tree planting, rewilding or carbon storage, all these may be difficult to reverse back into commercial agriculture if a food crisis occurs; hence the importance of protecting productive agricultural land.
Any land use framework should be positive and enabling, allowing land managers to deliver more from their land, whether for the environment, food or other economic activity, rather than negative and restricting the progression of farming and the diversification of farming businesses, let alone other rural businesses. However, a fixed land use framework can never succeed in circumstances where there are going to be changes in technology, climate conditions, consumer demand and business viability, to name just a few considerations. All this could happen in very short order. Hence, a land use framework needs to be flexible, with top-down and bottom-up input.
I believe that the basic presumption in the planning system regarding land use should be that productive agricultural land graded 1 and 2 should stay in food production, while grade 3 should be considered for wider uses. Lower grades should be the favoured areas for non-farming activities, although I am thoroughly aware that some species of trees are likely to thrive better on good land rather than chalky banks. Obviously, small parcels of land, field corners, land adjacent to hedges and existing woods—whatever the grade designation —should be exempt and available for environmental planting, including trees, as envisaged by the Agriculture Act and ELMS.
It is particularly worrying that there have been an increasing number of land sales, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, pointed out, to purchasers with no doubt worthy environmental backgrounds who have converted the land from arable and pasture to rewilding or trees. This certainly may be the correct usage in some cases, but the economic use of land should be dictated not by the whim of the new owner but by the correct classification of the most suitable use of that land. Integrating the planning system with building, agriculture and environment through a framework of land use makes perfect sense.
Very careful thought needs to be given to bring all these competing uses for land together and decide on the criteria of suitability, viability, necessity, strategic considerations and much more. Nothing should be set in stone, as flexibility is essential as circumstances change, but clear guidelines on a land use framework should be set, based on consultations with all stakeholders in these various sectors. I would therefore welcome the setting up of a committee or commission to explore the land use framework issue in greater detail. I would be most interested to hear the Minister’s views on this.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I begin by welcoming the comments in the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, on the urgency of the climate emergency. I note that we are seeing a real change in the balance of the Benches opposite as more new and younger Members join them. I hope they will have an influence on the Government, particularly the Treasury.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for securing this absolutely crucial debate and for her clear, informative and powerful introduction. As she and other speakers have noted, Wales, Scotland and Ireland already have land use strategies. We often hear from the Government that we are “world leading”; here we are obviously trailing, even on these islands.
If we are thinking about a land use framework and, more broadly, regulation and management of our land, there are three sides to this triangle. One is a strategy, approach and plan for how we use land. Another is to encourage good use of the land, something we mostly hear about from the Government—the sustainable farming initiative, the local nature recovery scheme and the landscape recovery scheme, all of which come under the ELMS banner. The reality of these schemes is that they are all voluntary. They are trial schemes in which people can invest, but we do not know how many people and landowners will invest in them.
We hear a great deal less about, and undoubtedly need to hear a great deal more about, how we stop deeply detrimental, disastrous land uses and management. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to pesticides and nitrogen and phosphate runoff scarring our rivers and oceans. We have seen the impact of this, and a great deal of public concern. We need a strategy. We need to stop doing the things we should not be doing and to encourage the things we should be doing. That should be the Government’s overall approach.
I will pick up on a couple of issues that have been raised. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who asked a good question: “Why not a national strategy”? However, I disagree with some of her comments about local management and decision-making. We have a national green-belt strategy, and we also have lots of communities who are desperate to defend their green spaces. I have visited quite a few communities who have good cause to question new “executive housing” being built. It is going into a very doubtful market and will not feed into the communities or be part of them. I am thinking in particular of a green-belt site in Sunderland which, at the time of my visit, was the only city in England that was losing population. Yet here was a patch of green land, hugely valued and much used by the public, on which executive homes were to be built for people who would commute on the motorway to work in other cities. I do not believe that that is a good use of valuable land.
It is worth looking at and trying to learn from what has been done elsewhere on these islands. Of course, as a number of noble Lords have referred to, Scotland has had two land use strategies since the Climate Change Act came into force there in 2009. They brought in a vision of sustainable land use, objectives and principles for decision-making. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, made clear, this is not saying, “We are going to allocate every piece of land to be used in a certain way”; it sets out certain principles.
I agree with pretty well every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said about food production, particularly healthy food production. I will add to that a little by looking at what is happening in Scotland, where the Scottish Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement takes a human rights-based approach to land use. It talks about the relationship between the people and the land. That is something that I do not think any noble Lord has really addressed yet. I am sure the Minister will be delighted to know that, should he be looking towards developing a land use strategy, the Green Party conference held just last weekend considered a draft land use strategy, an entire new chapter for the policy for a sustainable society. I would be delighted to share with the Minister the draft plans there, which set out our vision for land far more than I have time for today.
One thing I really want to focus on is that how we use land needs to address what I might call the other pressing issue. The maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, focused on climate; many other noble Lords have focused on biodiversity and the state of nature. I want to focus on poverty and inequality, and how we need a land use strategy that tackles those. The issue of the right to roam is something else we talked about at the Green Party conference. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, talked in her introduction about how there are multiple pressures. We need about 130% of the land we actually have for all the uses we need it for. One answer to that is very clearly multiple uses: using land to grow food, to store carbon or for nature but also making it available for recreation and public use is one way to double our use of the available land. In that way, the Scottish approach really does look forward.
Looking to Wales, as a number of noble Lords referred to the approach there is driven by its Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act—something that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, has been championing in your Lordships’ House and that we have seen a lot of support for. If we look to that, we can think about managing our land in ways that improve it for the future. We come back to the state of nature, but also, if we are thinking about the human rights approach, to improving the health and well-being of our population. That is where we come not just to issues of recreation and access of land, which we know are so crucial to human health and well-being, but to thinking about what kind of crops we are growing on that land. This is where I take issue, to some degree, with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the idea that what we need to do with arable land is grow the kind of crops that we are growing on it now.
To take just one example, a large amount of some of our very best land is devoted to producing sugar beet, despite the fact that we consume vastly more sugar than we should be eating for public health and well-being. Were we growing fruit and vegetables on that land, perhaps in a mixed system that was managed in ways that were excellent for biodiversity and nature, then we would see a human rights approach, a nature-based approach, and an approach to land use that all fits together.
This comes back to the question of how we think about the ownership of land. Again, I refer back to the Green Party draft strategy. It talks about people in control of land being the stewards of that land. That is an approach that I believe we need to take forward and advance. It needs to be managed for the common good. That means profits can be made, certainly, and returns can be taken off, but we need to see all our land use managed under a strategy that works for the common good.
Finally, I come back to the noble Lord’s suggestion about energy generation. This is one of the great practical debates we are seeing now, particularly the issue of solar farms potentially being put on arable land and issues of biofuel crops. I have great concerns about those issues, but it is worth looking at the history. If we go back about 150 years, about one-third of our arable land was actually used for energy production. It grew hay and oats, producing, very literally, horsepower.
What we need is a land use strategy. We need rules that stop the damaging use of land. We need ELMS to be systems encouraging positive uses of land. It is really quite a challenge for the Government to fit those three sides of the triangle together into something that really works for people and nature, but that is the challenge that we need the land use strategy to cater to.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a small organic farmer, as someone who is involved in sequestration of land and as the chairman of a company that advises quite a few food companies. I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, for what I thought was a remarkable maiden speech. I ticked off all the things I agreed with him on and found no crosses, so I thank him very much indeed.
I wonder if I may say something to the last speaker. We often get more by saying “thank you” for what we have been given and then asking for more than by constantly attacking. That, I must say, I find an unattractive part of the Green Party. The truth is that this Government are doing more than any other Government in the world, and I say that as a man who spends most of his time holding their feet to the fire and pointing out where they get it wrong. I do not think you help your case if you do not accept, first, that we have set targets which others have to reach and, secondly, that we are now doing the next step, which is seen in the net-zero strategy, the heat and buildings strategy, and the absolute decision that there will be no cars sold after 2030 which are not electric or equivalent. All those are extremely important and good things, and having said “thank you” for them, I hope the Minister will accept one or two criticisms about where we could go further.
I think my noble friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, thinks I am sometimes a little critical of a land use strategy. I always worry about the word “strategy”, because sometimes it becomes enclosing rather than releasing, but she explained very clearly what she means by this and I am therefore entirely on her side. There is no doubt that this Government, like previous Governments, are benighted by their silos; they do not seem to be able to break out of them. This is a serious matter when it comes to land use. If you read the Net Zero Strategy, there is very little about land use, mainly because it was written by BEIS, and Defra appears to have had no influence on it—it could not, because it has not got a policy. The trouble is that there is no Defra policy, just general comments about what will arise. I repeat what the EFRA Select Committee of the House of Commons said: you cannot move from one system of support to an entirely different one in a haphazard manner. That is precisely what we are trying to do at the moment.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, asked, how does a farmer make any decisions today? He is told it will all be in the ELMS but we do not know what will be in the ELMS or how it will affect them. We do not even know how it will integrate with private decisions outside. What will be the terms? How do we deal with this? There is none of that in the present circumstance.
I do not blame Defra for finding this difficult; we found that in debating the Environment Bill. My noble friend Lord Goldsmith, who we know is on the side of the angels, found it very difficult to argue the soil issue, because the real answer is that Defra has not got its act together on that and therefore did not want to put it in the Bill. We have to recognise that “siloisation”—if there is such a horrible word—is almost endemic; it is a problem of government generally, not just this Government. There is therefore a need to, somehow or other, bring together the parts of government when that is so essential that we can no longer resist it. It seems to me that that is exactly the point we have reached with land use.
The Climate Change Committee said very clearly that we cannot meet net zero unless we have a significant amount of land use which brings carbon out of the atmosphere. I always want to remind people of the reason we managed without all this before: historically, balance was created. Human beings, animals and plants all have emissions; we do not have zero emissions, which is why the concept of moving to a zero-emission world is nonsense. We are emitting at this moment—I am, particularly, because I am speaking. We need to remember that the world balanced that: for the emissions that came out, there was sequestration taking carbon in. That balance is the issue; a point made in the wonderful book by Rachel Carson, Silent Spring. We have to get back to that balance of nature.
Land—the earth and the soil—will play a big part in that. Therefore, I was very disappointed that the amendment fell which would have insisted on setting a date at which the Government would treat soil with the same concern as they claim to have now for air and water. We in the House of Lords have certainly changed the attitude to water—suggesting that we should not contaminate it with sewage—so now let us get to soil, which is so important.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and I am very pleased that she secured this very important debate. If we are going to do this, I would like to see a department of land use. We really need to bring agriculture, the natural environment, forestry and planning together. As the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches said, planning is crucial here. It is important to have a land use strategy—and I would like to go further and have a land use department—because the planning system we have at the moment does not address in any way some of the major issues of land use. There is no connection with the net-zero strategy. This is the crucial issue. Unless the planning Bill which we are told we will have makes clear that the principal issue of planning is to help us meet our obligations under the Paris Agreement and our statutory commitment to deal with climate change and get to net zero by 2050, it will not have done its job properly.
We then come to the arguments which I have heard from others on both sides. It was extremely helpful to have my noble friend Lord Carrington speak first and then the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, second. I like to be in the middle, and I come between the two of them. I have to say to my noble friend that we must have a big change among farmers; it is not a question of just going on as we are. We cannot go on farming in the way we have. We have done great damage to the land, using things we should not use, and we will not be able to do it again. The appearance of flea beetle, black-grass and all the rest of it has shown what we have done and how we have ceased to deal with nature as we should. All of us should take some blame for that.
On the other hand, I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that the idea that somehow or other some great hand would decide what should be grown, how it should be grown, what it should be and all the rest of it seems thoroughly despicable. We really do not need that. We have to create the circumstances, as all Governments should, in which people find it easier to do good and more difficult to do bad. That is a very important mechanism that we have. We do that by having a proper planning Act, by helping farmers to move to responsible and regenerative agriculture, and by moving away from the use of artificial phosphates and the other things we have been doing, particularly poisoning so much. This has made us the worst country among developed countries for biodiversity. That is a terrible statement. I am afraid that part of that has been the fault of agriculture. We have to recover from that point of view.
To finish, I merely say this. If we are going to deal with these things, we have to deal with them holistically, but there is no means of doing so at the moment. I hope we will move to a Government with a ministry of land use, but, until we do, it seems we need a proper framework, within which each department can work, and which will help Defra to stand up and be counted on these issues and be more able to influence the decisions made by the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education, BEIS and the Treasury than it appears now to be. This is important for Defra, and I hope it will take this opportunity.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, it is somewhat intimidating to follow the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whose comments I agree with. I declare my interests as set out in the register as the unpaid chair of the Community Land Trust Network and a vice-president of the LGA. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, on securing a debate on this important topic and thank her for her extensive and knowledgeable introduction to this extremely vital subject. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. I am sure we will hear many more excellent contributions from him in future.
Land and the uses to which it is put should not be a haphazard process but properly thought out and part of an overarching strategy, not confined by zoning. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has raised these issues on several occasions, especially during the passage of the Agriculture Bill, in which I believe it would have been most usefully included, as agriculture takes up 72% of land. I agree with the majority of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington.
The House of Lords Rural Economy Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, called for a spatial plan for land use in England back in April 2019. In March 2020, the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, called for a special inquiry committee into a land use framework for England. The NFU, Green Alliance, Wildlife and Countryside Link, and the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission are all calling for a land use framework, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and those of us present here today. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spoke eloquently about infrastructure and the reuse of buildings instead of demolition.
Land is a finite resource and the many claims on it need to be planned in order to make the best use of it. Land swallowed up by private equity and businesses for forestry and carbon subsidies, without any thought to the strategic impact or democratic assessment, is unhelpful. How is the country to reach net zero by 2050 if all the elements of land use are not pulled together in a cohesive land use strategy?
Food production and food security are vital to the country. We have seen in recent weeks the effect on our food supplies of having insufficient lorry drivers to bring produce in from Europe. I have seen notices on supermarkets’ shelves saying how sorry they are that the usual choice of foods is not available for their special offers due to the difficulties of obtaining produce. The public have been used to a secure supply of food and find it unacceptable when this is not available. We must provide more food for ourselves, as the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said.
The Agriculture Act introduced environmental land management schemes to replace the old CAP system of payment. ELMS reward farmers for increasing biodiversity on their farms, improving the soil and hedgerows and encouraging wildlife back into the field margins—all excellent outcomes. The scheme does not provide financial reward for growing more crops and food but encourages higher yields; this is to come through selling produce in the marketplace. I fully support the return of a more environmentally friendly way of farming at the same time as encouraging food production.
I remember with horror the stories of farmers who had been contracted to produce a crop for a well-known chain of supermarkets only to be told that their crop was not sufficiently uniform in size or that the supermarket had decided that it did not need it. The result was the farmer ploughing their crop back into the ground. We cannot condone this and must attempt to do everything that we can to prevent food waste. A land use strategy that clearly covers the production of food is essential. I note the adverts on the Tube for boxes of vegetables delivered to your door from a company using produce that is too small, too bendy, too many and too ugly. We must use all the produce that farmers and growers provide, not just the shiniest and most uniform in size.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has long been a champion of forestry and ancient woodlands. Tree planting has moved up the Government’s agenda, but we need to plant the right tree species in the right places where they are likely to thrive and grow. The science behind this is extremely important and should be part of a proper land use strategy.
The provision of timber is likely to become the next big environmental issue as paper replaces plastic bags, but this does not help the country’s carbon footprint, as paper uses more carbon to produce than plastic. However, it does degenerate far more quickly and the waste has less impact on the earth.
Trees are, of course, important for carbon sequestration. However, how many councils set aside areas in their local plans specifically for tree planting and carbon sequestration? Of those councils that have peat moors and peat levels, how many have specific reference in their plans to carbon sequestration? Those with peat levels, such as Somerset, spend time licensing businesses to allow for the abstraction of peat for garden use. It is time that the Government banned the sale of such peat for garden use completely. There are, after all, alternative products to enrich the soil in gardens without the use of peat.
On the upside of this, there are brilliant reclamation schemes in place for extinct or redundant peat workings. I have visited some and seen the return of birds and wildlife to the refilled ponds, rhines and banks surrounding these areas. What was an eyesore is now a pleasant place to walk and relax and for a family to spend time together in the open air.
Planning departments are involved in all the above and have a positive role to play, but it is currently up to each individual planning authority—whether on a district, county, unitary or metropolitan council—to decide to what extent it plans for the whole land use in its area or just housing numbers, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, mentioned. It would be remiss of me, given the passage of the PCSC Bill, not to mention the need for all local authorities to include the provision of sites for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers in their plans.
The Government make a lot of noise about providing homes, both by private developers and for social housing. However, they do not provide the continuity to give local authorities, housing associations, developers or registered social landlords any indication that they are serious about the subject. I have been the chair of the Community Land Trust Network for six years and come to the end of my term of office next month. During this time, we have seen seven Housing Ministers—a turnover of over one a year. During the six years we have had Brandon Lewis, Gavin Barwell, Alok Sharma, Dominic Raab, Kit Malthouse, Esther McVey and Christopher Pincher. This does not inspire the housing providers with confidence and definitely not continuity.
While the Government are talking about how local authority planning departments are too slow in processing planning applications, there are over a million extant planning applications in the system. I am sure that the Minister is fed up with hearing that statistic, but extant planning applications blight the land. Developers offer landowners an option and, years later, the developer puts in a planning application. During this time, the landowner is unlikely to make any investment in the land. Once an application is submitted, local residents, depending on where the land is, mount a counterattack to preserve their green space—if it is green space. Residents are overruled, planning is granted and then what? Nothing. The land may sit there for years. A drainage ditch may be dug, some posts and markers may be put into the ground, but often not even that happens. No homes are built. Sometimes detailed plans are produced, but still no homes are built. While the country is suffering a housing shortage, this situation is a disgrace, but it could easily be tackled by legislation.
I want to raise the role of community land trusts in helping to provide housing led by the community in both rural and urban areas. Very rural hamlets and villages are nervous of overdevelopment, but taking charge of providing the housing that they need through a CLT is a brilliant way of achieving a win-win situation. CLTs do not only serve the smaller communities; there are other larger developments operating under the CLT banner.
Kennett CLT is working with East Cambridgeshire District Council to take forward a 500-home garden village which will own the public space and 10% of the homes when completed. The architects who did the master plan commented on how refreshing it was to codesign it with local people who were thinking about the long-term stewardship of their community. Walterton & Elgin Community Homes owns over 600 homes in north Paddington. Two council estates were transferred to its ownership in 1993 and since then it has invested over £37 million to renovate, demolish, replace and build new homes. Additionally, it has a new community centre, nursery and commercial space. It is one of the most highly rated social landlords in the country and is entirely community owned and run. These are brilliant examples of where communities think about the land use in their area and ensure that it delivers for their needs. Why are the Government not doing the same?
Land is scarce and has to be stretched to provide a very wide range of facilities in order for the country to be a leader in biodiversity, carbon sequestration, secure food production, safe and secure homes for its residents and sufficient open spaces for those residents to be able to live healthy lives. Surely now is the time, on the cusp of COP 26, for the Government to take steps to ensure that a land use framework is in place for England as it is for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Can the Minister tell the House why the Government are dragging their feet on this issue and are out of step with the devolved Administrations?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I should begin by declaring an interest as a board member of the South Downs National Park, which is the planning authority for that protected landscape.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Young for tabling this debate today. I must say that when I saw the speakers’ list for this debate, despite the fact that there are some regrettable but understandable absentees, I knew that we would be in safe hands—and this has proved to be the case, because we have heard a number of wise and thoughtful contributions, for which I thank all noble Lords.
I particularly thank and welcome the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and congratulate him on what I though was a very inspiring speech. He clearly has a great deal to contribute to our rural debates. I hope that his passion for organic farming and renewable technologies will indeed help to shape our policies for the future. I absolutely agreed when he said that we need to treat the countryside with the respect that it truly deserves.
As my noble friend Lady Young said, we debated the issue of land planning at length during the passage of the then Agriculture Bill and again during the passage of the then Environment Bill, and, on each outing, I am pleased to say that she has won more converts to her cause. She has certainly persuaded me along the way.
The fact is that in the UK, and particularly in England, we have an acute shortage of land and the demands and expectations of what the land will deliver are becoming intense. On the one hand, we want to set aside land for habitat renewal, to plant more trees for carbon sequestration, to provide more green spaces for recreation and to become more self-sufficient in food. On the other hand, as we have heard, the pressure for more housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure competes with our love and respect for those green spaces. Add to that the fact that land is scarce, expensive and its ownership is concentrated in very few hands, and the pressures become insurmountable.
During the passage of the Environment Bill, we debated these pressures at length. My noble friend Lady Young talked about the Bill’s proposals for nature recovery strategies, which are intended to map and provide a nature recovery framework. Local government is intended to be a key partner in this, but we also know—and have heard again today—that it will be conflicted by pressures to build. As my noble friend Lord Whitty, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and others have said, sadly, the balance of power between the environment and development now lies firmly with the developers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, made a further important point, which is that even when developers get the right to develop, they do not—and it is an even worse use of land when it is just left moribund.
Meanwhile, as we know, in future, through the reforms of the Agriculture Act, landowners and farmers will be incentivised to renature their land. The sustainable farming incentive will replace the basic payments scheme and, we hope, will move away from intensive agriculture and change the face of our landscape. We can all see the sense in this, and it is essential that we use this opportunity to work with the farming community to halt the decline in biodiversity and ensure that it plays its part in achieving our net-zero ambitions.
However, I also agree with my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that in this model, sadly, there is a danger that food production will be increasingly squeezed, as the strategy is that it should be determined by the market, with the worrying trend for trade deals to undermine the environmental and economic stability of the UK farming community. So food production must be an essential part of our land use going forward.
I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that we need to look more closely at the types of food produced and the need for more locally sourced fruit and vegetables. I did not see that as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, described it—a big hand coming down on the farmers—but as part of the incentives that we give for different developments in agriculture for the future. We have an incentive-based scheme at the moment.
The Environment Bill also encourages landowners to sign up to long-term conservation covenants: taking land out of agriculture to provide environmental offsets for the damage caused by building elsewhere. The private sector is already establishing institutions that can buy and sell those offsets, and new markets will undoubtedly develop, which many have likened to the wild west, with little strategic oversight of the outcome of that buying and selling; some indeed being done by overseas investors, who do not necessarily have an interest in the use of that land.
In the South Downs, we are already hearing of farmers being approached to provide forgo farming and instead provide carbon offsets for developments taking place along the coast, and the introduction of biodiversity net gain will ramp up those sorts of offers. This is so far happening on a piecemeal basis, outside any strategic plan for the preservation of the protected landscapes. Meanwhile, the National Farmers’ Union has already talked about conservation covenant stacking, where one farmer could be providing offsets for a number of developers, potentially having multiple commitments on the same piece of land. There is clearly money to be made from this—but is it really what we want? These developments seem to be taking place before we have had a hard look at what is the best use of this very scarce resource.
My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, made a compelling case for a Defra strategic map, underpinned by proper-quality data, which would help determine that land use and the priorities for the future. The case was made that that should not be for just one use; it should be multifunctional. You can have more than one use for a piece of land.
Meanwhile, over in DLUHC—are we allowed to call it “D-Luck”?; I will be interested to hear how the Minister describes it, but I will stick with that for the moment—the Government are seeking reforms to simplify and speed up planning decisions in an effort to increase the number of new homes. As we know, local residents, communities and local councils would be the losers from these reforms and it is fair to say that, as a result, the proposals have not gone down very well.
The Government’s accompanying planning White Paper had virtually nothing to say about how the new planning system would work towards the Government’s goals around net zero. This concern was echoed by the HCLG Select Committee, which urged that any changes to planning should also address climate change and creating sustainable development, as well as dealing with the increased threat of flooding. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, the latest net-zero strategy, written by BEIS, also has little reference to land use. He rightly made the point that that is because Defra does not have a policy on it and is therefore missing out on the opportunity to have any influence on it.
Of course, the appointment of Michael Gove to the new department in September has allowed the unpopular reform of planning to be paused. We are all curious to know how much of a rethink is taking place in the department on this matter, so can the Minister confirm that any revamped reforms will place local people at the heart of decision-making? With COP 26 about to start, can he say what urgent steps are being taken to ensure that our planning system is fit for purpose? Does he accept that our planning system needs to go hand in hand with tackling the climate crisis, whether in insulating existing homes, providing sustainable transport links or tackling the amount of carbon in the construction process?
All those issues come back to the impact of development on the environment and how we make the best decisions for land use. It is an issue which interlinks a number of government departments, all of which currently have competing interests and priorities. This is where my noble friend’s land use framework should step in. It would provide an overarching strategy for approaching the planning and investment decisions that impact on our land. It would provide head space to balance out the competing pressures, away from the day-to-day micro decisions that impact on land use—many of which, once taken, are irreversible. It would also help to address the important point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about the pressures and trends to be too parochial, rather than addressing the greater good.
I hope that the Minister, having heard this debate today, will agree to take my noble friend’s land use framework back to the Secretary of State as something that should underpin any future planning reforms. I hope he has also listened to the persuasive case made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, for a ministry of land use, and that he can at least agree that we should use this “Gove pause” as a chance for a complete rethink of our approach to land use, and take into account that in future, a strategic framework should be key. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I did not realise that the first thing I would need to address is how to pronounce the acronym for my department. To my knowledge, it is not known as the department for “LUHC”; we tend to call it “DLUHC”. Some other people have called it the “DLHC”, but I think “DLUHC” is winning the day at the moment.
I thank the noble Lady, Baroness Young of Old Scone, for moving the Motion on this topic. I have listened with great interest to the various points raised and will address them in turn. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her continued scrutiny through her roles in the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, the Woodland Trust, the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee and the Rural Economy Committee. She is certainly keeping herself extremely busy.
I thank the noble Baroness for her valuable work in ensuring that planning is considered alongside other infrastructure, landscape and agricultural land processes. There can be no doubt that these are all important considerations when making decisions on land use. The Government agree that a strategic approach to planning—alongside infrastructure, environmental, landscape and agriculture considerations—is absolutely essential. That is why we have a National Planning Policy Framework, which provides a streamlined, cohesive framework within which locally prepared plans for housing and other development can be produced. It must be taken into account by local authorities in preparing their development plans and it is a material consideration in planning decisions.
The framework supports a flexible approach that can be tailored to the specific nature and extent of the strategic issues facing each local area. It is complemented by a number of other measures right across government that set out planning, infrastructure, landscape and agricultural processes. This includes the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime, which applies to major infrastructure. It ensures that the environmental benefits or disbenefits, and the views of local communities and local authorities that may be affected, are taken fully into account by the Secretary of State, who makes decisions on whether to grant development consent.
I also know how important it is to local communities that new housing development is supported by the provision of infrastructure that benefits both new and existing residents. Contributions from developers play an important part in delivering the infrastructure that new homes and local economies require. My colleagues in Transport have set out a number of important measures to support the delivery of important transport infrastructure. England’s long-term National Bus Strategy, Bus Back Better, sets out a bold vision for bus services across the country, and the transport decarbonisation plan is the biggest piece of work we have ever done to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from transport.
We are confident that our planning system can and will enable multifunctional land use for the benefit of the environment, without needing to completely tear up the rule book and use a framework for all land uses.
I wholeheartedly agree with the statements made by my noble friend Lord Goldsmith when this topic arose in your Lordships’ House in September. It is critical that we take a long view on our natural wealth and ecosystems as part of our strategic approach. I echo his message that the Government are already taking a strategic approach to land use, particularly when it comes to environmental aims.
Again, I thank your Lordships for your contributions today and will now endeavour to respond to the points raised. I start by saying what a tremendous maiden speech my noble friend Lord Harlech gave. He will certainly grace this House for many years to come—far longer than I will, for sure—and will make some powerful contributions. I appreciated his comments about the importance of digital connectivity in rural settings.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, mentioned that today a memorial service for the Earl of Selborne is taking place. I got to know him when I was leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and I asked him whether he would be able to conduct a commission for me. I know what a champion of the environment he was, in particular pushing the case for sustainable urban drainage as an alternative solution to grey infra- structure. He is a great loss to this House and someone I admired greatly.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, spoke about the current mechanisms we have in place to integrate decisions across all land uses. What we are hearing is a call for integration, and we are working with other departments. DLUHC is working with Defra and BEIS to ensure that our environmental goals are achieved in an integrated and efficient way. Trade-offs are being carefully managed and the Government are focused on achieving multifunctional land use.
I say in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch—this point was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—that I simply do not agree that the balance has tipped entirely so that powers are solely in the hands of developers. As someone who spent six years as a council leader looking to grow my borough, I simply do not accept that. We have recently reaffirmed that local authorities remain very much in the driving seat in designating, protecting and enhancing land use and protecting the green belt to prevent urban sprawl and encroachment on to greenfield and around towns and cities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, also raised the question of how local nature recovery strategies relate to the planning system and decisions on agricultural land. Our approach to spatial prioritisation is intended to integrate with the local nature recovery strategies. Doing so will create policy coherence for land managers on the ground, as well as enabling environmental land management schemes’ funding streams from schemes that reward farmers and land managers for producing environmental benefits to dovetail with other funding streams such as biodiversity net gain.
A number of noble Lords—among them, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone, Lady Boycott, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle—called for a new land use framework or a new land use strategy. In fact, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, offered to send over a draft strategy from the recent Green Party conference. I am sure our officials will be happy to take a closer look at that. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Deben called for another ministry, for land use. I am sure we will have to work out the acronym before we create another ministry, but that is a central thing that all the speakers were calling for.
The Government are already doing much to ensure a strategic approach to land use across England. They are also reviewing what more might be needed following the excellent food strategy report led by Henry Dimbleby. We have made a commitment to answer the recommendations within six months, so your Lordships will have to wait a while for a full response.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and my noble friend Lord Deben mentioned that ELMS will not be available until 2024, and that we will not know what is in it until then. It is fair to say that part of ELMS will be rolled out before 2024. We have been conducting tests since 2018, which will continue throughout the transition period. We plan to start a phased rollout of the local nature recovery scheme from 2023, so by 2024 we will have fully introduced our three new environmental land management schemes.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, this does not seem to me to have anything to do with the timetable of farmers. Farmers have to plant and then, when the harvest comes, plant again. This means that they will have no certainty about what to do when one system is phased out and the other is only half in. That is what the EFRA committee said and that is what we are trying to drive home to the Government: it is a question of the harvest, which the Government cannot change—that is the way the world works.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I recognise that, as we phase out the old system and bring in the new, we need to work on proper communication, so that our farmers have that framework. I am sure my colleagues in Defra will continue to ensure that there is a clear direction of travel. I take my noble friend’s point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised the need for a guide to how ELMS are being rolled out. We published the agricultural transition plan in November 2020, and a progress update in June 2021, setting out a timeline for how ELMS are being rolled out; we will be publishing more information later this year. I hope that also addresses my noble friend’s overarching point.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, raised the importance of having sufficient land for food. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, raised the question of how food is produced. I know she is an absolute expert on this, as the former chair of the London Food Board when we both served the then mayor in City Hall. The Government agree that there is an urgent need to protect the natural assets that are essential to food production in this country. Under our new environmental land management schemes, farmers, foresters and other land managers will be paid for delivering environmental public goods. ELMS will support farmers to increase productivity and enable the more efficient use of land. The farming investment fund and the farming innovation programme will support investment in equipment, technology and infrastructure.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Thornhill and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, all pressed for a further update on planning reforms. It is clear that our planning system needs modernisation, to be one that embraces digital technology, benefits communities and creates places that we are proud of. I know that some aspects of the proposals have attracted great debate, so it is unsurprising that we are taking some time to review the reforms and listen to voices from across the sector. We will announce the next steps in due course. However, we are clear that the reforms must address the priorities of this Government: levelling up, delivering infrastructure, supporting communities and delivering the homes that we need in the places where we need them.
I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, that I think you can achieve more homes without necessarily having to build a future battery of high rises. It is quite obvious that we can learn from the Victorians, who used their pattern books and developed high-density homes—particularly mansion blocks, such as the one where I grew up as a child, in Fulham. They often had between 750 and 900 habitable rooms per hectare. They are not that tall but they are dense, and provide decent accommodation for many families. Housing typology does not always mean that you have to revert to the high-rise.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, there have been a number of housing secretaries, but I would point out that the current one, Chris Pincher, has been in office longer than I have. He had been there for a month before I was appointed a Minister in the February reshuffle of 2020, so we have already gone a good 18 months with some continuity. I am sure he will continue to serve for some time to come, so we have continuity in place.
I assure the noble Baroness that the Government already take a strategic approach to land use that covers urban and rural development. However, as the processes that I have outlined today cut right across multiple policy areas, it is only right that they remain separate and that we keep localism at the heart of our approach.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, once again for the topic of the debate. As someone who grew up in a city environment, I have certainly learned a lot about agricultural land-use planning. I thank noble Lords for all their expert contributions, and I look forward to continuing to work with this House on such important matters.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate today for the near unanimity around the Chamber on the need for a joined-up set of principles and a framework. I will come on to talk briefly about my reaction to what the Minister said, but I thank him for his response.
The very personal maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, was quite heart-breaking, really; I felt moved. I am sure that, with his range of backgrounds, he will be an adornment to our House. I particularly liked his identification of the potential for a variety of roles for land managers in future; this is indeed an opportunity for land managers to think about what they can do to deliver some of these pressing national priorities.
I turn to the Minister’s remarks. I feel that to quote the NPPF as the overarching set of principles that guide all of this is probably giving a role to the NPPF that it cannot really bear. There is no doubt that it has to be supplemented with a whole range of other regimes, some of them already existing and others non-existent. The Minister quoted the bus strategy, the transport plan and the nationally significant infrastructure project regimes; all of these are prepared by different parts of government, and I do not believe the NPPF brings those together. It does not bring together the particularly pressing issues of carbon and biodiversity, nor does it do much to try to bring some shape and direction to the changes that are going to happen in land use as a result of the changes in agriculture.
As far as ELMS are concerned, I think we are now piloting the pilots; it has been piloted again and again, and it is getting to a stage where farmers are beginning to despair and are looking for leadership. If we are not careful, we will stumble into a set of solutions for agricultural land, with no national or indeed local oversight, that is driven entirely by the perceptions of 100,000 farmers and what they think ELMS mean. That is quite a dangerous place to be.
Another dangerous place to be is illustrated by that heart-breaking statistic about the number of local groups that are springing up all over the place because they are very unhappy about what is happening with land-use decisions. I personally worry about being cast as a nimby, because I am campaigning in north Bedfordshire where—just to show the lack of valency in the local nature recovery strategy process—the recovery strategy has identified an area in need of protection as being a high-quality area for nature recovery, but it is in the local authority’s planning system as somewhere to put 6,500 new housing units, in an area badly served by transport and other infrastructure. So local nature recovery strategies are not proving to be the answer either.
It was a bit of a giveaway at the very end when the Minister, in his account of the objectives of the new planning system, talked about houses, infrastructure, development and economic benefit but did not once manage to mention climate change or biodiversity. I believe we are seeing a huge divide between the formal planning system and these many quasi-planning systems that are growing up around other bits of government policy, and that is not the way forward.
Still, having campaigned to get greater clarity in this area, I am not going to give up. What I heard around the House was that people agreed that there need to be some overarching principles that are not directive but enabling, and not prescriptive but releasing—they are the words that I heard—because the right outcomes will not happen by chance. So I urge all noble Lords who have been convinced of the value of the debate today to lobby their Liaison Committee representative. On 15 November, the Liaison Committee will make a decision on the next series of ad hoc Select Committees, and a land use Select Committee is on the shortlist. If noble Lords feel that that would be a good idea, I ask them to go and lobby their representative. That is probably against the rules of this House, but what ho.
I thank all involved today. I have now completely forgotten what form of words I am supposed to use, but I have already moved my Motion.
Treasury Green Book
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what changes, if any, they plan to make to HM Treasury’s Green Book and related guidance to demonstrate global leadership as chair of COP 26.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, when I tabled this Question for Short Debate, I was of course aware that it would be on the day after the Budget and the first ping-pong on the Environment Bill, and on the House’s last Sitting before the commencement of the COP 26 climate talks.
I thought that meant that I would be able to bounce off the Budget announcements, which would take full account of the climate emergency and nature crisis, the former of which the Prime Minister has at least, somewhat grudgingly, acknowledged in his own words. I hoped—perhaps against hope—that we might have seen the Government accept the majority of the 14 carefully considered amendments to the Environment Bill that your Lordships’ House sent to the other place, particularly the crucial amendments on the power and independence of the office for environmental protection and on the acceptance of the need for interim targets, as provided for under the Climate Change Act. I also hoped that they would have accepted my own amendment on soils and the amendment driven by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, which would see the Treasury and the military included under the crucial five environmental principles at the heart of the Act. That would have seen us, as the chair of COP 26, beginning this crucial fortnight for the future of the planet, if not in the place where our nation should be, in at least a moderately prepared state.
Instead, we can feel a palpable sense of shock across the nation at the delivery, yesterday, of a Budget that can only be a reminder of the movie “Back to the Future”, for those old enough to remember it. For the Budget yesterday was one that, almost to the last word, could have been delivered in the year in which that film begins, 1985. The words “climate” and “nature” appear in it an easily measurably number of times: none. The word “growth” appears 14 times. The phrase,
“biggest business tax cut in modern British history”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; cols. 282-83.]
appears, in a manner wholly redolent of the sixth year of Margaret Thatcher’s prime ministership.
The only significant new measure that the Government might call “green”—a chunk of funding for new nuclear power—is also a return to 1985 and the movie where the dangerous vehicle that drives the plot is powered by plutonium. This is a reminder of how nuclear power seemed to be the future then, whereas it is clear now, to most of the world at least, that it is an outdated, astonishingly expensive and inflexible technology that is deeply unreliable in delivery.
However, it was of course in 1985 that the first major international conference on the greenhouse effect, in Villach, Austria, warned that greenhouse gases could, in the last half of the next century,
“cause a rise of global … temperature which is greater than any in man’s history”,
adding the risk of sea-level rises of up to one metre. Some 36 years ago, this was, we now know, an astonishingly accurate warning, yet it seems one that parts of this Government at least, most notably the Chancellor and the Treasury, have still not heard.
Yet we have a Government who also say that they accept the legal duty in the Environment Bill—indeed, they wrote it—that Ministers must have due regard to the environmental principles policy statement when making policy across government. Of course, the Treasury’s Green Book is an important guide to that policy-making. In a Written Answer to Green MP Caroline Lucas in the other place on 16 June, Rebecca Pow confirmed:
“These principles will … be embedded into existing government policy making guidance, including HM Treasury’s Green Book.”
Yet that policy statement still exists only in draft form, on which the Government completed a consultation on 2 June. Noble Lords can read on the government website that the results would be published within 12 weeks, which by my calculation is 26 August. It is now 28 October.
In a Written Answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on Tuesday, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, said for the Government that the result of the consultation would be published “later in the year”. This does not compute, and I hope that the Minister will be able to provide a firmer timetable for the completion of this process, which would seem to be essential for the urgent process of making Her Majesty’s Treasury’s Green Book fit for the age of the climate emergency, which the Green Alliance, among other organisations, called for as a matter of urgency in its submission to that consultation.
The first of the five environmental principles listed in the Environment Bill is the integration principle. It is there on page 11 of the Bill, in its current form, which cites
“the principle that environmental protection should be integrated into the making of policies”.
Yet the Green Book and the Budget are built on an assumption of growth as a desirable and achievable outcome of investment. I go to Professor Jason Hickel of the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, writing in Nature Energy earlier this year:
“Established climate mitigation scenarios assume continued economic growth in all countries, and reconcile this with the Paris targets by betting on speculative technological change. Post-growth approaches may make it easier to achieve rapid mitigation while improving social outcomes.”
Carbon capture and storage, new nuclear and nature- based off-setting—check, check, check—all sound like “speculative technological change”. This is not to mention it not being possible to square these with number 5 of the environmental principles: the precautionary principle.
The Green Book starts with the idea of a project and then counts its effects. If it were truly to meet the environmental principles, it should surely adopt the approach of the “mission-oriented government”, as advocated by Professor Mariana Mazzucato, founder of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL:
“instead of having an industrial strategy that is a list of sectors”
that government is
“going to give subsidies to … the question should be: What are the problems you’re facing (climate change …, for example). And then work backward to figure out how all sectors and actors in the economy … can help deliver solutions.”
That is what a 21st-century Budget and Green Book fit for the age of shocks in which we live, on a planet where humans have stretched right up to, and all too frequently exceeded, the limits and boundaries of what the earth can bear, would look like.
Indeed, in its own review of the Green Book in 2020, the Treasury acknowledged serious faults: a failure to ensure that the strategic relevance of projects was clear from the outset and too heavy a reliance on the benefit-to-cost ratio because of a lack of strategic direction in the appraisal process. It has since attempted to remedy these faults with what is generally accepted as limited success. There are also attempts, through the supplementary guidance, to integrate consideration of well-being in project proposals and guidance for enabling a “natural capital approach”, which the Treasury could of course be drawing on from its own Dasgupta review. But there is still no consideration of our inability to continue GDP growth, an alternative qualitative metric to the benefit-to-cost ratio or an assessment of the overall impact of Treasury spending, rather than a project-by-project approach.
But I do not just want to posit all of this in the abstract; I am a Green, so of course I am ready to set out solutions. One worked-through example of this approach, to which I have already referred in your Lordships’ House, is the New Zealand Living Standards Framework, which is underpinned by four measured forms of capital that, it directs, must be enhanced and protected: natural capital, human capital, social capital, and the combination of financial and physical capital.
If you look at the budget delivered in New Zealand this May, you can start to see what a truly green budget, and a Green Book approach, could look like. It is called a well-being budget, and that is not just spin in the title. It is clear that the strategic direction driving every part of it is improving human and natural well-being. It is not just looking at this year, or the problems of this moment; it has a focus on the well-being of future generations—an approach that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, has been so clear in promoting in your Lordship’s House, which the Welsh Government are already well on the way to promoting, and which the UK Government have yet to even consider.
Underlying this is an ability to think systemically, to truly operate within the framework of the sustainable development goals that the whole world—the UK included—has signed up to. But I am a realist, and it is clear that to suddenly update the Green Book to truly measure and advance, in a balanced and systematic way, natural, human, social, financial and physical capital, would be well beyond the capacity of Her Majesty’s Treasury. So, I am going to offer a simpler solution, one that would enable the Government to expand beyond their one 20th-century, outdated, misleading, measure of GDP, into at least two dimensions. It is something the Green Party has been proposing for many years—that each government spending decision, each project, should have a carbon budget attached, as well as a financial one. Many critics have pointed out the lack of such in the Government’s other recent big announcements—the net-zero review and the heat and buildings strategy. It is not that difficult; it is entirely appropriate licence for the chair of COP. Can the Minister tell me when the Treasury plans to provide at least that modest step towards systems thinking?
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing this debate before the House, and I share her consternation at the Budget presented yesterday. It was shocking but, in a sense, unsurprising, given the history of the Treasury on these issues.
The Green Book exemplifies everything that is wrong with our approach to policymaking. It embraces a myopic Treasury view that has somehow survived through multiple changes of Government, despite the damage it has done to our economy and our society, as well as to our planet. The Green Book claims that it provides objective analysis to support decision-making but, in fact, it represents an approach that elevates a narrow cost-benefit approach over long-term policy objectives.
I take the most recent example of the heat and building strategy introduced last week. Among other things, the strategy introduces a new grant scheme aimed at installing 90,000 air source heat pumps each year. The purpose of introducing heat pumps is presumably to reduce carbon emissions in order to contribute to our net-zero objectives, yet the Treasury has turned this objective on its head. The grant scheme it has approved—or, most likely, imposed on BEIS—has cut the link between the size of the grant and the carbon emissions saved, and has focused instead on maximising the number of heat pumps installed regardless of the impact on emissions. This, in the world of the Green Book, is value for money, presumably based on what it calls its benefit-cost ratio model, and which the rest of us know as a cost-benefit analysis. The Treasury’s language, like its priorities, is back to front. The Treasury’s own review of the Green Book made the point that it was far too reliant on that model.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the approach the Treasury has approved on heat pumps risks a colossal misallocation of finance, significantly inflating the cost for every tonne of carbon saved compared with alternative models. The BEIS Treasury scheme requires individual households to apply for grants to cover the cost of installing an air source heat pump, meaning the installation of these pumps will be on an atomised and inefficient basis, which will make planning for the electricity grid almost impossible and will come with the inevitably high costs of grant administration. The Treasury seems to have lost sight of the real objective, which should be maximising the reduction in carbon emissions, rather than installing the maximum number of heat pumps. The two are not necessarily the same, but Her Majesty’s Treasury does not seem to understand that fact.
Neither BEIS nor the Treasury makes any reference to having looked at comparative models of net cost for different deployment strategies, and it appears that they have not done their own work on the subject either. Can the Minister tell us, for example, what consideration the Treasury gave, if any, to an alternative network solution for heat pumps, installing collective ground arrays on a neighbourhood basis which individual households could then choose to connect to, just as households previously chose whether they wished to connect to the gas or electricity grids or the sewage system? Would that not be a much more cost-effective solution and much more practical for households, rather than each installing their own individual pump? Similarly, what objective analysis did the Green Book model imply for assessing the costs to, and practicalities of, the national electricity grid, for making provision to meet the huge spikes in demand that significant numbers of individual air source heat pumps, haphazardly located around the country, could place on the grid when they have to switch to electric coil mode in cold conditions—the equivalent of a vast number of kettles being switched on at the same time?
The current approach that the Government are taking is as if, at the time we switched to gas in our homes, we had offered an individual grant scheme for any home to install a Calor Gas heating system without any thought as to how the Calor Gas would be distributed or of the huge additional costs to individuals and the economy of such an atomised approach. Thankfully, local and national government back then took a more thoughtful approach, creating first local and then national gas grids, which households could connect to. In those days, of course, the Treasury’s dead hand lay much less heavily on local government than it does today.
Can the Minister tell the House what options the Treasury considered? Did it, for example, consider alternatives such as issuing tenders for the installation of network heat pump arrays on a street-by-street basis? Such a model could ensure that installation was carried out in a planned way in tandem with the national grid; it could also ensure that deployment was prioritised for the coldest areas of the country and areas of greatest need. In turn, this could have driven the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Did the Government consider using a regulated asset-based model, allowing capped connection and standing charges to fund the necessary infrastructure over its lifetime? Did the Treasury use the Green Book approach to assess these various options before rejecting them, or did it just not consider them at all?
I dwell on the issue of heat pumps because it perfectly illustrates the failure of the myopic Green Book approach—the failure to look at the actual policy objectives that one is trying to realise, instead judging everything on a financial cost basis. It is on this basis that the Treasury can rationalise a policy that maximises the number of heat pumps installed while minimising the amount of carbon saved per pound spent and directing the majority of the spending not to those in most need but to the wealthiest areas in the country most likely to apply for the grant. In the weird and wonderful ways of the Treasury, it will most likely call that a success.
Of course, that is not the only area where the Treasury’s myopic approach makes it penny-wise and pound-foolish. There is a litany of examples down the ages in a whole range of areas, but particularly on the green agenda. First, there is the Green Deal, and the Treasury’s lack of vision or understanding of the carbon impact on our planet from a massive leakage of energy from our homes, leading it to insist on rates of interest that doomed the scheme to failure. On renewable energy, Her Majesty’s Treasury’s constant resistance ensured that the industrial benefits of Britain’s hugely successful shift to wind generation were largely enjoyed by competitor nations. The current short-sighted failure to take advantage of our industrial leadership on green hydrogen production makes it likely that, once again, we will hand that advantage to our overseas competitors.
Most recently, there is the monumental debacle of the Green Homes Grant scheme, which failed to deliver the home energy efficiency improvements that it promised, was catastrophically counterproductive in undermining the willingness of the construction industry to develop the skills needed for the green economy of the future, and failed even to provide the short-term stimulus that the Treasury claimed as the scheme’s raison d’être. In fact, the only stimulus that it really provided was to the private sector, in administrative fees of more than £1,000 per home. Such is the cost-effectiveness of Treasury thinking.
It is time for wholesale change to that model of government. It is time to recognise that we cannot keep talking about our net-zero targets while taking actions that completely contradict them; while we put forward a Budget that reduces taxation on the highest-polluting form of travel, at the same time as imposing record rail fare increases on one of the least carbon-intensive forms of travel. The country cannot afford to allow the Treasury to keep steering the ship of government on to the rocks on climate change issues. We need a wholly changed approach.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on securing this short debate. The speakers’ list may be short, but it is perfectly formed. The Question before us and the guidance it refers to may be highly technical in nature, but it is hugely important. It also follows on nicely from Monday’s Oral Question on the extent to which government departments are adopting National Audit Office guidance on climate-related risk. Before turning my attention to the Green Book, I would like to wish luck to everybody involved in the delivery of COP 26. The Prime Minister has sought to manage expectations in recent days, but it is in all our interests that the summit is a success. Recent Environment Bill debates on topics such as air and water quality do little to instil confidence that the Government are willing to show the type of global leadership that is needed. However, for the next two weeks we must work together to achieve the best possible outcomes for the planet.
The Government’s recent review of the Green Book was triggered by their wish to level up poorer parts of the UK, amid concerns that the previous guidance was preventing investment reaching such communities. The outcome has been to place greater emphasis on the strategic case of a project from the very beginning. Officials are told to present their projects in the context of the Government’s political priorities, in the hope of ensuring that the “right” projects progress to the benefit-cost ratio stage. The impact of projects on carbon emissions will need to be considered as part of the appraisal process, which is welcome. A number of other green strands feature in the Green Book, although contributing to the 2050 net-zero target is not quite the prerequisite one might expect.
The Dasgupta review included consideration of important areas such as how to boost recognition of the value of natural capital. While some metrics have been introduced, that review expressed concern that few business cases were making use of them. Unfortunately, there is little sense that the latest Treasury guidance addresses those issues. Dasgupta is not the only person to voice such concerns. An upcoming report by the UK100 network of mayors and local leaders will argue that government financial decisions fail to give sufficient weight to environmental and health benefits when deciding policy. They also worry that not enough emphasis is put on the potential savings and benefits of decarbonisation.
This intervention is timely as it follows the outcomes of the Treasury’s review of discount rates, which are central to this debate, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s updated valuations of greenhouse gas impacts. Both were published last month. The decision not to update the discount rate for long-term environmental benefits is predicated on the notion that under the revised guidance, initial forecasts of costs and benefits can be improved. One would certainly hope that the accuracy of such assessments will be boosted but it appears a risky strategy. Indeed, in correspondence with the Commons Treasury Committee, the Treasury’s Permanent Secretary conceded that the methodology for assessing environmental impacts of projects
“will always to some extent be ‘work in progress’”.
The Minister may be tempted to say that if the current approach does not work, a new iteration of the Green Book will take that into account. This may be true, but it will not account for the missed opportunities between times.
Another workstream being undertaken by the Treasury is the development of a dedicated means of valuing biodiversity during the benefit-cost ratio stage. Your Lordships’ House has just had a series of major debates on biodiversity as part of the Environment Bill, and the Government have set themselves the target of halting what they call “species abundance” decline by 2030. How does the Minister envisage the Green Book contributing to that target and when are we likely to see the new metrics?
It is hard to achieve absolute perfection in any bidding process. In a sense, we are always playing catch-up as guidance is designed to reflect and promote best practice, rather than adopt experimental approaches. Nevertheless, the outcomes of the Green Book review point to a certain lack of ambition in terms of securing environmental improvement and striding, rather than shuffling, towards the 2050 net-zero target. That same lack of ambition can be found elsewhere in government policy—indeed, in too many areas to list. That would appear to undermine the UK’s presidency of COP 26. For now, we must trust that Ministers have a grand plan, first to secure the commitments needed in Glasgow and then to start delivering on the promises made. If they do not, I am that sure your Lordships’ House will have much to say in the future.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to respond to this debate at what is a significant moment for efforts to tackle climate change. I also want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing forward this debate at a time when we must ensure that we all work together more than ever to preserve and enhance the world for ourselves and, as she alluded to, for future generations. I applaud the ingenuity of her timing, which I gather is by design. As she said, it is just after the Budget and just before COP 26. Perhaps, before I begin, I should recognise the key role that the United Kingdom is playing this year. At the COP 26 gathering in Glasgow, the UK will seek to boost global climate action and help to deliver a long-term transition to a net-zero, resilient and environmentally sustainable global economy.
I realise that the focus of this debate is on the Green Book, but I should just like to address some points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, on the spending review. I simply do not agree which either of them, particularly the noble Baroness and her pessimistic and negative assessments of the Budget. Let me say why. The spending review confirms our plan to deliver more than £600 billion in gross public sector investment over the Parliament. Our investment plans over the next five years mean that we will deliver the highest sustained levels of public sector net investment as a proportion of GDP since the late 1970s. The UK will lead international efforts to agree co-ordinated action on climate change, and the spending review reconfirms the Government’s commitment to doubling international climate finance from 2021. It also provides a significant increase in R&D funding to help UK researchers and business push the frontiers of knowledge in order to find solutions to major international development challenges, including on climate change. We do not hear this from the noble Baroness, and I wanted to put her right because it is easy to hear the negativity.
COP 26 will be the biggest summit of its kind the UK has ever held, with over 120 world leaders attending. Our ambition at this summit is to ensure that action is actually taken on the ground and across the world to tackle climate change, as it is these actions, not words, that will result in a transition to an environmentally sustainable global economy. The Government’s agenda has been simple: we are urging all countries to submit bold nationally determined contributions—NDCs—transformational long-term strategies and net-zero commitments, and to come forward with new adaptation and finance plans to ensure that this is a decade of ambitious climate action.
Day three of COP 26, the finance day, will include a strong focus on mobilising public and private capital to reach global net zero. The UK is leading the way here—for example, through our new infrastructure bank and the issuance of green gilts. The Treasury’s work, including on the Green Book—which I will come to in a moment—is part of our wider aim to mainstream climate into all decision-making.
The Government are convinced that to do this, international co-operation is key. That is why we have taken our influential work on the Green Book to international fora, such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action and the Paris Collaborative led by the OECD. Sharing our knowledge and expertise, but also the challenges we face when appraising policy, is crucial to making sure that climate change is tackled not just at home but internationally.
The Treasury’s Green Book plays an important role in framing decisions on domestic public spending. The Green Book provides guidance on the appraisal of policies, programmes and projects, and sets out a framework for providing objective advice to decision-makers by public servants. That does not mean that it represents the be-all and end-all of government spending, and we should be wary of giving it undue emphasis. That is because it does not outline the Government’s policy objectives. It simply provides an official framework for ensuring that policy objectives are met, such as our goals at COP 26 and our commitments on net zero, and that the relevant costs, benefits and risks of alternative approaches for meeting those objectives are also considered.
As I said earlier, it is actions that matter—and yes, leadership, which was alluded to in the title of this debate from the noble Baroness. For example, the net-zero strategy confirmed £26 billion of public capital investment since the 10-point plan. The Budget and the spending review confirm that since March 2021 the Government will have committed a total of £30 billion of domestic investment for the green industrial revolution. Taken together, this spending package, along with action on regulation and green finance, will keep the UK on track for its carbon budgets and 2030 nationally determined contribution and establishes the long-term pathway towards net zero by 2050.
I want to address the main focus of this debate. I will highlight the five areas of recent and planned action to comprehensively improve the Green Book on environmental appraisal to best support our policy objectives on net zero. From the tone of her speech, the noble Baroness is wholly unaware of such improvements and I am pleased, if I may, to put the House right and to inform the noble Baroness on this.
First, the 2020 Green Book review specifically focused on ensuring that strategic objectives are central to policy development and judging whether a proposal is value for money. When using the Green Book to appraise policy interventions, officials must start by assessing the strategic case for investment and how their intervention affects government objectives. Your Lordships will know that the Government’s policy objective to achieve net zero is a legal commitment.
In 2019, we amended the Climate Change Act 2008 to commit the UK to achieving net zero by 2050. The previous target was an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. This was the world’s first legally binding national commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to the net-zero target, the Climate Change Act 2008 sets out a system of interim carbon budgets, which are also legally binding, to ensure targets are met.
Secondly, the Green Book is continually updated so that it reflects the latest evidence, particularly for understanding the impacts of policy interventions on the environment, so that decision-makers are presented with robust evidence before making decisions. This work to continuously update the Green Book is led by the Treasury, with support from other departments.
Thirdly, the Treasury has worked with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to update supplementary guidance to the Green Book on carbon values. These are used across government for assessing greenhouse gas impacts in cost-benefit analysis. Only last month, these values were updated to reflect the latest evidence. They are consistent with the UK’s domestic pathway to net zero and meeting the Paris 1.5 degrees climate commitments. Noble Lords will be interested to know that reflecting these updates in appraisals leads to an increase in the cost estimates resulting from higher emissions.
Fourthly, Defra’s supplementary guidance to the Green Book, Enabling a Natural Capital Approach, was updated in August this year to incorporate new values available for environmental appraisal when using the Green Book.
Fifthly, the Treasury has convened a group of experts—including academic economists and scientists, and officials who use the Green Book—to inform and advise decision-makers to produce supplementary guidance on biodiversity valuation for the Green Book. This will lead to new supplementary guidance to the Green Book for valuing biodiversity as part of appraisal.
I would like to go slightly further and raise three further points to address some questions the noble Baroness raised. First, the Green Book mandates the consideration of climate and environmental impacts in appraisal. That applies to appraising spending, including spending review bids from departments. Secondly, the Treasury continues to develop the Green Book and its supplementary guidance alongside its cross-government chief economist appraisal group, which oversees developments, so that it is at the forefront of the latest evidence, including its environmental appraisal. Thirdly, the Treasury is currently working alongside the group of experts. I go further by saying that this is supplementary guidance on the biodiversity valuation.
We have taken significant steps to update the Green Book, but it is also true that improving policy appraisal and evidence in the Green Book is a continuous and cross-government effort that will continue after COP 26. That is particularly true for environmental appraisal.
The noble Lord, Lord Oates, in most of his speech, raised some important points about heat pumps. It may well be that I need to write a letter to him about the specific and technical questions he raised, but I will say this. The approach we are setting out will ensure that the transition is fair and affordable for consumers. These are two important points. It will mean people living in warmer and more efficient homes that are cheaper to heat. We will work with the grain of consumer choice. No one will be required to rip out or scrap their existing boiler and we will ensure that the biggest polluters pay the most for the transition.
We will work with businesses to continue delivering deep cost reductions in low-carbon tech through support for the latest state-of-the-art kit to bring down costs for consumers and deliver benefits for businesses. Our £450 million boiler upgrade scheme will provide £5,000 towards the costs of new air source heat pumps, making green heating more affordable. That is just a short answer, but the noble Lord raised a lot of questions.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, talked about the Dasgupta Review and raised an important point. I think he will know that the Government published their formal response to the review in June. The Government agree with the review’s central conclusion that nature, and the biodiversity that underpins it, ultimately sustain our economies, livelihoods and well-being. Economic and financial decision-making must account for this. Building on the ambitious existing nature agenda, the response sets out the ways in which the Government will go further, framed around two high-level commitments.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, mentioned the discount rate. I think we could probably have a whole debate on that subject. I will say very briefly that, as committed to in the 2020 Green Book review—to bring us back to this subject—the Treasury worked with leading academics to understand whether there is a case for reducing the discount rate for environmental impacts. He will know that the outcome of this was published in September. Following a series of workshops and engagement, the academic consensus was that discount rates should be no different for environmental impacts from other impacts considered in appraisal.
The focus of COP 26 will be on how we continue to take ambitious climate action. As I am sure the House will agree, tackling climate change is a huge undertaking requiring both national and international action. Updates to the Green Book are a small but influential element of that action where we will strive to remain at the forefront of international best practice.
It is fair to say that we cannot be certain of the outcomes of COP 26, but one thing is sure. I want to emphasise to the House today that this Government have worked tirelessly to ensure that climate stays at the very top of the global agenda in the international effort to keep 1.5 degrees within reach.
I conclude simply by again thanking the noble Baroness and the other noble Lords for their insightful and constructive contributions. As David Attenborough said only a few days ago on the news, which I happened to see:
“If we don’t act now, it’ll be too late.”
He is absolutely right.
Homes: Affordability
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Bird (CB)
My Lords, it seems very apposite to try to bring together the things that we see at this moment that seem to be causing a lot of anxiety among people with very little—these are people who are on the edge, just about managing and just about coping—around fuel, the cost of heating, and the cutting of the universal credit top-up which, noble Lords will remember, was the cut that Mr Osborne made to the universal credit. The £20, in fact, was only trying to go back to an earlier time and therefore was not a top-up; it was a reintroduction of something that had been cut in the days of austerity. When you look at that and at the end of furlough, you have— and I am sorry to use the cliché that everybody talks about—a “perfect storm”. It is a perfect storm for hundreds of thousands—millions—of people who are caught in this kind of trap where their costs are going up.
I am not really going to dwell on that this afternoon, because I know that the forensic evidence will come from what I would call my “forensic posse”—the other people who are going to talk about this—and they are much, much better informed on that. What I would really like to talk about is why it is that, every now and then, we seem to have these arguments about the very difficult circumstances that many people—the poorest among us—find themselves in. Why is it that, post Covid, we are still in an emergency but are trying to pretend that we are in a recovery?
On Monday of this week, I was on a TV programme that dealt with all of these issues, among other things. It was mainly lots of people complaining to the programme—I was on the panel—about the fact that they were just about managing. In one way, they could pay their rent, but it might mean that they could not feed their children; or they could feed their children but they could not turn on the heating. That was the kind of situation. Anyway, I was on this panel, but I did not particularly like it because it was a very rigid piece of television, and I thought, “Give me ‘Question Time’ any time”—because then you can overtalk and interrupt people and be a big mouth, which I obviously relish the opportunity to be.
I got home at about 11 pm and somebody had sent me a letter. I do not want to upset the House, but it was a “Dear f-off John” letter, if noble Lords will forgive me for using that phrase. It was one of those “John, who the hell are you?” letters. It was a long litany of complaints about the programme and our avoidance of the major issue. The major issue was that if we actually educated people; if we gave education to everybody in Britain from the first moment to the last moment; if we gave it free to everybody; then we could educate people out of poverty; we could raise people out of poverty; we could, in a sense, get rid of the whole idea of people just about managing. Anyway, at the end of the letter, I had to agree, because it is exactly what I believe.
I believe very strongly that we are always going round in a circle, dealing with the problems of people in need. The reason for that is that we never take our social money and spend it wisely. We always spend the social money to just about keep people in a kind of permanent state of emergency, where they are just about managing. We live in a low-wage economy; our banks are frightened of lending to businesses, so that is why our banks lend 80% of their money for the buying and selling of property. They lend only 20% for the creation of new businesses, new opportunities and new investments, which would lift a whole slew of people out of poverty and into opportunity, hope and a better world, where they would not have to keep worrying about whether they can feed their children or turn on the gas or turn on the light.
We live in an underinvested world, and it is about time we woke up to the fact that the only reason that there are people on the edge like this is that we did not invest in their social education; we did not invest in their early education. When we fail 35% of our children in school, where do we find them? We find them down among the lowest paid. You only have to have a £5 benefit change and those people are in great need. Twenty pounds means nothing to me and nothing to anybody else in this House, but it means a shedload if you are on universal credit. If you look at the people who are stuck on universal credit, they will be the people who have not been invested in to get them out of poverty. They have not been given the skills or opportunity; they have not been given the chance to move away from need and poverty. That is why £20 means so much to them.
Returning to the letter, I thought to myself, “The cheeky git, he’s stolen all my lines”—but he inspired me once again to return to the House and say that the real, important thing to me is how we can stop this cycle. How can we stop the fact that, in a year’s time, or two years’ time or five years’ time or 10 years’ time, we are always going to have to address the problems faced by the most impoverished and, often, the most uneducated people? These are the people who did not get the educational chances, the social chances, or the hope given to many people who pass through school and get the chance of moving on.
The problem with Governments—and every Government have done this; I have been at this now for 30 years, from the days of Margaret Thatcher and John Major to the days of Mr Boris and Mr Sunak—is that they all do exactly the same thing. They give you a small amount of money—a token—and say, “This goes towards solving the problem”. Every Minister has said this to me. I say, “What are you doing about that?” and they say, “Well, we’ve got an initiative going—we’ve got this brilliant initiative. We do know that this problem is really deep—but here’s a fraction of the money to solve the problem”.
I said on the television this morning, when I was asked what one of the problems was, “One of the problems is that we have hundreds of thousands of people—500,000 people—who haven’t paid their mortgage or rent and are likely to be the new homeless”. And what do the Government give us? God bless them, they give us £65 million—and it has to pass through local authorities, which probably want to spend it in a different way—to address another problem. The other problem is that there is £650 million of arrears in the country, and it is going up.
I love Governments—they are wonderful human beings who know how to throw a dog a bone. But they do not give the whole meal. It is a bit like arriving at a forest fire and getting out your little fire extinguisher. We need to move beyond that. We need to get Governments to be a bit more honest and stop saying, “I tell you what: we’ll put on some initiative and we’ll be able to say at the end of the debate that we are addressing that problem, even though we’re addressing only 5% of the problem”. That is one of the problems. There are many, many problems.
As I have said in this House before, I think we are very much like we were in 1940 when Winston Churchill had to borrow the future—an enormous amount of the future—to defeat the Nazis. Imagine what it would have been like if in 1940 the Government had said, “We can’t do that; we cannot cause future generations to carry our debts”. Every change that has taken place in the world in the time of our democracy has always been about people borrowing the future. We borrowed the future in 1940 and paid off the last bit in 2007. I was 61 when we stopped paying for a war that I was not in and that ended a year before I was born. And that goes for most of us. It was an enormous amount of money but, if we had not done it, we would have dismantled society and created enormous problems for ourselves. We would have created Nazis over here, with all their racist rubbish. But we decided that we would stand and fight, and with our Russian cousins and our American allies—cousins as well—we took them on and defeated Nazism.
Now we have to defeat poverty. We cannot poodle around with poverty. Poverty is coming our way in a way that is much bigger than it has ever been before. It will not just be the people I have been working for during the last 30 years: the people who have been socially engineered to fail; who had a bad beginning at school; who had poor parenting or, when they went to school, whose parents did not realise it was a great opportunity for them to move away from poverty and who ended up at the end of their school lives and you would not know they had been to school—people like me. The only job they could get was picking up a shovel and digging a hole or laying concrete—and then those jobs disappeared, and a lot of those people who failed in that welfare state experiment became the underclass, the poor, and then passed it on to another generation. That is where you normally get your homeless from.
I work with 17,000 people a year. My organisation is all over the country and the world. It works with hundreds of thousands of people. Very few of them are in homelessness just because they do not have a home; it is largely because all sorts of other things have gone wrong before they got there.
In my opinion, if we do not recognise that we are in a continuing emergency and are not yet in recovery, or are in only a partial recovery, and unless we invest in saving them, people will slip en masse into homelessness over the next year or two, as soon as the courts can process those half a million people who are behind in rent and will possibly be evicted. Perhaps I should not say it, but the Rowntree Trust thinks the number is not half a million but 1.5 million. So I am actually trying to be nice by saying that it is only half a million. I am trying to be nice to the Government and say, “Come on, lads, give us enough money to keep people in their homes, because if they slip into homelessness they will cost you twice or three times the amount of money it would cost to keep them in their homes”. That is the kind of stuff I am talking about.
Looking at these indications that, once again, we are dealing with those people, I would say that, if I were in the Government, the first thing I would do is step back and look at what works, do an audit of it and then step back and work out how we can spend our social intervention money not on keeping people in crisis for the whole of their lives but on getting them out. It cannot be done by simply slinging £64 million at a problem that needs £640 million. We have to get away from that tokenism, because that is one of the most dishonest things that every Government I have known have done. I will not tell your Lordships how many Prime Ministers I have spoken to who have thrown crumbs in the direction of the poor and not delivered.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for instigating this debate and for his very powerful introduction to so many vital issues, poverty being at the heart of it all. I will address my remarks to the affordability of housing. I hope the noble Lord thinks that will help the debate; I will just focus on that part, because it is so wide-reaching. I have long had very considerable concerns about the quality and cost of housing for many families who have come directly to my attention in my roles as a councillor in Kirklees in West Yorkshire and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, has focused the attention of this debate on the impact of the reduction in universal credit—which is still a reality for the majority of those who claim benefits, despite the changes announced in the Budget yesterday—the end of the furlough scheme and the rise in fuel prices. He is absolutely right to be very concerned about the impact that that triple combination of issues will have. There are other issues he mentioned only in passing, such as the rise in food prices and, for some folk whose housing is not affordable, the taxation increases through national insurance contributions. All those will make it so much harder for people who have only just enough to pay their housing costs, be that mortgage or rent.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, gave us some assessment of the numbers of people already in rent arrears and under threat of becoming homeless as a result. This is a result of deep-seated problems that have been enhanced by the economic effects of the pandemic. This afternoon, I will draw the attention of the House to the challenges of affordability that exist now and existed before the pandemic.
The Government are very keen on promoting so-called “affordable housing”. In the Budget announcement yesterday, the Chancellor allocated £11.5 billion to provide affordable housing. In broad terms, affordable housing means housing that is provided at around 80% of the market level. But for many renters this remains unaffordable, even for those on middle incomes, let alone those on low incomes, as the Affordable Housing Commission reported last year.
The phrase “affordable housing”, as currently defined, is completely misleading and should be challenged—as I do at every opportunity. Worse still, so-called affordable homes are affordable only once. The Government could, and in my view should, require affordable housing to be affordable in perpetuity. Will the Minister agree to investigate that suggestion and let me know the outcome of any ideas that come forward?
The rented sector is so unaffordable that the Government expend considerable sums on housing benefit—the forecast is that £30.3 billion will be spent this year. The House of Commons report states that 25% of this will be for tenants in local authority housing, 38% for housing association tenants, and 37% for private sector tenants. According to a report by Shelter last year, there are 1.4 million tenants in the private rented sector who rely on housing benefit or have it as part of their universal credit.
As many Members will know, the rate of benefit is calculated according to the local housing allowance, which is referenced to local market rents. During the pandemic, the LHA level was reset at the 30th percentile. This is the maximum that can be claimed. In theory, it is enough to ensure that housing benefit covers the cost of renting a typical house large enough to meet the needs of the household. If all the rent is to be covered by housing benefit, this means that the only houses available in the private rented sector are those falling at 30%, or below, of local market rents. If there are more families and individuals requiring a property within that first 30% than there are rented properties available, then people reliant on housing benefit to help with their rent find that they have to pay above that rate in order to get somewhere to live.
I will illustrate this with examples from my own hometown, of Cleckheaton. Here, the local housing allowance for a two-bed property is £103.56 per week. I know that will be a surprise to many people who live in London, but that is what it is in my part of West Yorkshire. This is the maximum a family can receive in housing benefit. Yesterday, I did a search to find potential properties. I failed to find any at or below £103.56. There was a two-bed Victorian terrace in a row of back-to-backs—literally two up, two down—at £106 a week, the lowest rent I could find; this house was in a terrace, with no garden or frontage, giving straight on to the street. There were other two-bed Victorian terraced properties at £114 and £137 a week. The result is that families who are desperate for somewhere to live, and whose income means that they depend on housing benefit, end up renting a property costing more than the local housing allowance. The extra that has to be found—even if it is £3 a week, let alone £11 or £24—comes at the expense of their other living costs, such as food, heating and travel. It is one of the reasons why so many families have had to turn to food banks and why, as we heard, so many are in arrears and in danger of losing their homes.
The problem I have described is of course magnified in cities such as London, where housing costs are many times those in the example I have given. Here, the difference in the rate of local housing allowance and the rent that has to be paid is so high that families are in very difficult financial circumstances.
All that I have described predates the additional financial strain on household finances as a result of Covid. Earlier this year, housing charities called on the Government to tackle rising rent arrears. A report by Crisis, Shelter and, I think, Citizens Advice estimated that at least half a million households had rent arrears so large that they were in danger of being made homeless. Of these, 300,000 households have dependent children. If they are made homeless, the local authority has a duty to find accommodation.
The challenge for local authorities in rehousing those who have become homeless is an almost impossible one, as the stock of housing in the public sector has seriously diminished. In the Kirklees Council district, so-called council housing is around half of what it was 20 years ago; it has fallen from 46,000 houses to about 23,000, the last time I looked. Rents in that sector—social rents—are significantly lower, at an average of about £70 a week. These rent levels are covered in total by housing benefit where needed, at a significantly lower cost to the public purse. The question for the Government is this: why are they failing to fund the construction of significantly more houses at social rent? This would not only meet the needs of the million or more people currently on council house waiting lists but could be achieved at a much more reduced level of public funding —public subsidy for housing benefit and construction—than any other way. I just despair, really.
I have focused my remarks so far on those who rent their home, but there is a growing challenge for young people who want to buy a house, as for many it is totally unaffordable. The solution is not simply setting numbers of houses to be built as targets, as developers simply build the houses that give them the biggest profit. The Government need to move away from setting targets of numbers of units built and turn their attention to the type of unit and location, to enable young people to get on the housing ladder. There is a great challenge here for policymakers, in providing homes to rent that are genuinely within the means of renters who depend on housing benefit—or the universal credit part of that—and in enabling the construction of large numbers of homes that are within the financial means of first-time buyers.
I have asked a lot of questions, which I hope the Minister will respond to. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for this debate, which has enabled us to raise issues of housing affordability and poverty. We do not talk enough about these issues. With those remarks, I look forward to the rest of the debate and to the Minister’s response.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I too welcome this debate, so forcefully introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, whose work to help the homeless in the 30 years that I have known him I commend, in particular his work to help those sleeping rough to rebuild their lives. He referred to those speaking in this debate as his “posse”. A posse, I think, is a body of men—they are nearly always are men—summoned to enforce the law by the sheriff. I would be the first to pin the appropriate badge on the noble Lord, following his introduction to the debate this afternoon.
I confess that I am one of the Ministers who had a dialogue with the noble Lord, Lord Bird—I think some 30 years ago—and allocated what he described as “crumbs” to help the Big Issue. He may have thought they were crumbs, but they were quite difficult for a spending Minister to extract from the Government’s coffers. We now celebrate, I think, the 30th year of the Big Issue, and I commend all the work that it has done to help those sleeping rough.
I want to focus on the aspect of the noble Lord’s Motion that refers to people’s ability to stay in their homes. I agree that we should do all we can to avoid the disruption and trauma of people having to leave their home against their will. The Motion identifies three factors that are highly relevant, referred to by the noble Baroness, but I want to refer to others that have an equally important role to play in preventing homelessness.
In 1991, the year the Big Issue was founded, 75,500 home owners had their homes repossessed because they could not keep up with their repayments. In 2019, the figure was 4,580. The difference is principally accounted for by the historically low interest rates that we have enjoyed for some time, which have kept home ownership affordable and reduced repossessions and homelessness. That is why the section of the Budget yesterday which emphasised responsibility with public finances and the commitment to low and stable inflation was important, and highly relevant to our debate this afternoon. As the Chancellor said yesterday, higher borrowing today is just higher interest rates and even higher taxes tomorrow. This will help reduce homelessness if, as we hope, the Budget succeeds in the ambition of keeping interest rates low.
It is not just home owners who will benefit. The growing number of families renting from landlords who have bought to let have an interest in seeing low interest rates too, to avoid any upward pressure on rents. With low interest rates, registered social landlords are able to build more affordable homes at lower rents, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, thus enabling that movement to make a greater contribution to meeting housing needs. So, although it might not seem directly relevant, fiscal responsibility can take pressure off housing budgets and homelessness.
Moving from the macro to the micro, I am concerned, like both of the previous speakers, about the 7% of private renters, some 78,000, who are now in arrears, the majority of whom had no rent arrears before the pandemic began. We have had the six-month stay of eviction and extended notice periods and, while many landlords have done all they can to help their tenants, landlords themselves, many of them private, cannot provide such support indefinitely.
I understand the concern about the ending of the UC uplift, which one hopes will be softened by the taper reduction yesterday, but I wonder if more could be done to help those now in difficulty with their rent. Government figures show that more than 190,000 renters who are receiving universal credit are at least two or more months behind on their rent, a rise of 70% in six months. That figure includes social tenants. Should there not be wider publicity about the help available to those facing potential homelessness and, if possible, an assurance that the Government will consider topping up the funds if they prove inadequate?
There are a number of sources of help—possibly too many. We have the funding announced yesterday of £65 million for councils to support vulnerable tenants in arrears, and then there is the £310 million already available through the homelessness prevention grant—and then there are the household support fund and discretionary housing payments, as well as the welcome £640 million a year announced yesterday to address rough sleeping and homelessness. Is there a case for rationalising and simplifying these sources of funds and possibly trying to standardise them, rather than leaving them to the postcode lottery of local discretion, as well as publicising them all far more effectively and making them more accessible to those threatened with eviction, so they know help is available? As I have said, if necessary, might the Government also consider topping up the funds if local authorities are under pressure? There is a precedent for this, as the discretionary housing payments were topped up six years ago, after the bedroom tax, or spare room subsidy policy, came in.
I turn briefly to rough sleeping. The Everyone In scheme meant that by January 2021 a reported 37,000 people had been supported out of rough sleeping, or situations such as sofa surfing or staying in shelters, into emergency accommodation with their own room and facilities. In addition, thanks to the work of local authorities and voluntary organisations, 26,000 people helped by Everyone In have now moved into “move-on” accommodation, providing a step forward out of homelessness for good. But there still remain far too many at risk of going back on to the streets.
I hope the funds announced yesterday can expand the Housing First programme. Analysis by Crisis shows that the 9,400 people who were supported through Everyone In face multiple challenges, such as mental ill-health, alcohol or drug dependency. They are at high risk of returning to the streets if the only support available to them is spending time in hostels or other forms of temporary accommodation. Housing First meets the challenge posed by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, when he asked what works; it has proven to be successful in helping homeless people facing multiple challenges, as the Government’s pilot schemes have shown, and it now needs a boost from the funds announced yesterday, instead of facing a cliff edge next year.
More broadly, and finally, can my noble friend say when the Government will bring forward their White Paper on rental reform, saying how they will bring an end to no-fault evictions, including putting protections in place for renters in arrears due to delays in benefit payments? The Government are also committed to what are called open-ended tenancies, instead of the standard six-month assured tenancy agreement, with all the uncertainty that goes with that. So-called open tenancies will give people moving on from homelessness more control not just of their future housing but other aspects of their lives, making it easier to seek and retain work, plan for childcare and schooling, and end the cost of frequent unwanted moves.
I share much of the concern that has been expressed about homelessness in this debate and, while welcoming the steps the Government have already taken, I believe more can be done along the lines I have suggested, so I look forward to my noble friend’s reply.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, in May, I was privileged, as chairman of the CBI, to chair the B7 before the G7 in June. I remember very clearly one of our speakers, Dr Gita Gopinath, chief economist of the IMF, saying that Britain was one of the countries around the world that would have a V-shaped recovery, because we had invested huge amounts. The Government had invested £400 billion in saving the economy, saving jobs and saving businesses, which in absolute terms or per capita terms was one of the highest in the world. Also, we had an excellent vaccination programme that, even by May, was progressing at speed. That was in May. What has happened since then?
We have had labour shortages. We all hear about lorry drivers, something that I mentioned in a speech over here in June; we have had shortages of butchers, something I mentioned in a speech for the CBI to the Employers Federation in June. In hospitality, in financial services, across the board, in just about every sector, we have had shortages.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for introducing this debate. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We are still the sixth largest economy in the world, yet you see poverty in your face in this country. I was born and brought up in India, and I have seen things there, but to see it here, in a country that is so wealthy, is unacceptable. We have food banks in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We have homeless people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world—and, of course, what the noble Lord, Lord Bird, has done with the Big Issue is an inspiration to the whole world.
We have had the fuel crisis. We have had queues at petrol pumps. I remember driving back from Birmingham at midnight, seeing these queues and saying, “Is this real?” I pinched myself: “Is this really happening, in this country, today?” We have had the energy crisis. We nearly run out of CO2. Thankfully, the Government stepped in and got one of the manufacturers to start again. With my own business, Cobra Beer, without CO2 we cannot make our product, and there are many others like us.
We have had inflation now across the board. I remember asking the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in a meeting that I was hosting for the CBI in March, which he spoke at, whether he was worried about inflation. Now we see that inflation went up to 3.3%, then down to 3.2% but is predicted to go to 4%. Many are saying it will go even higher and wage inflation is much higher than that—almost double it or more.
I said to the Chancellor in March: “Follow the example of India”. At the Indian Budget in February, they did not increase taxes because, as they said clearly to me in a meeting which I held with the chief civil servant in charge of that Budget, “We didn’t increase taxes because businesses have suffered enough in this pandemic and we don’t want to endanger or stifle the recovery”. I said to our Indian-origin Chancellor “Listen to India”; well, he listened to an extent, but he announced that corporation tax would be going up from 19% to 25% in two years’ time. He announced the freezing of allowances, but he also announced the super-deduction—a fantastic measure with a 130% deduction to encourage investment by businesses.
Then we fast forward: we have had the announcement of national insurance going up by not 1.25% but 1.25% multiplied by two, because it covers employers as well as employees. Our country now has a tax burden that is at its highest in 70 years. We have had £400 billion of spending for the pandemic and we now have the highest level of spending since the 1970s. High spending and high taxes is not a good place to be.
On top of this we have had the £20 uplift in universal credit, which has now stopped. There were 5.8 million people on that credit. To put it in context, before the pandemic and the lockdown in March 2020 there were 3 million, so almost 3 million more people were having to use this help.
Interest rates are now at their lowest since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, at 0.1%. If that interest rate goes up, just 1% extra in interest rates adds £26 billion to the Government’s bills, because 25% of government debt is linked to interest rates. That will hit mortgages, consumers and businesses.
Going back to March last year, we had just been hit from nowhere by the pandemic. Nobody predicted that a global pandemic would happen. We had the ambiguity and uncertainty staring us in the face. I was then the vice-president of the CBI. I remember that we had a board meeting where I was asked, “Karan, you have been through some tough times in your business. What do you think we will need to do now?” I had nearly lost my business three times and I said “If we go into lockdown, businesses will shut. There will be many businesses that cannot operate if their sales dry up. If your sales dry up, then your cash dries up. You need cash, but if you go to the bank it will not lend any money to you because of the uncertainty in the environment”. The banks were going to have to have a guarantee from the Government to lend. I said, “If they guarantee 80% or 85%, that is not going to work. The banks will not be willing to take that risk of 15% to 20% exposure”.
The Government did not listen initially and the bank lending did not flow through. The CBILS loans started and I kept saying “You’ve got to guarantee the loans 100%”. We used the examples of Switzerland and Germany, which had started to guarantee 100% loans and the money was flowing through. Eventually, the Government listened and we had the bounce-back loans. Over 1 million businesses have received those loans. I give full credit to the British Business Bank; it had an £8 billion loan book before the pandemic but it has an £80 billion loan book today, and a big chunk of that is bounce-back loans.
Yesterday, I was in Teesside and I met its dynamic young mayor, Ben Houchen, who has plans to energise and bring investment into his region. I went from there to visit the oldest warship afloat in the world, except for the USS “Constitution”, which I do not count as it has been 99% rebuilt. It is HMS “Trincomalee”, built 200 years ago in Bombay by the Wadias, who were Zoroastrian Parsees like me. My great-aunt Sheru was a Wadia, so I was proud to go on board this ship that was built barely 20 years after the Battle of Trafalgar.
From there I went on to Crathorne Hall—the ancestral home of the noble Lord, Lord Crathorne—and spoke to the CBI north-east. At the end of my speech, the organiser came up to me and said, “The sound engineers would just like to have a word with you”, because I spoke about bounce-back loans in my speech. They were almost in tears, and they said, “We just want to thank you. Our business was shut for 18 months. We took a bounce-back loan, and that’s what saved us. Now we’ve got our business back, so thank you”. I could give your Lordships example after example of how these loans have helped.
One of the biggest restaurant caterers in the country and a customer of Cobra Beer, Madhu’s, shut for 18 months as there were no weddings or events. Three million people did not receive any help during the pandemic; they call themselves the “excluded”. Then we had this fantastic job retention scheme from our brilliant young Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. The JR scheme was meant to end in May last year—remember that? We said that it could not end and asked for it to be extended it to June. We said, “Are we going to have rolling cliff edges? Are we going to have a more flexible job retention scheme?” The Chancellor and the Government listened, and the CBI, the TUC, and all the other business organisations worked with the Government. When did the job retention scheme end? It was in September this year. It was fantastic: almost 12 million jobs, employed and self-employed, were saved—at a huge cost, there is no running away from that, but they were saved.
The Government gave support to retail and hospitality with rates relief. However, many did not get rates relief, including manufacturers and airports, which suffered so much during the pandemic. The rates bill of Heathrow Airport is over £100 million a year. Eventually they got some relief, but nowhere near enough. Aviation came to a standstill; it was down by 98% at one stage.
Business associations did their best. We at the CBI put out a free hub and not just for our members. We put out free webinars to everybody. We gave out free membership, with no obligation to join. We tried, and other organisations did similar things to help. The Government gave rent protection, saying that tenants could not be booted out if they could not pay their landlords. The Government tried their best.
Then we had that glimmer of sunshine when the economy opened up last summer. The Government listened and reduced social distancing from two metres to one metre. The difference was not twice as many people but four times as many—the difference between a business being viable and not viable. VAT was reduced from 20% to 5%; the Government listened on that. Then there was the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. Cobra Beer sales in August this year could not match our sales last year because that scheme was so successful in helping consumers go to restaurants, helping the restaurants and helping everybody.
The Government would not listen initially on lateral flow tests. Eventually they listened, and now any business or citizen can have lateral flow tests delivered for free. Those tests have been shown by Oxford, UCL and Havard to be very effective if you test regularly. Mass testing is better than mass isolation. I would go so far as to say that if we had applied those tests properly we might have even been able to avoid the second and third lockdowns.
The noble Lord, Lord Bird, mentioned debt from World War II. Debt to GDP after World War II went up to 250%, and it took until the early 1960s— 15 years later—to go down from 250% to 100%. We are now at just under 100%. This is a time of crisis. This is a time when we needed to do this.
When it comes to looking ahead, in 1942—in the midst of the crisis of World War II, when people did not know when it was going to end—Beveridge came up with a plan. When the war did eventually end in 1945, the Government implemented the Beveridge report and established the National Health Service and the welfare state. Similarly, the CBI has just produced, in the midst of the pandemic, our Seize the Moment strategy, looking ahead for 10 years. We think that there is an opportunity of £700 billion for this economy if we do certain things, looking at areas such as decarbonisation, skills, diversity and innovation, education, regional levelling up, health, well-being and global trade. All these things have to be put in place.
The Government have done so much to help us. The analogy I would use is that they have taken a big swing and they have hit the tennis ball, but if they stop at that stage and do not follow through, the ball will go into the net, not over it. Now is the time for the Government to follow through. We have suggested that the Government should set up a COBRA-style task force, with business and government working together. They have listened to an extent: there is the supply chain task force and the hospitality task force. We believe they should go further. We should have a joint task force dealing with the crisis now.
With the virus, we have a settlement that we suggest for the Government. Vaccinations and boosters should carry on. Hats off to the Prime Minister for empowering Kate Bingham to do what she did. Hats off to Nadhim Zahawi; what a fabulous vaccination programme he implemented. Today, 68% of the total population and 80% of over-12s have been double vaccinated.
Now, we just need to focus on innovation. We invest 1.7% of GDP but we need to invest 2.7% or 2.8%, like Germany or America, let alone Israel, at 4%. To do that would require £20 billion more a year—just imagine how that would power our productivity. We want high wages, but you cannot have high wages without high innovation, high skills and high productivity. So what we need now is growth. We need to encourage investment and growth. We do not need cuts and we do not need high taxes. We need growth, because it will generate the jobs that will generate the taxes that will pay down the debt.
On skills and apprenticeships, there was great news in the Budget about skills bootcamps, apprenticeships being much more flexible, and the Kickstart scheme. This is all fantastic stuff.
Business rates reform needs to happen desperately. Our business rates are four times higher than those in Germany and three times higher than the OECD average.
Next week, we have COP 26. The road to net zero is not a zero-sum game. Growth is now predicted to be 6.5%. There is good news and optimism. As Tony Danker, commenting on our Budget, said:
“the Chancellor has shown a genuine willingness to listen to business with measures that will get firms innovating and help the economy to grow … but … This Budget alone won’t seize the moment and transform the UK economy for a post-Brexit post-Covid world. Businesses remain in a high tax, low productivity economy with concerns about inflation. But the Budget will have a positive impact across the economy and makes several changes that will be welcomed by UK businesses.”
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for proposing this subject. We are having a discussion on the economy before we have a real discussion on the Budget next week, and that is always a good thing.
In a strange way, the economy is both the economy of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bird. On the one hand, the Chancellor told us yesterday that we have fantastic growth of 6.4%—we have not seen 6.4% growth for a long time—because of the V-shaped recovery from the pandemic, and we are in the up phase of the V. But a lot of things have not been fixed. That 6.4% figure is a blip and very soon it will go back to 1.3%, our normal rate of growth.
Of course we have borrowed—we have borrowed like there is no tomorrow—but we always borrow for the better-off, never for the poor. In 2008, when the markets collapsed, banks were queuing up for money, and we generously gave it to them. We bought banks, including bankrupt banks; they got into a lot of trouble and we spent money on them like there was no tomorrow. It is when it comes to spending for the poor that suddenly the Budget constraints bind.
I shall give your Lordships an interesting example. Yesterday, the Chancellor did something that was hailed as a progressive measure: he cut the universal credit taper from 63% to 55%. What is the taper? The taper means that if you are on universal credit and you get a part-time job, for every pound you earn, 63p is taken back. Suppose that income tax were 63% at the margin—you would hear howls of protest. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said that high taxes are back, but the highest taxes in this country are paid by the poor. They are not called taxes though; they are called nice things like tapers. So the taper has gone from 63% to 55% and we have to be grateful.
Now, there is all this money. Yesterday, everybody said that the Chancellor was spending money like there was no tomorrow, but he did not find money to restore the £20 which was taken away from universal credit holders. It would not cost very much—it would cost a fraction of the £37 billion that test and trace wasted, for which, so far, nobody has been fined and no money has been taken away from anybody. So we have £37 billion to be wasted on test and trace but we do not have any money for people on universal credit, who were given the £20 that had been suspended in George Osborne’s day. Even now, after many years, they gave it back for one year and the next year they took it away. Of course there is money—the Chancellor told us yesterday how much money there was. These are choices. It is not that we do not have money; we make choices about who gets the money. Decisions have been made. In every crisis that we have been through, regardless of whether it was a global or a local crisis—in 2008 or the pandemic—you can predict, without any analysis, who will suffer: women, the elderly, the homeless and children. It is not rocket science. That is the way we are.
It is very good of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, to focus on many of the crises, especially the housing crisis. I arrived here in 1965, having come from America, and I was renting. Everybody told me that renting was complete nonsense and that I should buy. Why? Because buying was subsidised; there was a tax concession for buying. So I bought, of course, and I benefited from that—I am not complaining. Mrs Thatcher sold the council estates, which is not a bad thing, because lots of poor people got property for the first time. But we stopped building new council houses and we have never restored that public building activity, which was a solid basis of post-war recovery. To the extent that the post-war welfare state was a success, it was because of not just the National Health Service and full employment but this solid base of building houses.
The Labour Party has not built houses throughout all the years of its existence—nobody has. People say that they want to build affordable houses, but why would anybody build unaffordable houses? Every house is affordable, depending on who is buying it. “Affordable housing” is a misnomer, because you know that nobody will be able to buy it.
The same thing applies to housing benefit, and the noble Baroness gave us a nice example of what is happening in her area. But housing benefit fixes the level about which all rents will be determined; not a single house will be rented at or below the level of housing benefit. There is an old law of economics: put in rent control and rented property disappears.
We have to say that, every year, we will build so many houses. The Government have said that they want to invest 3% of GDP every year, or whatever it is, which is a very nice thing. Yes, we want to have innovation, and research and development, but let us also have something in the social sector. Let us invest new money in housing, health or education, so that we make up for the rising demand, year after year. We do it now and then, but we do not do it with the sincerity with which we need to do it and given the demand.
I can tell your Lordships one thing: on tax levels, it is always economical to cut corporation tax. Why? Because we know who it benefits. But it is never beneficial to raise universal credit; it is a small amount of money. These are choices that we make. Whatever gloss we put on it, some of the problems are permanent.
The strange thing that happened during the pandemic —and I credit what the noble Baroness said—was that the whole economy suffered and got impoverished, which very rarely happens, through nobody’s fault. So the Government threw money at the whole economy through the furlough scheme, for example. The furlough scheme was for people who had good jobs; they were surprised to have no job and not used to being on universal credit, so they were told, “Don’t worry, we will cover you”. There was neither supply nor demand, so the Government had to spend money for both of them. It was very nicely done—but as soon as the pandemic has slowed down we are now back to the original stuff. We will again have homelessness and the distress of universal credit.
Think of the extra burden on national insurance, at 1.25%; it is not very much, but it is 25% above what it was. It is a 25% increase in the tax burden, but people do not put it like that. People do not say that a 63% taper rate is outrageous. We have tolerated a 67% or whatever taper rate all these years, despite people saying that universal credit aims to encourage people to work. How do you encourage people to work? With giving a 63% tax on every pound they make by getting employed. It is a strange world. It is a world for the top 10%, not for the bottom 10%. It has always been like that, and there is nothing we can do about it. I could go on like this for ever, but I think I have said enough.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
Follow that. It really is a pleasure to contribute to this debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Bird—the noble Sheriff Bird. I am a real admirer of his. His sense of compassion and commitment is legendary, and we saw that today. I agree with so much of what has been said. I could just say “#MeToo, I agree” and sit down—but I am a politician and, as a former elected mayor and a vice-president of the LGA, I want to make my contribution about the role that local authorities have played during the Covid crisis and their contribution towards the most vulnerable in our society.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, as we go about our daily lives it is probably quite difficult for us to imagine what a loss of £20 a week might mean to us—I suspect very little. After all, it is less than what I spend on a blow dry, or what we spend on our weekly coffees or a few drinks in the pub. Do we feel fearful when we hear that energy prices are to rise? Annoyed, maybe, but we will not have to make that oft-quoted choice between heating and eating. I was shocked to learn that more than 4 million people are on pre-paid meters. That means they unfairly have to pay the highest cost per unit for energy up front, before consumption, when those of us on our direct debits in effect get the cheapest rates in arrears. It is just wrong.
I learned the value of money from my bus driver father, who brought us up. Every Friday he would take from his back pocket his brown wage packet and physically count out the money for each of our household commitments. It was money for the mortgage—he was very proud that we were buying our little terraced house—and for gas, food et cetera. It would then go into a tin with slots for the appropriate payment. There were no slots for coffees, hairdos and the pub, nor for clothes or insurance—things that we would now call necessities. We managed but, looking back, I suspect it was only just. Our whole neighbourhood was like us, and many were worse. The local gossip was often about those at number such-and-such who had done a moonlight flit the night before because they were in rent arrears. The point is that it was a very real, constant weekly worry—a harsh reality of life on low wages.
Life is still like that for millions of people, and many of them are in work—insecure work and, as we have learned during the pandemic, often essential work. We know that life is precarious for many and the threat of homelessness is never far away for some. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic. We have had excellent briefings from Crisis, Shelter, Generation Rent and others, and the facts are crystal clear. The perfect storm—I am sorry to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for using the cliché—of all the points in the title of our Motion today will tip many into arrears and those already in arrears into homelessness and the route of temporary accommodation, and the insecurity that that brings with it. You try living with the family in a Premier Inn hotel room. There are currently more than 95,000 households in temporary housing. The Government’s own figures show that the proportion of tenants in rent arrears has tripled and, now that the eviction ban has ended, it can only get worse.
The debt charity StepChange released some telling research last month which illustrated, among other things, that there were more than half a million universal credit claimants in Covid-related rent arrears who say that, with the cost of living increases and cuts to universal credit, they will struggle to pay off their rent debt within 12 months. More pertinently, 225,000 private renters say that they expect to lose their home as a result of unpayable rent arrears. That is more than the size of the population of Luton—our rival town—Swindon, Rochdale or Portsmouth. One in 10 in-work tenants expects to be evicted from their homes as a result of their arrears. That is a lot of people, and a huge amount of misery.
People’s first port of call will be their local council. The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that councils can move quickly to build effective services that deliver better outcomes for residents, if given the powers and resources to do so. During the pandemic, councils responded rapidly to support people experiencing street homelessness through the Everyone In initiative. Figures from the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities show that councils supported more than 37,000 individuals through that initiative, with more than 26,000 now moved on to longer term accommodation. I will credit the Government for that. Together, we did it: it worked.
My main point and underlying message today is about money and funding—no surprise there, Minister. My first plea is for consistency of funding. Please can the Government move away from a pattern of piecemeal and fragmented funding streams, as already mentioned? One of the key issues for councils is the need for longer term funding to aid the recruitment and retention of high-calibre staff and support long-term strategic planning around the issue of rough sleeping and homelessness. Councils have long called for more certainty when planning and commissioning local services. The administrative burden associated with multiple grant-funding applications sometimes appears disproportionate, with small operational teams needing to divert resources away from the front line to write multiple bids, with no guarantee of success. It is also known that multiple and unaligned pots of funding are generally inefficient, with the lead time necessary for effective recruitment not fitting well with truncated funding cycles.
Everyone working in this area knows that prevention is best. They are desperate to get upstream. Eventually, when a client gets a tenancy, they know that they need help to stay in their home. Those two things book end, but often, the funding is focused on what is in the middle—you could say, the meat of the sandwich, but try having a sandwich without the bread. I say that from my heartfelt experience with a charity I am involved in, New Hope, Watford, which is in precisely that situation year on year. It does amazing work, but with funding certainty, it could be so much better—if staff were not worrying about a round of job cuts and service cuts if their bid is unsuccessful.
I also bring to your Lordships’ attention the number of non-EU nationals who form part of the core of homeless people. The 2020 rough-sleeping count showed that 23% of rough sleepers had no recourse to public funds and fell outside councils’ existing statutory responsibilities. Government quite rightly asked councils to support these individuals and, quite rightly, they did—but with no additional funding to recognise this group or any change to the legislative powers and duties that remove access to benefits or council services. This, along with the additional call on councils to house the recently relocated and resettled arrivals from Afghanistan demonstrates the fluidity and unpredictability of this service and the need for long-term, joined-up solutions in housing.
This leads to my third area of concern, mentioned forcefully by my noble friend Lady Pinnock: the lamentable decline in homes for social rent. Social housing is a major tool used by councils to mitigate homelessness—yet, in real terms, provision has decreased over decades. The picture is often clouded by the use of terms such as “affordable rent” or “intermediate rent”, which is now the more usual tenancy. As the noble Lord, Lord Desai, eloquently amplified, they are often unaffordable. But, if a tenancy is to survive for an individual or family coming from homelessness to a stable home, that survival may well depend on social rented accommodation, which is becoming less available.
The number of council and housing association homes being let at social rent fell by 210,000 between 2012 and 2020. Added to their woes is the fact that councils cannot keep all the money from their right to buy sales—is there any movement on that issue, Minister? There is a time limit within which they have to spend the money, which is not always possible when you are trying to build social housing. Perhaps it is time to review that—or, better still, not have a limit at all, to allow the one-for-one replacement that was always promised.
I have some final thoughts. As several noble Lords have asked, is it not time to raise the local housing allowance to cover median local rents, to prevent the shortfalls that my noble friend mentioned in rents occurring and debts building up—or to scrap the household benefit cap to ensure that families are able to access the higher local housing allowance rates? Is there any sign, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, asked, of ending unfair evictions, as was pledged in April 2019?
I am certain that the Minister will tell us of the money that the Government are already providing and have promised to provide, but I am sure that he will expect the usual retort from me: “It is not enough”. It never is. The last thing any of us wants for those who are struggling to get out of debt is for them to resort to the services of loan sharks—another harsh reality from my past. They are still in business—and that in itself is a tragedy.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing this important and wide-ranging debate. That is the sort of formal thank-you that we normally have, but I think I join most noble Lords who heard his introduction in noting his powerful and emotional opening speech. I will return to the idea of the importance of emotion in decision-making.
The title of this debate is an indictment of the Government’s handling of our economy. It may be growing, but the nature of that growth is delivering increasing inequality, forcing more and more people into crippling, life-changing poverty. Yesterday, the Chancellor sought to paint an optimistic picture of the UK economy. That is his prerogative, but, for many, it has been a tough couple of years, and it is likely to be an even tougher winter.
While bankers and companies such as Amazon are handed new tax breaks, families face rising costs, high inflation and empty supermarket shelves. People are feeling the pinch and, despite their claims, the Government are not in their corner. We will have other opportunities to debate the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget, but there are a few key facts that are worth citing in the context of this discussion. GDP growth may have been revised upwards this year, but it has been downgraded for 2022, 2024 and 2025. Inflation is expected to peak at 4%, or a little more, over the next year, with this persisting for some time. The legacy of austerity is such that, despite increases in departmental budgets, around half will remain worse off than in 2010.
If growth is weak, inflation is high and public services are not properly funded, people will suffer. That is true in normal times, but even more so when one factors in the impacts of the three strands of the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bird. Yesterday’s Autumn Budget was an opportunity to give those in need, in the words of the noble Lord’s publication, “a hand up”. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed.
We welcome the announcement of certain initiatives, as well as the cut in the universal credit taper rate, which I will return to later, but they do not go nearly far enough. Millions of Britons are facing a lengthy cost of living crisis, and too many face the prospect of losing their home. This has been backed up today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which warned that low-income households will feel real pain in the months ahead.
Noble Lords may wonder why all this matters. We often discuss poverty as a concept, trading definitions and stats. Policy wonks compare relative and absolute poverty, while Ministers instruct officials to tweak the formulae. For those living in poverty, though, it is not an abstract concept; it is a hard slog, a cruel and daily reality.
Earlier this week, Channel 4’s “Dispatches” highlighted the plight of several families living in poverty and in poor-quality, overcrowded housing. It was hard hitting and made one wonder whether this is why Ministers are so desperate to privatise the broadcaster. The programme was a timely reminder of problems that have gone unresolved for too long: the sheer number of people trapped in emergency accommodation or on council house waiting lists, and the lack of quality and affordable properties in parts of the private rented sector.
We know these problems have been exacerbated by the pandemic, prompting the Government to step in with a range of Covid-19 economic support schemes. Many came with shortcomings, but at least they kept people in their homes. Now, the withdrawal of those schemes, as well as the removal of the £20 universal credit uplift, has come at the wrong time and is starting to bite.
But, again, I worry that we are falling into old habits and approaching this from the wrong angle. I want to read into the record the stories of two boys who featured in the Channel 4 broadcast earlier this week, to highlight the daily fear that young children are experiencing. Nine year-old Qasim lives in temporary accommodation with his dad and siblings. He is worried that his father does not have enough money when they go shopping and that if the family is made homeless, they will have to sleep in the car. Qasim struggles to sleep and fell behind with his schoolwork during lockdown. He is now attending catch-up classes but is worried about his future: “If I don’t learn, I may not be able to get a good job, and I might end up poor”.
Eight-year-old Kai doesn’t care that his mother, a care co-ordinator who has her income topped up by universal credit, has never been able to take him on holiday or to a restaurant to have macaroni cheese. He loves her dearly because she’s “trying to do her best” to provide for him.” He said, “I worry about my mum having less money because you can’t pay rent. It wouldn’t be fun living on the streets because you have to beg people for food, and they’ll say no”. These children are not asking to live a life of luxury. They just want the basic sense of security that so many of us take for granted, so they have room to grow as people and begin to get some enjoyment from life.
I was particularly struck by a tweet from Save the Children’s Kirsty McNeill, who said:
“Kids shouldn’t know where the family is on a housing waiting list, when pay day is, how much their school supplies cost. They should be dreaming about how they can cure cancer and be in the Olympics at the same time”.
The reality faced by Qasim and Kai, and many more besides, is the result of choices made by this Government. The Chancellor essentially confirmed this yesterday, when he said:
“do we want to live in a country where the response to every question is ‘What are the Government going to do about it?’, where every time prices rise, every time a company gets in trouble, every time some new challenge emerges, the answer is always that the taxpayer must pay? Or do we choose to recognise that Government has limits?”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 286.]
Of course the Government do and should have limits. However, they also have duties, and I fear those duties are not being upheld. Too many people face a winter of great uncertainty. The Government are not wholly to blame, but their decisions have had, and will continue to have, a very real impact.
The decision to increase the national minimum wage to £9.50 an hour is welcome, as is the end of the public sector pay freeze. However, the IFS also warns that high inflation will cancel out much of the immediate benefit, meaning that millions will be worse off in the short term.
We also welcome the reduction in the universal credit taper rate, although it will not benefit all claimants, particularly the poorest, and its impact will very much depend on individual circumstances. Other fundamental issues remain with universal credit, and we hope that these will finally be addressed, sooner rather than later.
I am sure that the Minister will cite a variety of schemes and statistics in his response. However, I urge him and his ministerial colleagues to acknowledge the scale of the problem and the long-lasting impacts that poverty and homelessness—potential or actual—have on people across the country. The Government talk of improving life chances for all but, sadly, their record to date speaks for itself.
There is a fundamental problem about the issues that we are talking about. The problem to some extent is us. As the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said, the loss of £20 would be unnoticed in his life, and it would certainly be unnoticed in mine. We debate homelessness —this debate is about homelessness—but we think of it in terms of fears and as having to do with “them” or as so many per cent. As human beings, we often avoid thinking about unpleasant things.
Curiously, I have always been terrified of not having a roof, despite the fact that it has never been a real threat. I came from a poor household, but a poor household in the 1940s and 1950s was, in an important way, much richer: we were richer because we lived in a council house, with a secure tenancy and affordable rent. Despite being lowly paid, my father worked for the National Health Service as a porter and had a secure income. Throughout my life, I have always had a roof over my head and confidence; despite being fired a couple of times, even then I had sufficient reserves for it not to be a problem.
I invite people to think about how they would feel—I do not know why I think about this—if tonight was to be their first night on the streets; that they had done their best not to get into this situation, but somehow all their options have run out. Would it help to be told that it was their own fault? Somehow, we have this concept of the undeserving poor. When you are on the streets—it does not matter how you got there—it is an almost impossible position to climb back from.
Would it help being told that losing £20 a week would help, despite the cost of living shooting upwards, as though somehow making you poorer means you are more likely to get a job? I find that very difficult to believe. I draw no conclusions from this because I accept that this is complex, but we surely have to somehow feel the terror of homelessness and, as best we can, try to imagine what poverty is like to give this the weight it should have in our discussions.
It is crucial to recognise that these people exist. They may not vote, but they are citizens, and somehow, they cope—or do they? Google told me today, in my last dive into this area, that homeless men typically die aged 45. In the general population, the age for men is just over 79. So, these people do not cope, really, but they do cope night by night. I am not sure I could cope for a single night.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for bringing this debate. I know that tackling the causes of poverty and homelessness has been his life’s work and we should all acknowledge his great impact. I also thank noble Lords who have spoken today; each has made their case with great conviction. For my part, I welcome the opportunity to speak out on behalf of the Government on this important subject, ensuring people have a secure home and a steady income is a matter of the utmost importance to us.
The action we have taken to shield people from the full economic force of coronavirus over the last 18 months is evidence of this. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, feels that the Government have been tinkering with problems, but I would respectfully disagree. Decisions taken by the Government mean that direct support for the economy has totalled around £400 billion over the last year. Much of this has protected the productive capacity of our economy, which in turn provides the ability to support the most vulnerable in our society.
It is perhaps important to remind the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, that we have handled this differently from the way India has. We have been one of the most generous countries in the world in our interventions. We have spent some £69 billion protecting nearly 12 million jobs across the UK through the furlough scheme. The self-employment income support scheme benefited 2.9 million people with assistance worth over £27 billion. We have safeguarded businesses, thanks to loan schemes worth £79 billion, in addition to cash grants, VAT cuts and business rate reliefs. Those most affected by the coronavirus economic shock have been supported by a temporary uplift to welfare payments.
These measures have been effective. Increasingly, the evidence shows that our economic recovery is under way. Our gross domestic product has bounced back to near pre-crisis levels. Forecasts have revised upwards their expectations for growth this year. In its latest forecast, the OBR expects growth of 6.5%, up from 4% in its previous forecast. That is a 50% increase compared with only a few months ago. GDP is expected to return to its pre-crisis level by the turn of the year.
Unemployment has fallen for eight consecutive months. It is now expected to peak at less than half the levels predicted at the start of the crisis, meaning over 2 million fewer people out of work than we originally feared. The number of employees on payrolls has risen to above pre-pandemic levels, while job vacancies are at a historic high. This increasingly positive economic picture shows we were right to counteract an unprecedented crisis with unprecedented intervention.
However, this has meant that in the last year our borrowing costs have risen to a peacetime high. Clearly, to continue to borrow on this level would not be sustainable. Now that the economy has reopened, we must shift our focus to supporting people into work. I will cover this in greater depth a little later.
While this change in approach means winding down the pandemic emergency support, it does not mean we are turning our back on those most in need of help—far from it. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, we are spending more than £4.2 billion a year in targeted support to help households manage the cost of living.
I turn to housing, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is concerned, and I will address some of the measures that we have in process. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Bird, spoke of the need to help people stay in their homes and for the stock of affordable housing to improve and increase. We agree. That is why this year we are maintaining the increase to the local housing allowance rates for private renters on universal credit and housing benefit. The support provided by this measure is substantial. Last year, more than 1.5 million households received extra sums averaging £600.
We will continue to provide discretionary housing payments to the most vulnerable households through £300 million of funding during the next three years. These payments assist individuals in a range of situations, including those experiencing shortfalls between welfare payments and their rent, and tenants who need deposits to secure a home in which to live. This is part of a wider package, including the household support fund, which provides £500 million to help vulnerable families with essentials such as food, energy and water costs. It can also be used for rent arrears at a local authority’s discretion. Some £100 million is also available for discretionary housing payments and uplift to local housing benefits.
We have announced £65 million in additional funding to support low-income renters at risk of eviction due to the impact of Covid. Some 70,000 vulnerable households will be supported. This measure follows our ban on evictions and the introduction of extended notice periods to protect renters during the pandemic.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai, raised the issue of affordable housing. Yesterday, we committed to an £11.5 billion investment for 180,000 new homes, of which 50% will be under shared ownership schemes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised the question of the overall housing stock. Of course, new housing stock has to reflect the needs of society, but the overall number of new houses is important, too. In the year preceding the pandemic, more than 240,000 new housing units were built, compared with around 129,000 in 2009-10.
My noble friend Lord Young asked about the White Paper on renting. The Government are consulting stakeholders at the moment and a timetable will be announced shortly.
More broadly, we are continuing to invest in homelessness prevention activities through the homelessness prevention grant. We are providing support to those who find themselves homeless through multiple programmes such as the rough-sleeping initiative, which invests in locally led interventions. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and my noble friend Lord Young expressed interest in this. Our £28 million Housing First pilots have supported more than 1,000 of the most vulnerable rough sleepers across 23 councils. We have committed £1.9 billion in resource funding to homelessness and rough sleeping in the spending review, and £109 million in capital investment.
I turn to wider cost of living support. Beyond the assistance I have outlined, we are helping low-income households manage the cost of living with other support. To that end, we have given local authorities £670 million of additional grant funding this year to help those struggling with council tax bills. We are helping disadvantaged families with the higher food costs they may face outside school terms through the £200 million holiday activities and food programme. We have increased the value of Healthy Start vouchers, available to help pregnant women and parents with children under four with food costs.
On top of this, at the Budget the Government took action to make work pay for those on the lowest incomes. By 1 December, in just over four weeks’ time, we are reducing the universal credit taper rate from 63% to 55% and increasing universal credit work allowances by £500 a year. While the noble Lord, Lord Desai, may feel that this does not go far enough, it represents an effective tax cut worth £2.2 billion in 2022-23 and means that nearly 2 million households will keep, on average, an extra £1,000 a year. In April next year the minimum wage is rising by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, which is more than £1,000 a year for a full-time employee. Since its introduction in 2016, the national living wage has increased the pre-tax earnings of a full-time worker by more than £5,000 a year.
The noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Bird, and other Peers mentioned that £20 is a significant sum for these vulnerable people. I completely understand and accept that, but this figure alone shows that we have enabled some of the most vulnerable to see income earnings of around £100 a week. My noble friend Lord Young raises the point that these schemes are rather fragmented and he is probably right, but the Government’s overriding ambition is to get more people into decently paid work. The reduction of the universal credit taper announced yesterday is a major part of that. I will also address some of our training schemes in a moment.
I turn to energy. The Government recognise that the impact of rising energy costs is a significant issue for vulnerable households. The energy price cap has saved 15 million customers on default tariffs up to £100 a year on their bills since it was introduced in 2019. We continue to ensure that the most vulnerable receive help with their energy bills through a range of other measures, including extending the warm home discount to an extra 780,000 households and providing seasonal cold weather payments to eligible welfare recipients. State pensioners can benefit from the winter fuel payment worth up to £300. Since last year, we have invested £1.5 billion in helping low-income households to improve energy efficiency and cut their bills. We are expanding the energy company obligation scheme that focuses on tackling fuel poverty and carbon emissions. I also remind the House that in recognition of the fact that petrol and diesel is a major cost for households and businesses, we have frozen fuel duty for the 12th year in a row.
I turn to jobs. While government support is important, we believe that work is the best way of preventing poverty and improving living standards. Over a year ago we launched the plan for jobs to protect, support and create employment opportunities for people across the country. I am delighted to say that the plan is working. As the Government enter the next stage of our plan for jobs, we are committing a total of more than £6 billion to DWP over the next three years. This will help give everyone a chance to have a fresh start and develop the skills they need for the modern workforce. The Kickstart scheme is one example. It is creating and fully funding hundreds of thousands of jobs for young people at risk of long-term unemployment. Nearly 95,000 young people have started a Kickstart job so far. They encompass a wide range of opportunities, providing foundations for careers in such areas as IT, media and engineering.
The long-term unemployed will receive intensive, tailored support and be helped to find work through the three-year restart scheme. Last year, the Government doubled the number of work coaches to 27,000 in just over eight months. We have committed to an additional 170 job centres, of which around 100 are already open. We are continuing to invest more than £900 million for each year of this SR on work coaches to ensure that universal credit claimants receive the best support to find employment.
Getting people into jobs is one thing, but improving skills is equally important. We have heard today of the importance of skills, and we agree. The single most effective way to increase living standards is to enable wages to rise through gains in productivity, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, correctly pointed out. That is why we are giving people the opportunity to gain a level 3 qualification for free if they do not hold one already, through our lifetime skills guarantee. Adults who want to retrain in in-demand sectors such as digital, cybersecurity, construction and engineering can benefit from flexible skills bootcamps that last up to 16 weeks. We are tripling the number of traineeships for 16 to 24 year-olds and awarding employers £3,000 for every apprentice of any age they hire. These steps are all designed to address the key issue of productivity. Indeed, early data emanating from the skills bootcamp shows that around 50% of participants are going on to higher-paid jobs.
Yesterday, the Chancellor announced a new scheme to assist particularly with numeracy, which is a major problem among older people. Around 6 million adults in this country have a numeracy age of under 10 and it is holding back their earning capacity. We have announced a scheme to address this over the next three years. These measures are proof that this Government do not shy away from their responsibilities. We will continue to fight poverty, combat homelessness and focus on the most vulnerable. We are committed to giving people in every part of the country the right opportunities to build a better, more prosperous future for themselves and their families.
Lord Bird (CB)
I thank the Minister for his response. He makes me feel a bit like the young woman who I encountered in Trafalgar Square recently. She asked me for some money and I opened my wallet and handed her a tenner. She saw I had another tenner and she took both of them and ran down the road. I did not manage to catch her. The Minister is making me feel very much like that today and I am sorry that I have to assume that posture.
I have just realised that all we really need to do is to invent a new ministry. I propose that I become the Minister. We will call it the ministry for those who fall through the safety net. If we had a ministry that addressed those people who fall through the safety net then we could see that whatever the Government do, however clever and astute they are with their money, an enormous amount of people fall through the safety net.
At the end of this year or when a suitable time comes, I really would like it if people pointed to me and said: “John Bird, you are an idiot because you cried wolf and you didn’t have to. The Government were going doing everything and everything was going to fall into place and Lord Bilimoria’s wonderful new Great Britain or—whatever we call ourselves now—the UK, was going to happen.” I would love that, but the indications are that the £64 million that the Government have given to support people in arrears has been given to local authorities. Local authorities will spend some of that on existing housing and on people who are having problems with housing. The £360 million—or in that area—which is going to be spent is once more going to be spent on people who are already homeless.
The problem we have is that we have two kinds of homelessness. We now have the carefully social-engineered homelessness—people living on the streets and in desperate need. The Government have shown, in the same way as the Administration that the noble Lord, Lord Young, was a member of did 30 years ago did, that they are beginning to seriously address that. I think there is evidence of that.
I am not talking about the people who have been socially engineered, like me, to fall homeless at some time in their life. I am saying: what do we do with the half a million who are behind with their mortgages and their rent? They are going to be presenting themselves at local authorities at some stage because they will have been through the courts, which will evict them because there is no impediment to them being made homeless even though they were made homeless by Covid-19. I will end there.
I should like to conclude on one point. You could accuse me of being a little snidey here, or a bit of a simpleton. In 2009, I was asked by Mr Cameron, by a circuitous route, to stand for the Mayor of London. I debated that: did I have to join the Conservative Party, because I have always been a Cross-Bencher? No—I decided I would not. When I did so, a particular gentleman who now runs the Cabinet and is the premier member of the Government, a Mr Boris Johnson, jumped in the air because I was the last person between him and becoming the Mayor of London—and you know that if it was not for him becoming the Mayor of London, he would not be in the position he is in now. We know that. When I saw Mr Johnson immediately after he was elected, he came and put his arms around me in the green room—unfortunately there were no witnesses—and said, “Thank you, John, for the job”.
Lord Bird (CB)
It is my fault. Sorry about that. What did I say? I said, “Do me a favour then”. He said, “What’s that?”. I said, “Remember the homeless”. Now I want Mr Boris Johnson to remember the homeless —but not just those who have already manifested themselves on the streets and in the hostels already, who are suffering and having a horrible life, but the 300,000 children who are going to come down the road. That is what I want him to address. He owes me, and I am calling it in.