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Oral Answers to Questions
(3 years ago)
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Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
This is an incredibly significant week for the whole planet, as countries from around the world gather in Glasgow to negotiate on climate action. We are facing a climate emergency, with no time to lose; we must keep 1.5° alive. I am sure that the whole House will join me in urging all countries at COP to make a real commitment to change. I know that we will all want to take this opportunity to thank Police Scotland for working so hard to ensure a safe and secure COP26. It is supported in that by 7,000 police officers from other UK forces. I am very pleased that the UK Government have brought COP26 to Glasgow, and I am sure the city will receive a long-term boost from being in the world spotlight.
The UK Government have agreed a deal with the EU that fully delivers for Scotland and the rest of the UK. Our deal provides Scottish businesses with exceptional access to EU markets. It is the first time the EU has ever agreed a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal. I regret that the SNP refused to support that deal.
Kirsten Oswald
Brexit-induced labour shortages are having a real impact on several sectors of the Scottish economy, with social care, hospitality, and food and drink among the worst hit. For some, the impact has been catastrophic, with up to a third of Scotland’s harvest of some crops left to rot in the fields. Those are the direct consequences of this UK Government’s hard Brexit deal and their ideological decision to abruptly end freedom of movement. The Secretary of State knows that, and he knows that the EU provided over €1 billion in Brexit support to Ireland, so will he back Scotland’s employers and support a compensation fund to mitigate the Brexit damage inflicted on Scotland against our will?
Mr Jack
The hon. Lady will know that I backed the increase in the seasonal agricultural workers scheme from 2,500 to 30,000. The National Farmers Union of Scotland is well aware of that; I led on those negotiations. She will know that the EU settled status scheme has been successful. We were told that fewer than 3 million people would apply but in fact over 6 million have applied. Some of those workers have remained in their countries; they can come to the UK freely, as she knows, but they remained in their countries during the pandemic, and the pandemic has been a factor. We also have the shortage occupations list, which creates lower salary requirements for skilled workers. This Government are doing everything they can, but we have to recognise that there is a pandemic effect on labour shortages at the moment.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that the principal export market for most businesses in my constituency is in England. Does he share my frustration that the Scottish Government, rather than supporting those businesses with exports to other parts of the United Kingdom, continue to pursue an independence agenda, which could only mean more barriers for those businesses?
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will remember that Scotland voted to remain part of the European Union, and that despite every compromise offered, this Government ploughed ahead with Brexit, knowing full well the damage that it would do to Scotland and that it was against the wishes of the people in Scotland. Now, the Office for Budget Responsibility has projected that the UK’s economy will be 4% smaller because of Brexit, and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs found that Scottish exports were actually higher last year, during the height of the pandemic, than they are this year, after Brexit.
I know that the Secretary of State mentioned the pandemic, but that means that Brexit is having a worse impact on Scottish exports than the pandemic. Although he could have fooled me with his lack of mask, Mr Speaker, I am going to presume that the Secretary of State is not in favour of the pandemic and its effects. Given that the effects of Brexit are worse, why does he support it?
Mr Jack
The hon. Lady quotes the OBR. Actually, the OBR prediction was for economic growth to be 4% in March. The reality is that it has corrected that, and its prediction is now for economic growth to be 6.5% in 2021 and 6% in 2022. Actually, our economy is recovering strongly, and it is the fastest-growing economy in the G7.
Mhairi Black
This alternative reality is an international embarrassment. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) already mentioned, the EU provided over €1 billion to Ireland as a Brexit compensation fund to combat its effects. Since we know that Brexit is damaging Scotland’s economy and since this place clearly thinks itself so superior to the EU, without mentioning existing funds can the Secretary of State tell us when Scotland will receive its Brexit compensation fund and how much will be in it?
Mr Jack
We have just had a Budget where the Chancellor has given £41 billion in the block grant, up £4.6 billion and the largest ever block grant received by the Scottish Government since devolution began in 1998. On top of that, this week there was almost £200 million in structural funds support through the levelling up fund, the community renewal fund and the community ownership fund. More money is going into Scotland than ever before to support Scotland as we go through the pandemic. It is a matter of enormous regret that last night, when the Budget vote took place, the SNP did not support all that extra funding for Scotland.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
The EU announced earlier this week that it would be removing the tariffs on American whisky, in a further de-escalation of the trade dispute between the US and the EU. Clearly, there has already been positive news for the Scotch whisky industry with the five-year suspension, but will the Secretary of State work with me to encourage the UK Government to remove all tariffs on American whisky, which would further support the distillers in Moray and the industry across Scotland?
Mr Jack
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I know that there are over 40 distilleries in his constituency, so I understand why he feels very strongly about this issue. I agree with him. We were successful in taking the 25% tariff away, but it needs to be removed completely and not just suspended for a number of years. The way to do that is for us to also remove our tariffs on bourbon. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss that.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Brexit has been nothing other than an unmitigated disaster for Scotland. We now have food shortages, labour shortages, businesses unable to export their products and food rotting in the fields. Is it not about time, instead of all this mealy-mouthed nonsense, that the Secretary of State got to his feet and apologised to the people of Scotland for dragging our nation out of the European Union against its national collective will?
Mr Jack
I simply do not recognise what the hon. Gentleman says. We have been through the pandemic and it is far too early to say what any impacts are to make predictions, but what we do know is that our economy is growing. We are doing fantastic trade deals around the world, which will benefit the Scottish economy, and Scottish food and drink. He just needs to get positive about that: stop talking down Scotland’s businesses, stop talking down Scotland, and start to get optimistic about the opportunities we face.
Mr Speaker
May I just gently say to Ministers that they are meant to speak through the Chair? That was becoming a very personal battle and I am trying to not allow that.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
My Department continues to work closely with the Scottish fishing industry. Following the success of our Scottish Seafood Exports Taskforce, which made real progress on issues identified by industry, we are continuing to bring together industry and Ministers through our Scottish Seafood Industry Action Group to continue that productive engagement.
Andrew Bowie
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. As a newly independent coastal state seeking this week to negotiate with Norway an agreement on Arctic cod, what is he doing to break the monopoly of the foreign-owned and rather slyly named UK Fisheries, which has had more than its fill from Svalbard and has for decades fleeced the Scottish fishing industry over the UK quota on Arctic cod?
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am well aware of the representations the catching sector in Scotland has made over quotas it lost when we were a part of the common fisheries policy. That saw Scottish quotas swapped for the benefit of a foreign-owned vessel. I am sure that being an independent coastal state must mean that we look after our truly domestic businesses first and foremost.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I hope the Minister is aware that the next few weeks will be the most important weeks of the year for businesses exporting fish to continental Europe. Nothing should be done that will affect confidence in the reliability of supply from these shores. These are the same people who were absolutely hammered in the first week of the year as a consequence of the shambolic start to the year. They were promised compensation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at that stage. I have spoken to one supplier in Shetland who has been told that if he had allowed his fish to rot on the quayside, he would have got full compensation, but because he sold it at a significant discount in the domestic market, he will get nothing. Surely that it is not how it was supposed to work?
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. If he cares to send me the details of that firm, I will certainly follow that up with my colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and make sure that the scheme has been working as it should have been.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
The UK Government’s commitment to shipbuilding in Scotland is unwavering. Over the past 15 years, we have delivered: six Type 45 destroyers, launched from the Clyde; two aircraft carriers, assembled at Rosyth; five offshore patrol vessels, built on the Clyde; and we have ensured a bulging order book for the future—eight Type 26 frigates have been ordered, with three of them already under construction on the Clyde, and five Type 31 frigates have been ordered and are destined for Rosyth.
Sarah Atherton
I am pleased that the first deal has been cut for the Type 31 frigate, HMS Venturer, which is being built at Rosyth. With the fleet’s construction due to support 1,250 jobs and 150 apprenticeships, does my right hon. Friend agree that such projects are integral to the Union?
Mr Jack
I absolutely agree: the shipbuilding industry makes a huge contribution to strengthening the Union. It directly supports UK security and prosperity, and it supports 25,200 jobs across the UK and 7,000 direct jobs in Scotland. I was fortunate to visit BAE Systems in Govan recently and I met the excellent workforce building HMS Glasgow; I am assured that she will be a very fine ship.
Jack Lopresti
Does my right hon. Friend share my disappointment that Scotland’s state-owned shipyard could not even compete for a Scottish ferry building contract, and does he note that the Scottish Government’s failure may cost many shipbuilding jobs?
Mr Jack
I do share my hon. Friend’s disappointment that the Scottish Government-owned shipyard was unable to compete in the tenders for two new ferries for Scotland. That disappointment is shared by the whole of Scotland, particularly island communities, who are suffering every day as a result of the SNP’s self-inflicted ferry fiasco.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The Orbital O2 tidal generator was the first marine vessel launched from Dundee in 40 years. Wave and tidal offer massive opportunities for the wider maritime industry in Scotland. All that is required for these technologies to scale up is a ring-fenced pot of money in the forthcoming contracts for difference auction. Will the Secretary of State, given his power, raise this with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to make sure that that happens? I would be happy to meet him.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
In 2019, the Scottish Government took shipbuilding company Ferguson Marine into public ownership. The yard was supposed to deliver two ferries by the end of 2019 at a cost of £97 million. The ferries still have not been delivered and the total cost has ballooned to more than double the original budget, leaving islanders without new ferries and taxpayers footing the bill. As we have just heard, rather than now using the shipbuilder to build more ferries, they are sending the contracts abroad to create jobs in other countries. Does the Secretary of State think that that represents value for money for Scottish and UK taxpayers? If he does not, will he raise the issue with Scottish Ministers, because taxpayers really do deserve better?
Mr Jack
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The Scottish Government’s incompetence in this area has cost the taxpayer very, very heavily. Eleven organisations responded to the original procurement process. The three chosen to tender were shipyards in Romania, Poland and Turkey. I would have preferred the Scottish Government to show some loyalty to UK shipyards, even if their own one could not fulfil the contract.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
This Government are continuing to work collaboratively with counterparts in the devolved Administrations on issues affecting seed potato growers. We remain in close contact with the main industry bodies and we continue to press the European Commission to allow imports of our high-class seed potatoes.
Duncan Baker
The EU continues to block seed potato exports into Europe. It offers no reciprocal trading arrangements and that is harming not only the vital industry in Scotland, but my growers, Solana Seeds, in North Norfolk. Will my hon. Friend agree to meet me to explain the situation further and what we are doing to rectify this problem?
Iain Stewart
I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. I can tell him that an application has been submitted to the EU to lift the restrictions, based on recognising GB seed potato requirements as equivalent, and is being pursued at both a political and a technical level. We remain committed to finding a solution to allow exports to resume and will continue to press our case with the Commission. In the meantime, the temporary authorisation that allowed imports of seed potatoes from the EU expired on 30 June.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
This is just another example of the botched Brexit deal failing to take into account the needs of a small but very important industry. The industry has now completely collapsed; 30,000 tonnes of seed have not been exported and £13.5 million of trade is no longer in place. What is the Minister doing to ensure that an equivalence deal is reached with the EU as soon as possible so that trade can resume?
Iain Stewart
In addition to the points that I made in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), I point out to the hon. Lady that there is enormous export potential around the world, particularly in China and elsewhere in Asia, for Scottish seed potatoes. I discussed the matter with the industry in Glasgow on Monday evening. There is huge potential, and we will do everything we can to help the industry to realise it.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
Our UK-wide total Department for Work and Pensions spend on labour market support will increase to more than £6 billion, which will give everyone a chance to progress, work and develop the skills that they need for the modern workforce. In Scotland, we have made available more than 15,000 jobs, and approximately 8,000 jobs have already started.
Sara Britcliffe
Supporting young people to fulfil their potential is key to levelling up opportunity. Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK-wide kickstart scheme, which has made well over 10,000 Scottish placements available, is yet another example of the UK Government delivering for the people of Scotland?
Iain Stewart
I absolutely agree. If I can loop my answer back to earlier questions about labour market issues, I hope that the schemes that the Government are putting forward will help to give the next generation the skills to fill these domestic vacancies.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
A proper plan for jobs would have Scottish renewables at its heart. There are four simple steps that the Minister could take today to unleash that proper plan’s potential: first, persuade the Treasury to create a pot dedicated to tidal energy in the fourth contracts for difference auction; secondly, instruct Ofgem to reform transmission charges to stop disadvantaging Scotland; thirdly, fund energy interconnectors from the island generators to the mainland; and fourthly, back the Acorn carbon capture and storage project. Those Government decisions would not only transform the UK energy sector, but create a Scottish jobs legacy from COP26. Will the Minister demand that his Cabinet colleagues act now to create a proper jobs plan for Scotland?
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. Scotland has enormous potential in the renewables sector. I can reassure him that the Acorn project is not dead; it did not get through to the first two, but it is the reserve project and we will be working closely to ensure that it is in a future round. Through my Department, we are funding a number of renewable energy schemes such as CoRE—the Community Renewable Energy project—in East Ayrshire. Tidal energy, which the hon. Gentleman referred to, can form part of the Orkney islands growth deal. More generally, I would be happy to facilitate a meeting with my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy so that the hon. Gentleman can discuss the wider issues.
Ian Murray
I would certainly accept a meeting with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to go over the issues, but I would have thought that the Minister and the Scotland Office would also want to champion them. If one outcome from the conference of the parties is quite clear, it is that we need action, not just words.
The Chancellor’s Budget last week did not have a plan for jobs either; in fact, he barely mentioned it. Despite paying more, Scottish taxpayers are getting much less after a decade of devastating Tory and SNP austerity. It is no plan for jobs to increase taxes on businesses and hard-working people at a time when households and businesses are struggling with rapidly rising costs. Are the Minister—as a Conservative Minister—and his Department comfortable that under his Government, hard-working Scots now face the highest tax burden since the 1950s?
Iain Stewart
On income tax, the Scottish Government are responsible and it is indeed true that they have higher taxes than the rest of the UK. I will leave the hon. Gentleman to take that up with the Scottish Government.
On his wider point about unemployment and employment, if the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back to the Budget last week, the forecast for unemployment after the pandemic was originally about 12%, but it is going to be less than half that. The changes that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is making to universal credit tapers, for example, will leave more money in the hands of hard-working people.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
The Turing scheme has provided funding for more than 40,000 participants from schools, colleges and universities across the UK to study and work around the globe during this academic year. Education providers in Scotland have received more than £8.2 million in funding under the scheme.
Ben Everitt
As one of two Members of Parliament representing Milton Keynes in this place, I am especially proud that the scheme is named after one of our local heroes, Alan Turing. Can my hon. Friend and neighbour confirm that the scheme’s organisers will continue to seek global opportunities for our students, in the hope that we can inspire the next generation of codebreakers? Will he also join me in welcoming the fact that there are 28 successful applicants for Scottish projects, and £7.9 million is available for those projects this year?
Iain Stewart
I absolutely agree with my hon. and close Friend in Milton Keynes. It is a matter of pride that the scheme is named after Alan Turing, and given the work that he did to help the globe, I think it entirely fitting that our global scheme, which goes way beyond the horizons of Erasmus, is proving such a success. I am happy to confirm that, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in his Budget last week, funds will be provided to deliver the scheme for another three years.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
I have frequent conversations with Cabinet colleagues about maintaining and strengthening the devolution settlement and ensuring that the Government’s focus is on delivering for Scotland. It is important that all legislation clearly reflects the competence and roles of Scotland’s two Parliaments and two Governments.
Greg Smith
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key issue here is the need for the Scottish Government to exercise their existing powers more effectively, rather than asking for new powers or seeking to go outside the realms of the Scotland Act 1998?
Mr Jack
As my hon. Friend will know, we routinely engage with the Scottish Government on the use of devolved powers. It is in the interests of citizens across the UK for both Governments to operate within their respective powers, as set out in the Scotland Act. That is why I informed the Deputy First Minister back in March that I felt that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill contained clauses that were outside the competence of the Scottish Government. Sadly, our warnings and suggestions for changes to the Bills were ignored, so our Law Officers referred the relevant clauses to the Supreme Court. The Court agreed with our views on every count. I hope that the Scottish Government will in future work with us to ensure that their Bills respect the devolution settlement, so that we do not waste any more time and money when enacting important legislation.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Iain Stewart)
This Government are committed to the transition of the economy to net zero by 2050. We recently published our net zero strategy, which will support hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs and leverage up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030 across the entire United Kingdom.
Kenny MacAskill
Communities must have local as well as large-scale projects such as turbine manufacturing, which Scotland is sadly missing out on, but communities such as my own in East Lothian are denied a share of the wealth going ashore. There is a legislative gap to allow community benefit from offshore as opposed to onshore wind. Will the Minister meet me to discuss this to see whether East Lothian and other such communities can benefit from offshore wind, as Shetland has benefited from oil and gas?
Iain Stewart
I am always happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, but I would point out to him that this Government are investing heavily in offshore wind, as was announced this week by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Scotland clearly has a lot to offer towards our net zero objectives—not least its high-quality wind! Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Acorn carbon capture and storage and hydrogen project is still very much part of the UK Government’s plans for our overall carbon capture, utilisation and storage strategy and our net zero objectives?
Iain Stewart
The short answer is yes. As I explained a moment ago, that was not successful in the first two but it is a reserve project and we are actively working to ensure that it is there in future rounds.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Iain Stewart
I regularly meet Cabinet colleagues to discuss these matters and I will continue to do so. I would point out the investment that my Department is making in renewable energy right across Scotland. This includes the community renewable energy—or CoRE—project in East Ayrshire and tidal energy and offshore wind in Shetland. We are making real investment that will make a real difference to people’s lives and the planet.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I would like to point out that the British Sign Language interpretation of the proceedings is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
As the House will be in recess next week, I am sure that colleagues will join me in looking ahead to Armistice Day and remembering those men and women who have served and lost their lives in the service of this country. We also thank the members of our armed forces who continue to do so today.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Dr Huq
The Prime Minister has been busy preaching urgency this week at COP26, and I hope that he has caught up with his sleep. When he sits down with his grandchildren one day and they ask, “What did you do in that week of COP26?”, will he be able to outline one action that was in his gift that had an immediate impact? Will he be consistent with what he has always said and done and take on the biggest emitter of CO2 in the whole of Europe, which greedily and voraciously wants more? Will he ditch his predecessor’s damaging, daft, pre-levelling up, pre-Zoom and pre-90%-drop-in-demand proposal and have a fresh vote in this House to kill off the third runway at Heathrow?
The Prime Minister
What this Government are going to do, rather than taking steps to damage the economy of this country, which is what Labour would do, is get to net zero aviation. That is the future for this country: clean, green aviation. And by the way, that has every chance of arriving a lot earlier than a third runway at Heathrow.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I know that my hon. Friend does a huge amount of work for his constituents. I have seen the pictures that he describes. I can tell him that the application is in from the hospital in his constituency and that it is under consideration. We aim to make our final decision in the spring of next year.
Mr Speaker
We now come to the deputy leader of the Labour party, Angela Rayner.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I share the Prime Minister’s opening words regarding our armed forces and the tremendous work that they do? I also send my best wishes to all those recovering in Salisbury and give our sincere thanks to the emergency services that responded on that day. I would also like to wish all those who are celebrating tomorrow a very happy and peaceful Diwali.
Let me start with something on which there should be agreement on both sides of the House. The independent standards process found that a Member broke the rules on paid lobbying. Surely the Prime Minister accepts that this is, and should be, a serious offence, yet we have seen reports that he will respond by scrapping the independent process and overturning its verdict. In no other profession in our country could someone be found guilty by an independent process and just have their mates vote them back into the job. Surely the Prime Minister and this Government are not going to do that today.
The Prime Minister
No, of course we are not going to do that, because paid lobbying, paid advocacy, in this House is wrong. I make absolutely no bones about that. Members who are found guilty of it should apologise and pay the necessary penalties, but that is not the issue in this case or in the vote befor us today.
The issue in this case, which involves a serious family tragedy, is whether a Member of this House had a fair opportunity to make representations and whether, as a matter of natural justice, our procedures in this House allow for a proper appeal, which is something that should be of interest to Members across this House and should be approached properly in a spirit of moderation and compassion.
Angela Rayner
Let me put it simply. If it was a police officer, a teacher or a doctor, we would expect the independent process to be followed and not changed after the verdict. It is one rule for Conservative Members and another rule for the rest of us.
When a Conservative Member was found guilty of sexual harassment but let off on a loophole, they said the rules could not be changed after the event. So they cannot change the rules to stop sexual harassment, but they can change the rules to allow cash for access. Why is the Prime Minister making it up as he goes along?
The Prime Minister
All the professions that she mentions have a right of appeal, which is what the House needs to consider. I respectfully say to her that, instead of playing of politics on this issue, which is what Opposition Members are doing, she needs to consider the procedures of this House in a spirit of fairness. Instead of playing politics, we are getting on with delivering on the people’s priorities: 40 more hospitals, 20,000 more police officers and wages up, growth up and jobs up across this country. Those are our priorities. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Perkins, I do not want to see any more of that.
Angela Rayner
It is not about playing politics in this place; it is about playing by the rules. As we can see, it is one rule for everybody else and another rule for the Conservatives. When they break the rules, they just remake the rules. I know Donald Trump is the Prime Minister’s hero, but I say to him in all seriousness that he should learn the lesson that, if he keeps cheating the public, it will catch up with him in the end. While the Conservatives are wallowing in sleaze, the rest of the country faces higher bills, rising costs and damaging tax rises. Can he tell us the projected tax increase per household over the next five years?
The Prime Minister
What I can tell her is that the recent Budget took cash from those who can afford to pay the most and made very substantial tax cuts for the hardest working and poorest families in this country. We cut £1,000 with the universal credit taper relief for hard-working families in this country—2 million families had a £1,000 tax cut—and we are lifting the living wage across the whole country. We are also ensuring that this country gets on with a high-wage, high-skill, jobs-led recovery, and never let it be forgotten that had we listened to the Opposition we would have none of those things because we would still be in lockdown.
Angela Rayner
I think the Prime Minister missed out the number, so let me help him out. The Resolution Foundation found that by 2026 taxes will be £3,000 more per household since he took office. My constituents and his are feeling the pinch, and they are worried about Christmas as well. Their bills are going up every week and the Budget did nothing to help them. So can the Prime Minister tell them: how much was the tax cut that he gave to the banks instead?
The Prime Minister
As the right hon. Lady knows very well, it is the banks and the bankers who are paying far more proportionately as a result of our tax measures to cover the cost of the NHS. It is a very moot point because, of the £36 billion, 50% comes from the 14% who are the richest in this country—overwhelmingly, from the banks and financial services industry—who can pay the most. The astonishing thing is that, when it came to voting for that £36 billion increase—for 48 new hospitals, 50,000 more nurses and looking after our public services—the Opposition voted against it.
Angela Rayner
According to the Prime Minister’s own Budget documents, it was £4 billion in tax cuts to the bankers and £3,000 of tax rises per household. That is good news for the donor who gave his party half a million pounds—his bank got a bonus of nearly £8 million—but not so good news for the rest of us.
This month, as the Prime Minister said, we remember and celebrate all those who serve our great country, all those who have lost their lives, leaving behind loved ones, and those who have sustained life-changing injuries and live every day with the consequences of their sacrifice. Yet hidden in the small print of the Budget was a £1 billion cut to day-to-day defence spending. So will our servicemen and women face pay cuts, or will there be fewer of them, with less support?
The Prime Minister
I think it is quite incredible that we are now hearing this from the Labour party, when they would have pulled us out of NATO. I think the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) actually wanted to abolish the Army. The woman sitting next to the right hon. Lady wanted to abolish the Army. What you have got with this Government is spending on defence that is the highest since the cold war; it is the biggest uplift since the cold war and an increase that has restored confidence in this country around the world, in our ability to defend not just our own shores, but our friends and partners. That is what this Government are doing.
Angela Rayner
The Prime Minister knows that I asked him about the annual defence budget, which his own Budget documents show will drop by £1.3 billion. I hear his fine words, and I am from a military family myself, but I will not take party political lectures from him, because too often the Government’s actions do not match their words. I think of my constituent who fought in Afghanistan, yet was threatened with sanctions because he was unable to physically travel miles to the nearest Department for Work and Pensions office. The Prime Minister’s tax cut for short-haul flights last week cost £30 million—that is 50% more than the Government spend on supporting veterans’ mental health each year. The charity Combat Stress has lost £6 million in funding this year, even as calls to its helpline have doubled. So will the Prime Minister match our proposal to reinvest the £35 million saved from cancelled Ministry of Defence contracts to support our veterans, who surely deserve it?
The Prime Minister
It is because we have been able to run a strong economy and take our economy out of lockdown that we have been able to invest massively in the NHS, to lift spending on defence to record levels and to keep supporting our fantastic public services. That is what this Government are able to do.
I enjoy my conversations with the right hon. Lady, in spite of the insults and party political points that she directs towards the Government. I do not want to cause any further dissension on the Opposition Benches, but I think you will agree, Mr Speaker, that she has about a gigawatt more energy than the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). I am just putting that out there. But it is the same old Labour: no plan and no ideas. We are getting on with delivering on the people’s priorities and taking this country forward. Growth is up, jobs are up, wages are up and productivity is up. All Labour does is play politics while we deliver.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
The Prime Minister
As my hon. Friend knows, I am a fanatic about buses. We are putting £1.2 billion more into bus funding, and I know that Stoke-on-Trent has applied for that. I urge my hon. Friend to take up his suggestion immediately with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
As we look forward to Remembrance Sunday, may I, too, commend those who have served and the military and security services that protect us all for the job that they continue to do?
Sir David Attenborough’s powerful opening statement to COP26 told us that the journey to net zero means:
“We must recapture billions of tons of carbon from the air.”
The Climate Change Committee has been clear that carbon capture and storage
“is a necessity not an option”
to achieve the planet’s net zero targets.
This week, Scotland’s world-leading climate targets have received widespread praise from, among others, the UN Secretary-General. Scotland is finding partners around the world to tackle the climate emergency, but in Westminster there is not even a willing partner to deliver the long-promised carbon-capture project. Scotland’s north-east has now been waiting weeks for a clear reason for exactly why the Scottish cluster bid was rejected. There have been no clear answers, and not even clear excuses, so perhaps the Prime Minister will answer this simple question: does he know exactly how much of the UK’s CO2 storage the Scottish cluster could deliver?
The Prime Minister
I am a massive enthusiast for carbon capture and storage around the whole UK. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Acorn project in Aberdeen remains on the reserve list. He should not give up: we will come back to this issue and, of course, we want to make sure that we have a fantastic industry generating clean hydrogen around the country. The right hon. Gentleman should not despair. In the meantime, we are supporting amazing Scottish plans to get clean energy from wind, hydrogen and all sorts of means. I thank the people of Scotland and the people of Glasgow for the way they have helped to produce what has been, so far, a fantastically well-organised summit.
Ian Blackford
It is bad enough that the Prime Minister rejected the Scottish cluster a week before COP, but what is worse is that he clearly does not even know or understand what his Government were rejecting. Let me tell him: the Scottish cluster bid would have stored 30% of the UK’s CO2 emissions and supported the creation of around 20,000 jobs in green industries. It was far and away the best bid, Prime Minister. If the decision was based on science alone, it would have been approved on the spot. It is obvious that there was a political decision in Westminster to reject it. With days left at the COP summit, will the Prime Minister now reverse his Government’s massive own goal in rejecting the Scottish cluster?
The Prime Minister
I am trying to encourage the right hon. Gentleman to be a little bit less gloomy about the prospects of this initiative. I understand exactly what he says, and we are working with the Scottish Government, whom I thank for their co-operation and all their support for COP in the past few days and weeks and for what they are doing. We will come back to this issue. What I think is working well is the spirit of co-operation among all levels of government in this country, and what does not work is confrontation.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I know how strongly my hon. Friend and other colleagues across the south-west feel about this issue. That is why we have legislated to introduce higher rates of stamp duty on second homes. We will ensure that only genuine holiday businesses can access small business rates relief, but I am certainly happy to meet colleagues to discuss what further we may do to ensure that local people get the homes that they need.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
In the words of the Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth:
“Scotland is vital for the UK’s energy needs, both currently and in the future…It is also vital for our future offshore wind capabilities, and other low-carbon and renewable energies.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2021; Vol. 701, c. 615.]
As he confirms, it is the rest of the UK that is dependent on Scotland, not the other way round. Does the Prime Minister not realise that his failure to invest in carbon capture and storage at St Fergus in Grangemouth and to feed the potential at Mossmorran in my constituency, is regarded as an act of deliberate economic vandalism, casting himself less as Bond and more as Blofeld the villain, for all the COP26 world to see?
The Prime Minister
What the COP26 world can see is the astonishing achievements of Scotland and the rest of the UK in developing clean energy sources. I have said to the right hon. Gentleman, the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party in Westminster, that we will come back to the Aberdeen—[Interruption.] Sorry, forgive me, the hon. Gentleman is a member of a different party, but it has substantially the same agenda. We will come back to this. What I have found encouraging about the past few days is the spirit of co-operation and joint enterprise that I now detect that will enable us to deliver massive carbon cuts across this whole country.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for everything that he has done for Darlington. He should wait for the interim rail plan to come out, but, in the meantime, we are upgrading Darlington station. There are plans in place and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced £310 million of funding over the next five years to transform local transport networks in the Tees Valley.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady must wait for the integrated rail plan, but the north-east will be the beneficiary of the biggest investment in our rail infrastructure beyond HS2 that we have seen for a century. We will be putting in about £96 billion more, and we want the local and regional authorities to work with us to ensure that we promote the projects that the people really want.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northampton- shire) (Con)
The Prime Minister
Yes, I have listened to my right hon. Friend over many years on this issue and she is 100% right in what she says about the importance of early years. That is why we are investing £500 million to support families and children, including £82 million to create a network of family hubs to bring together services for children of all ages. We are going to continue to invest in children’s early years—for example, the offer of 15 hours of early education for disadvantaged two-year-olds that has already benefited 1.1 million disadvantaged kids since 2013.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Member describes a truly tragic and appalling case. I am sure that the whole House will share the revulsion that she has expressed at the outcome of the law’s processes. We will certainly need to have a meeting to see what we can do to address that loophole.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have to ensure that our NHS has the staff that it needs. That is why there are 50,000 more healthcare professionals in the NHS this year than there were last year—12,000 more nurses. In addition, there are 60,000 nurses in training—[Interruption.] Somebody on the Opposition Benches asks, “Why are there waiting lists?”. It is because we have been through a pandemic. We are fixing those waiting lists with £36 billion of investment, which the Labour party voted against.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Prime Minister
This is a very difficult issue, as the whole House knows. The case of the WASPI women is not easily addressed. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the expenditure involved is very considerable and the tax that would have to be raised would be very considerable. We continue to reflect on all the options to ensure that people across this country get fair pensions.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
As a mother, I cannot begin to imagine the pain and torment of losing a child. Richard Lee, a constituent of mine and veteran who served with distinction in the British Army, has been living with this pain every day of his life since 28 November 1981. On that day, his daughter, Katrice Lee, went missing from a military shopping complex near Paderborn in Germany. It was Katrice’s second birthday, and her family are still searching. The 40th anniversary of Katrice’s disappearance is coming up at the end of this month. It will undoubtedly be an exceptionally painful event for the entire Lee family. Will the Prime Minister please agree to meet Mr Lee, father to father, and reassure him that Katrice has not been forgotten?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I thank my hon. Friend for raising this absolutely tragic case. I know that the thoughts of the whole House will be with Katrice Lee’s family. Of course I will agree to my hon. Friend’s request and meet Mr Lee, father to father.
Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady raises a very interesting aspect of research into epilepsy. We are funding epilepsy research with another £54 million over the last few years. The issue that she raises of any particular link between hot weather or climate change and epilepsy is certainly one that we will be going into.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Last week, an independent inquiry into Lib Dem-run Sutton Council’s own heat network found that it was set up on false assumptions, including funding that was never obtained and homes that do not exist—and now my constituents are going to be left footing the bill. Does the Prime Minister agree that this latest failure shows that the Lib Dems are just not fit to govern and that those responsible should go?
The Prime Minister
It is not the first time that the Lib Dems have campaigned on homes that do not exist or will never exist, if I think of their campaign in Chesham and Amersham. I will certainly look into the matter that my hon. Friend raises.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s constituent—[Interruption.] I certainly do. I have every sympathy, but what I think is unfair is that people such as her are placed in a position of unnecessary anxiety about their homes when they should be reassured.
I sympathise deeply with people who have to pay for waking watches and other such things. I think it is absurd. But what people should be doing is making sure that we do not unnecessarily undermine the confidence of the market and of people in these homes, because they are not unsafe. Many millions of homes are not unsafe—and the hon. Gentleman should have the courage to say so.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The new police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands has chosen to cut back on stop and search across the region. Can the Prime Minister confirm that while stops and searches must be proportionate and not discriminatory, they remain an important part of keeping our streets and communities safe?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I certainly agree with that. It was a point that I raised recently with the Labour Mayor of London. We agreed on many things—he was very much out of line with the current Labour policy on lockdown, for instance—but I certainly thought that he was wrong about stop and search. We need to make sure that stop and search is part of the armoury of police options when it comes to stopping knife crime. If it is done sensitively and in accordance with the law, I believe it can be extremely valuable.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
We are investing in 48 new hospitals and rebuilds. What is the hon. Lady’s job, frankly, is to vote for £36 billion of investment in the NHS, which will allow us to take our health services forward. Why would she not do that?
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I commend the Prime Minister on his diplomatic efforts in recent weeks and ask him about another serious and grave issue that was raised at the G20 in Rome: the strong likelihood of a nuclear-ready Iran within a matter of weeks or months. What will the UK do with our international partners to tackle that? If it is via an agreement, will it be stronger and more enduring than the last one? If it is not, as many people suspect, what is our plan B?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question on an issue that he knows a great deal about. This is a case of making it clear to the Iranians that there is an opportunity for them to do something that would be massively in the interests of their people and of Iran: to come back to the table and do a further agreement—a son of the joint comprehensive plan of action—and restore the JCPOA at the Vienna talks. That is what needs to happen. That is the posture of the G20 and of our friends and allies around the world.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Prime Minister
What we have done with universal credit is abolish the old system, which unfairly taxed people on universal credit, and help people with a £1 billion tax cut. What we on this side of the House believe in is rewarding work. That is what the people of this country want to see. That is why we have put the tax cut on those who are on universal credit and that is why we are lifting the living wage. What is the Opposition’s policy on universal credit? It is not nothing; they want to abolish universal credit.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
The Mayor of London is refusing to rule out the so-called outer London charge, which would apply to all vehicles registered outside Greater London that cross the Greater London boundary. That would have terrible consequences for my Orpington constituents and those who live in the neighbouring constituency of Old Bexley and Sidcup. Louie French, the excellent local candidate for the by-election, has pledged to fight that appalling proposal. Will my right hon. Friend join me in wishing Louie French luck with that and ensure that this silly move from the Mayor of London is stopped in its tracks?
The Prime Minister
I certainly do agree with my hon. Friend, who is an old friend of mine; I have worked closely with him on London issues for many years. I know where Labour’s instincts are. It always wants to put taxes up, particularly on motorists, and I think a checkpoint Chigwell would hit working families. What the Labour Mayor of London needs to do is get a grip on TfL’s finances and stop whacking up the taxes on ordinary people in the capital city.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Prime Minister is very much aware of my constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, who was abducted by plainclothes officers while shopping with his new wife in the city of Jalandhar, Punjab, on 4 November 2017. The intervening years have seen allegations of torture overlooked, and ostensibly strong words from the Prime Minister’s Government about the case overshadowed by excitement over a trade deal with the Republic of India.
As we approach the fourth anniversary of Jagtar’s arrest tomorrow with no charges having been brought in the case by the Government of India, can the Prime Minister’s Government grant the smallest of favours to Jagtar’s wife and his family in Dumbarton and declare his detention an arbitrary one?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the campaign that he has been running for Jagtar Singh for a long time. I say to him that the closeness of our relationship with India in no way diminishes our willingness to raise that case with the Government of India. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary raised it the last time she was in India.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
Unlike the Opposition, I welcome the record investment in the NHS announced in the Budget. Will my right hon. Friend support my campaign for a new health centre in the village of East Leake in my constituency, where the current building is no longer big enough to serve the population? It will soon need to accommodate 3,000 new patients from new building.
The Prime Minister
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will do his utmost, in the course of the coming decisions, to oblige my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards) in her justified campaign for Rushcliffe and its hospital. How incredible that Labour Members continue to catcall and attack the Government when they voted against the tax rising measures that are necessary to fund our NHS! They are completely inconsistent. They have absolutely no plans and no idea.
G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement about the G20 summit in Rome and update the House on COP26 in Glasgow.
Almost 30 years ago, the world acknowledged the gathering danger of climate change and agreed to do what would once have been inconceivable: to regulate the atmosphere of the planet itself by curbing greenhouse gas emissions. One declaration succeeded another until, in Paris in 2015, we all agreed to seek to restrain the rise in world temperatures to 1.5° C.
Now, after all the targets and promises, and after yet more warnings from our scientists about the peril staring us in the face, we come to the reckoning. This is the moment when we must turn words into action. If we fail, Paris will have failed, and every summit going back to Rio de Janeiro in 1992 will have failed, because we will have allowed our shared aim of 1.5° to escape our grasp.
Even half a degree of extra warming would have tragic consequences. If global temperatures were to rise by 2°, our scientists forecast that we will lose virtually all the world’s coral reefs. The Great Barrier Reef and countless other living marvels would dissolve into an ever warmer and ever more acidic ocean, returning the terrible verdict that human beings lacked the will to preserve the wonders of the natural world.
In the end, it is a question of will. We have the technology to do what is necessary; all that remains in question is our resolve. The G20 summit convened by our Italian friends and COP26 partner last weekend provided encouraging evidence that the political will exists, which is vital for the simple reason that the G20 accounts for 80% of the world economy and 75% of greenhouse gas emissions. Britain was the first G20 nation to promise in law to wipe out our contribution to climate change by achieving net zero; as recently as 2019, only one other member had made a comparable pledge.
Today, 18 countries in the G20 have made specific commitments to achieve net zero and in the Rome declaration last Sunday every member acknowledged
“the key relevance of achieving global net zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by or around mid-century”.
To that end, the G20, including China, agreed to stop financing new international unabated coal projects by the end of this year—a vital step towards consigning coal to history—and every member repeated their commitment to the Paris target of 1.5°.
In a spirit of co-operation, the summit reached other important agreements. The G20 will levy a minimum corporation tax rate of 15%, ensuring that multinational companies make a fair contribution wherever they operate. Over 130 countries and jurisdictions have now joined the arrangement, showing what we can achieve together when the will exists.
The G20 adopted a target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population against covid by the middle of next year, and the UK is on track to provide 100 million doses to that effort. By the end of the year, we will have donated over 30 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and at least another 20 million will follow next year along with all 20 million doses of the Janssen vaccine ordered by the Government. The G20 also resolved to work together to ease the supply chain disruptions that have affected every member as demand recovers and the world economy gets back on its feet. I pay tribute to Prime Minister Mario Draghi for his expert handling of the summit.
But everyone will accept that far more needs to be done to spare humanity from catastrophic climate change. In the meantime, global warming is already contributing to droughts, brushfires and hurricanes, summoning an awful vision of what lies ahead if we fail to act in the time that remains. So the biggest summit that the United Kingdom has ever hosted is now under way in Glasgow, bringing together 120 world leaders with the aim of translating aspirations into action to keep the ambition of 1.5° alive. I am grateful to Glasgow City Council, Police Scotland, police across the whole of the UK and our public health bodies for making the occasion possible and for all their hard work. For millions across the world, the outcome is literally a matter of life or death. For some island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, it is a question of national survival.
The negotiations in Glasgow have almost two weeks to run, but we can take heart from what has been achieved so far. Nations that together comprise 90% of the world economy are now committed to net zero, up from 30% when the UK took over the reins of COP. Yesterday alone, the United States and over 100 other countries agreed to cut their emissions of methane—one of the most destructive greenhouse gases—by 30% by 2030, and 122 countries with over 85% of the world’s forests agreed to end and reverse deforestation by the same deadline, backed by the greatest ever commitment of public funds to the cause. I hope that will trigger even more from the private sector.
India has agreed to transform her energy system to derive half her power from renewable sources, keeping a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere. The UK has doubled our commitment to international climate finance to £11.6 billion, and we will contribute another £1 billion if the economy grows as is forecast. We have launched our clean green initiative, which will help the developing world to build new infrastructure in an environmentally friendly way, and we will invest £3 billion of public money to unlock billions more from the private sector.
The UK has asked the world for action on coal, cars, cash and trees, and we have begun to make substantial, palpable progress on three out of the four, but the negotiations in Glasgow have a long way to go and far more must be done. Whether we can summon the collective wisdom and will to save ourselves from an avoidable disaster still hangs in the balance. We will press on with the hard work until the last hour.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of this statement, and for updating the House on the G20 summit in Rome. It cannot be overstated how crucial the next week and a half is. I am pleased that there has been some progress as the Prime Minister outlined, but the next 10 days need to move beyond prepacked announcements. This is an opportunity for Britain, alongside our friends and allies around the world, to deliver historic change. By taking action to reduce emissions right now in this decade, we can avoid the worst effects of climate change. That cannot just be a political ambition; it is a necessity for humanity.
As the G20 ends and COP26 continues, I assure the Prime Minister that all Labour Members are desperate for it to be a success. We hope that our negotiations can bring people together and deliver urgent solutions to the biggest challenge our world has ever faced. However, there is some cause for concern. The G20 needed to be a springboard to COP26, and a real opportunity to show Britain’s diplomatic strength in bringing people together and applying pressure where it is needed. We need to convince the big polluters to meet the commitment to 1.5°, to find solutions to phase out fossil fuels, to ensure a just transition for workers, and to create a fairer and greener economy. However, the G20 did not achieve that, and the Prime Minister is failing in his efforts to convince world leaders that more must be done. He has welcomed commitments for the distant future, and I accept that, but he knows all too well that we need to halve carbon emissions now, and at least by the end of this decade, if we are to keep global temperatures down. It is time for urgent climate action now, not more climate delay.
We all know how difficult it is to convince the world to curtail carbon emissions, but it is our responsibility to do so. It is the Prime Minister’s responsibility to influence world leaders and lead by example. As we try to convince other countries to phase out coal, the Government are refusing to make their mind up about coalmines within their borders. They could have followed the lead of the Welsh Labour Government and changed planning policy to ensure that no new coalmines were developed, but they did not. As we try to convince big emitters to do more on reducing emissions, unfortunately this Government are agreeing a trade deal with Australia that removes key climate pledges. They are undermining our messages by giving a free pass to our friends. When Britain must convince the wealthiest nations in the world to pledge more money to help developing countries cut their emissions and adapt to climate change, what have this Government done? They cut development aid that would have funded vital climate projects. How does the Prime Minister expect to convince others to do more, when he is setting such a poor example?
I also want to raise global vaccinations. Last week the G20 agreed a vague promise to explore ways to accelerate global vaccination against covid-19, yet in some of the world’s poorest countries, less than 3% of people have received even one dose of the vaccine. We all know that we live in a globalised world, where the more the virus spreads, the greater the threat of new variants. We are not safe from covid here until people are safe from covid everywhere. There is no more time for rhetoric; it is time for action. The Prime Minister mentioned our efforts on vaccines, but last week it was revealed that the UK is lagging behind all other G7 countries bar one in sharing surplus vaccines with poor countries. That is shameful. Our fantastic scientists who developed the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine are being let down by our Prime Minister’s actions. We need booster jabs in Manchester, and vaccines shared with Madagascar. It is now time for actions, not words. As the world gathers over the next two weeks, we all hope for the breakthrough that we need. Britain has a proud history of building alliances and standing up for what is right, and I have no doubt we will be able to do that again. I wish the Prime Minister well in his efforts, and I ask him to pay attention and go for the detail on this. If he fails to deliver the change we need through this conference, we will all pay the price.
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady asks me to go for the detail, but having said some kind things about her approach just now, after listening to that I think I prefer the forensic—or the pseudo-forensic—approach of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). She is completely in ignorance of the basic facts. We have cut our CO2 emissions by 44% on 1990 levels, largely by moving from 80% dependence on coal 50 years ago to about 1% or 2% today. It is a massive cut.
We have not cut our investment in overseas development aid for climate change funding—[Interruption.] No, we have not. We have kept it at £11.6 billion. I do not know whether the right hon. Lady was paying attention to the news, but only the other day we announced another £1 billion, which we were able to do because of the growth in the economy. She is completely wrong about the facts. As for what she said about vaccines, I am afraid it is an insult to the incredible work done by the UK vaccine roll-out programme across the world. One and a half billion people have had access to cost-price vaccines, thanks to the deal that this Government did with Oxford AstraZeneca—a record no other country in the world has—to say nothing of the £548 million extra that we put into Gavi, or the extra 100 million vaccines that we are donating by June next year. This country has an absolutely outstanding record in supporting vaccination around the world. If the right hon. Lady wants to look at the detail, I urge her to go off and study it.
I welcome the broad thrust of what the right hon. Lady said about COP26. I think she was saying that she sees signs of progress but there is a lot more to do, and frankly, there she is right. Perhaps I can point to the things that have happened since G20, and draw her attention to India’s massive commitment to cut CO2 by 2030 by cleaning up its power system. I can point to the $10 billion from Japan over the next five years to support developing countries around the world, and I point also not just to Brazil, but to Russia, China and 110 countries around the world that have signed up to the forestry declaration to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. That considerable achievement will make a huge difference, and we will use consumer power, and the power of corporations and the private sector around the world, to effect that change.
For me, the single most important thing that came out of COP was an agreement around the world about the basic intellectual approach now being taken by the UK through the clean green initiative and what Joe Biden calls the build back better world initiative. That is the thing that offers greatest hope for humanity. We are not just putting in Government money to help countries around the world clean up, and putting in development aid money—although we are massively supporting that—but we are now leveraging in tens, perhaps hundreds, of trillions of private sector investment. That is the way to make the difference, and if we can get that right at this COP it will be a truly remarkable thing. As I say, however, there is still a long way to go.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Given that we are now taxing people at a higher rate than at any time since we were impoverished under the Attlee Government, and given that despite the fact that we produce only 1% of global emissions and China produces 27% we are now loading further controls on our industry that are not being matched in China or India, further eroding our competitive advantage, will the Prime Minister grip all his spending Departments and ensure that we root out waste and incompetence and create a genuine enterprise, low-tax economy?
The Prime Minister
Yes, and that is why we still have among the lowest corporation taxes in the OECD, in spite of the measures that we have been obliged to take because of the pandemic. That is why we put in, for instance, the 125% super deduction for companies to invest in capital, invest in infrastructure and expand their businesses. The results—the benefits—are already being seen, just in gigabit broadband alone.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement.
The G20 was an opportunity to build momentum ahead of the COP summit, but I think even the Prime Minister would admit that it largely failed to meet people’s demand and desire for increased global co-operation. If we are to meet the global challenges that all of humanity now faces, that needs to change, and change very quickly, with a meaningful agreement in Glasgow over the course of the coming week. All of us hope that that will be the case.
On climate change, we know that the G20 is responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, so it is right that the G20 members bear the biggest responsibility. Countries that have contributed the least to this climate crisis must not be left to pay the biggest price. That is why there has to be a commitment to climate justice and why that is so important.
In Scotland, we recently doubled our climate justice fund to £6 million per year, providing £24 million over the Scottish Parliament Session. But the commitments from the largest nations in the G20 always seem to be heavily caveated. On Monday, the Prime Minister promised £1 billion in UK aid for climate finance, but—here is the catch—only if the UK economy grows as forecast. Exactly the same excuse is presented when it comes to the Government’s disgraceful policy of cuts to overseas aid. When will the UK Government stop caveating their commitment to climate justice, follow Scotland’s leadership and establish a climate justice fund?
On Afghanistan, what concrete actions and timelines were agreed to help end the terrible famine that is ripping through that country? Finally, on covid, what specific targets and timelines were agreed to rapidly increase vaccine roll-out to those nations that are being left behind in the suppression of the virus?
The Prime Minister
First, on climate finance for the world, the right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, because it is essential that the developed world supports the developing world on the path to decarbonisation. That is why the $100 billion per year is so important. Contributions such as the one we saw from the Japanese yesterday, what the French have done, what the Germans have done and what Joe Biden did the other day are important steps, but there is much more to be done. But be in no doubt: the right hon. Gentleman should be very proud of what the UK is committing—the £11.6 billion that we committed two years ago, plus another billion the day before yesterday. These are big sums now that the UK is giving, and we are way out in front.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise Afghanistan. We had sad but good discussions about Afghanistan, and we are determined to work together to concert our humanitarian relief to do what we can, notwithstanding the difficulties that there are obviously going to be with our relations with the Taliban.
On the global vaccine roll-out, the right hon. Gentleman will have heard the commitments made by countries around the world. I think the UK can be very proud of what we are doing on top of the 1.5 billion AstraZeneca doses, with another 100 million doses by June next year.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
To what extent does the success of the entire enterprise depend upon the promised finance to the developing world?
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
I thank the Prime Minister for all his efforts to try to make COP26 a success. For many of us, halting climate change has been the passion of our lives. May I ask the Prime Minister to confirm reports I have heard that the British negotiating team in Glasgow is seriously concerned that China’s proposed contribution to cutting emissions, particularly on coal, goes nowhere near fast enough or far enough? If that is the case, will he commit to working with all our partners in the west and across the world, particularly those vulnerable countries that are already watching the waves of climate change hit their shores, to take any necessary action to pressure China to make the right decision?
The Prime Minister
I want to thank the right hon. Gentleman, because his political record shows that he has done a huge amount of good in this area. That is the truth of the matter, and I thank him for what he has done.
What is happening with China is very important, but it is a mixed picture and it is important not to be too negative at present. The right hon. Gentleman is right about domestic Chinese coal-fired production, and we are hoping for progress there. We are hoping that when China says that it can peak in carbon dioxide output before 2030, that date of “before” is correct and it is considerably nearer now than 2030. That is where the work is being done.
But what is interesting is that when China made the commitment to stop overseas financing for coal, that had an instant impact on many of China’s friends and partners around the Asia-Pacific region, which took the signal and have also stopped overseas financing for coal. It is that climate of the power of the room in the COP that is starting to make a difference, but whether it is going to be possible at this COP to get China to make the commitments that are really necessary, I am afraid it is just too early to say.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I welcome all the progress made so far at COP26 and congratulate all those involved, including my right hon. Friend, but what will we do if we do not get agreement on article 6 and persuade countries such as China to properly price carbon into their economies? Our businesses in the UK are carrying their share of costs to deal with climate change. Why should we allow them to be undercut by competitors that keep their prices down by using highly polluting industrial production techniques? Surely that is not something that the free world economies can tolerate.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend knows a great deal about this issue, and he is right to draw attention to article 6 and the carbon credit issue. That is something on which our negotiators will be working flat out until the final hour of COP.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
One of the terrible effects of climate change is felt in south Wales valleys seats, where extreme weather conditions and heavy rain have destabilised some of the disused coal tips. People live in terror of another Aberfan, and I know the Prime Minister shares that fear. The majority of the dangerous tips are in my local authority area. I just wonder whether he would be prepared to meet me, the leader of the local council and the other Members from Rhondda Cynon Taf, specifically to discuss how we can make sure that all those tips are safe. I really do ask him for that meeting.
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman. He has raised this issue with me several times. I will see what I can do to oblige him. This is something that I do want to try to fix, but it is primarily something that the Welsh Government should be addressing themselves. I will talk to the Welsh Government and come back to him.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I strongly congratulate the Prime Minister on throwing his heart and soul at COP26; no one can have worked harder.
The UK is responsible for 1% of global carbon emissions; China is responsible for 28%. Since 2000, two thirds of the increase in global carbon emissions has come from China. Is China’s commitment to reach peak coal in 2030 an aspiration or a binding target?
The Prime Minister
I think what President Xi Jinping would say is that China keeps its promises. We will have to hope that that is true. I think the people of the world will want to hold all of us, all Governments, to account, but my hon. Friend is completely right to focus on the particular pressure that China faces from us and from the whole world.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s recent conversion to the climate cause. I agree with him that the clock is indeed at one minute to midnight, which begs the question as to why his snooze button was on for so long. He will know that the first rule of diplomacy is to walk the talk. Will he now take this opportunity to put real credibility behind his stirring words to lead by example and to commit now, finally, to reversing the decision on the Cambo oilfield—yes or no? Very simple.
The Prime Minister
What I can tell the hon. Lady is that we continue to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels of all kinds, and we will be going for complete net zero in our power production by 2035, moving beyond coal by 2024. I think it was a Scottish National party Minister who said that oil was still a part of Scotland’s future. I will say nothing about the Cambo oilfield. What I will say is that there is a future for hydrocarbons in so far as we can liberate hydrogen and make clean energy.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his leadership of COP, particularly the achievement of getting 100 countries to sign up to the methane pledge. He will know, however, that some of the biggest emitters have not signed up. When will the power of the room, which he described a moment ago, be on those countries to sign up to the pledge as well?
The Prime Minister
Now. We are just going to keep going. This is a rolling series of negotiations. We are ringing people up the whole time. COP is in full flow at the moment.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
The Prime Minister has not yet mentioned water resilience, yet it is at the top of the agenda for many of the countries most affected by the climate emergency. What is his assessment of funding for water resilience projects? Will he commit not to cut but increase funding for water resilience?
The Prime Minister
We support water resilience projects around the world, as part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and had a good discussion on the issue of water resilience and other aspects of climate change resilience with vulnerable countries over the last few days.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The Prime Minister knows very well that the north of Scotland is closer to the Arctic circle than it is to London. For any delegate at COP26 who doubts the climate emergency, all they have to do is glance at the retreating ice or the melting cover frost, and the methane being released as a result, to be convinced that this emergency really is happening. The Chinese in particular will benefit from the withdrawal of ice as the northern sea route opens up, particularly for bulk carriers carrying coal. Does the Prime Minister therefore not agree with me that the Chinese have a doubly important moral obligation to stick by their commitment to reduce the production of coal in China, otherwise we in the west will be burning their coal?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right to point out the consequences for the world of the retreat of the ice towards the north pole. I am afraid that will offer opportunities not just for China but ourselves. Scapa Flow and other parts of Scotland will potentially become very important for sea traffic of a clean, green variety.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
In pursuit of dramatic reductions in the miniscule carbon dioxide emissions produced by this country, ordinary people are facing higher petrol prices, higher energy prices, restrictions on what they can drive, the replacement of gas boilers and higher green taxes with declining incomes. Can the Prime Minister understand their frustration and disdain that those who tell them that they must bear those burdens fly into Glasgow in private jets and ferry around town in gas-guzzling cavalcades? More fundamentally, does he really believe, given the huge natural forces that continually change the world’s climate, that by reducing carbon dioxide we can somehow or other turn the world’s thermostat up and down at will?
The Prime Minister
First of all, this country is moving to zero-emission vehicles. The right hon. Gentleman talks about gas-guzzlers; we are supporting jet zero aviation. His big objection is to the science. He is obviously a complete climate sceptic. He should look at the graph that David Attenborough produced on the first day of the summit, showing the clear correlation between the huge anthropogenic spike in CO2 and the current rise in temperatures, and the way that temperatures have tracked CO2 volumes in the air over the last thousands of years. The science is absolutely clear. I think the people of this country know that it would be an economic disaster not to address it. What the people of this country know is that clean, green technology can deliver higher wages and fantastic jobs for generations to come. They see a great future in this.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I want to reinforce the point the Prime Minister has just made. Will he reassure my constituents that the goal of achieving net zero is not a burden to be borne, but an opportunity to be grasped to create new innovative jobs and new sectors in which we can lead the world?
The Prime Minister
Our green industrial revolution alone, the £26 billion we are putting in, generates 440,000 more jobs in battery technology, electric vehicle manufacture, wind farms and maintenance. The opportunities are vast for this country and we are at the cutting edge.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I welcome the statement today, but does the Prime Minister believe, like I do, that it is important to encourage more people to use rail, instead of other carbon-intensive transport methods? If so, why is he cutting duty on domestic flights, or will he now rethink that decision?
The Prime Minister
There is a very clear climate reason for putting up duty on long-haul flights, because they account for 96% of emissions. In the case of our own United Kingdom, with its far flung islands represented by some distinguished Members on the Opposition Benches, it is a useful thing to remove barriers to movement.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
Given the phenomenal success to end and reverse deforestation, I was tempted to tease my right hon. Friend about build back beavers. However, will he meet me to discuss what can be done, using institutions such as Kew Gardens, to reverse the spread of deserts through the better planting of trees?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend. That is a brilliant idea. Kew has played an amazing midwife role over the centuries in taking plants from one part of the world, nurturing them and then planting them with huge advantage in other parts of the world. That is certainly something I would be happy to take up with him.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Prime Minister is absolutely right that this is a moment for turning words into action. One very important but quite small action that he and his Government could take now is the creation of a ringfenced pot for the development of tidal stream energy in the next round of contract for difference options. This is a decision that has to be taken by the end of this month. Will the Prime Minister talk to his colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury to make sure that that happens?
The Prime Minister
This is a point I have now heard several times from those on the Opposition Benches. Without having perhaps all the technical expertise, I am very impressed by the tidal proposals I have seen. What I will undertake to the right hon. Gentleman is not an absolute commitment on contract for difference or the strike price for tidal power, but I will certainly go away and look at it again.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Well done, Prime Minister, on motivating people and delivering that which others were saying could not be delivered at COP26 so far, just a couple of days into a two-week programme. May I invite him to visit Rolls-Royce, which is working on developing a 100% sustainable fuel jet engine for aviation, and to put his considerable weight—I do not mean that in a personal manner; I mean as Prime Minister—behind the gigafactory proposal for Coventry in the West Midlands Combined Authority?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend. It was, in fact, only a couple of weeks ago that the entire Cabinet was in Bristol with Rolls-Royce, looking at what it is doing with GKN and other companies on sustainable aviation. We are also looking actively at what we can do to support a gigafactory in the Coventry area, but obviously, there are commercial discussions under way.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
As Chair of the G7 and of COP, the Prime Minister will know that the world community is $20 billion short of what is needed for the vaccination programme, and we have missed the target of $100 billion promised for climate finance. The International Monetary Fund has given the world a shot in the arm with $650 billion of special drawing rights, which the Prime Minister helped to push for. The UK has been given £20 billion, more than the entire community of low-income countries put together, but why are we being so slow and sluggish in recycling that money back to the IMF so that it can be put to good use? We are behind France and America; we are a laggard when we should be leading.
The Prime Minister
What we are doing is putting hard cash into supporting countries around the world. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the SDRs. We are looking at that as well, but we are prioritising cash up front.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows that I am a fervent supporter of his efforts for the UK to lead the world in decarbonisation, and I know that he would not wish to impoverish anyone here or abroad on the way. No country has yet leapfrogged our path to prosperity from wood, coal and gas to nuclear. In asking developing countries to consign coal power to history, my concern is that we risk sustaining their poverty if we do not provide an alternative. Does he agree that, with his historic climate finance agreements and our existing development aid, we have a huge opportunity to export UK small modular reactor technology around the world to hasten their path to prosperity instead?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for an exceedingly thoughtful question. He is absolutely right in the logic of what he says. We must help the developing world to leapfrog. All sorts of technologies are very attractive, including the one that he suggests. The opportunity there is to generate fantastic British jobs as well.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Open Democracy recently reported the Prime Minister’s former colleague in the EU Vote Leave campaign, Nigel Farage, as saying that a referendum on green taxes
“could well be my latest campaign”.
We are hearing increasingly loud objections from the so-called net zero scrutiny group from among his ranks of MPs. The Institute of Economic Affairs said recently that it would
“continue to challenge the ropey economics”
of net zero. What will the Prime Minister do to challenge those siren voices from among his supporters?
The Prime Minister
I study the people’s feelings about this. What so changed in this COP from Paris, which I attended, or from Copenhagen, which I was also at, is that this time, it is from the public. I have great respect for colleagues around the House who say that this is all going too far, too fast and that people cannot afford it. Actually, I do not think that we can afford not to do it. I also think that it is economically a massive opportunity for this country and that that is where people increasingly are. Calls for a referendum on this will fall on stony ground.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I spent the past couple of days at COP26 with south-east Asian nations’ representatives. The situation is exactly as the Prime Minister described, with real progress on cash, coal and trees and particularly momentum in signing up to the forestry declaration. My right hon. Friend will know that the UK pavilion is symbolically opposite next year’s G20 Chair, Indonesia. Does he agree that using the clean, green finance initiative is a real opportunity for us to do more to help them to transition from coal-fired energy to renewable energy, often in collaboration with UK partners on wind, solar and marine energy?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for everything that he has done with ASEAN—Association of Southeast Asian Nations—partners. He has absolutely been leading the charge for us in that region, particularly with Indonesia, and they are great partners of ours. What is coming out of COP is the idea that countries who are finding it tough, as he said, to move beyond coal need a coalition of countries to help them, with a portfolio of programmes that they need to get done, whether it is hydropower or carbon capture and storage—whatever it is—that we can help to finance and de-risk, in order to leverage in the trillions from the private sector, as we did with wind power in our country. People are seeing this model as the way we can do it—not with endless grants and handouts from Governments in the richer countries around the world, but through stimulating the private sector to come in and deliver a quantum leap in the infrastructure concerned.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
GKN-Melrose has announced its intention to proceed with the closure of the Erdington plant, which employs 519 loyal, long-serving workers in an area with the fifth-highest level of deprivation in Britain, and to export production to Poland, which is still burning coal on a grand scale for years to come. Does the Prime Minister therefore understand the dismay of the workers concerned? With the automotive industry in transition to an electric future, does he agree that we need a supply chain here in Britain, employing workers here in Britain, manufacturing here in Britain, as part of a green industrial revolution here in Britain?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I passionately agree with that. GKN does an amazing job across the country, particularly in delivering some of the most difficult solutions, such as sustainable aviation. We need to ensure that we have the ecosystem of gigafactories and electric vehicle manufacturing capabilities, and all the supply chains here in Britain, but with an energy cost that allows those businesses to be competitive. That applies to steel, automotive and everybody else, and I am afraid that, at the moment, the differential between our domestic users’ electricity costs and industrial energy costs is too high, and we have to fix it.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
As chair of the all-party group for woods and trees, I thank the Prime Minister and the negotiating teams for their fantastic work in tackling deforestation. I also welcome the Government’s continued commitment to the northern forest, planting 50 million trees across the north, hopefully with many of them in South Yorkshire. Will he join me in appealing to community groups and schools to get involved with the Queen’s Green Canopy project, as we all plant a tree for the jubilee?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right. Planting a tree for the jubilee is a wonderful thing to do; we should all be doing it. We want to plant 36,000 hectares of trees every year as part of our contribution—one of the many ways we are contributing—to the fight against climate change, and to beautify our landscape.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on small island developing states, I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister acknowledged the imminent threat to them in his statement. Two things would really help them: one is to have access to the finance that hopefully is now on the table—because, as countries with very limited resources, it is very difficult, they tell me, to get their hands on the money and to do the bids—and the other is to develop blue finance. We know that the City of London leads on green finance. Blue finance for the blue economy and marine conservation would really help them, and we could take a lead on that.
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady is completely right about the imperative to help the small island states. I must say that, at COP and in the last few months, they have been incredibly valuable in getting the world to focus—the Maldives, the Seychelles, Bangladesh, where people face catastrophic flooding, Mauritius and Barbados, which was brilliant the other day. They are helping to focus minds on the issue and attract massive sums of investment.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The UK can be very proud of the commitments that we have already made, but some of our actions are in danger of making our manufacturing and particularly our heavy industry uncompetitive. May I ask the Prime Minister once again whether there is any significance in the absence from COP26 of leaders of our industrial competitors such as China and Russia? Is he confident that they can be persuaded to do more after the conference to provide a more level playing field?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for the point that he makes, and I understand why he should be anxious, but I talked to both President Xi and President Putin and it was clear: they said that the pandemic precluded them from coming. I understand the situation that they are in. They have very senior negotiators in Glasgow as we speak—Xie is a very senior operative in the Chinese system—and we have to hope for results. In the end, the change is going to be driven not just by the feelings of people in the western democracies, but by the political pressure and the pressure from business that is already being felt in China, and in Russia as well.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I was pleased to see reference in the Prime Minister’s statement to action on trees. He will be aware that in Scotland we produce 80% of woodland planting across these islands, not least because of small groups such as the one at Mount Vernon community hall, which has made a real effort on biodiversity. What more can the Prime Minister do elsewhere in the UK to try to get action on tree planting and follow the lead of Scotland, and indeed of Mount Vernon?
The Prime Minister
I congratulate Scottish tree-planting groups on the initiatives that they have taken. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that huge numbers of trees are planted in Scotland. We want to see the rest of the UK catch up and do better; I am afraid that the rates did decline a bit during the pandemic. We have to accelerate. What my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) said just now about “Plant a tree for the jubilee” is absolutely right.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
Later today in this Chamber, we will talk about nuclear. That shows that the Government are now looking forward to the future—we have two nuclear power stations in Heysham—but I would also like to draw to the Prime Minister’s attention the wondrous work that we are doing to prepare for the Eden project in Morecambe. I know that I invited him last week at Prime Minister’s questions, but I am still pushing it: Boris, come and see us in Morecambe.
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his unrelenting invitation. Of course I will do my utmost to oblige him; he is a great campaigner for clean power. As he knows, we are taking forward plans for SMRs as well.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Transport makes up the largest share of UK carbon emissions, but rail travel is clean and green, so I ask again: why on earth is the Prime Minister choosing to make it cheaper to take domestic flights, while failing to set out a proper plan for rail electrification, failing to confirm a high-speed rail line to the east midlands and the north, and putting up rail fares?
The Prime Minister
We are investing massively in rail in the way that I described at PMQs earlier, not just with HS2, but with Northern Powerhouse Rail and the integrated rail plan. The hon. Lady objects to domestic air travel, but the vision that she should support is the idea of moving away from using tonnes of kerosene to hurl planes into the air. We can do it with other approaches, and that is what we should be following.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s leadership around the world, particularly in getting the world’s biggest polluters to reduce their carbon footprint. My constituents are keen to move forward and transition to a decarbonised lifestyle. Does he agree that getting information to them is key? There are many times when all of us, as consumers, purchase things from China that may well be available here in the UK, but we do not understand their in-built carbon footprint. Does he agree that information about carbon on items that we purchase is important for consumers?
The Prime Minister
Schools in Cornwall that I have been talking to have a fantastic understanding of what Cornwall is doing to cut carbon. There are amazing projects in Cornwall, and we are also making sure that in education—in classes—kids understand the in-built carbon cost of the goods that they buy.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
At present, the UK does not yet have measures in place to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2050. Indeed, last week, the Chancellor could not even mention climate change once in an hour-long speech on the Budget. Surely the UK should be offering leadership in this area by putting in place a comprehensive green new deal that combines economic and social policy, alongside measures to combat climate change.
The Prime Minister
I do not know what planet the hon. Gentleman has been on. He is totally wrong. This Government have helped to cut the UK’s emissions of carbon dioxide by almost half from 1990 levels, which is an astonishing thing to have done. We have the most ambitious nationally determined contribution of any country in the EU—78% by 2035 on 1990 levels—and we are doing it through all the measures that he knows. Has he not heard about what we are going to do on zero-emission vehicles or what we are doing on our power emissions? I think he needs to look at what is happening. Yes, of course there is more to do. As for green bonds, we issued one the other day and got £10 billion out of it—so just keep up.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
As well as cars, the world will need clean, smart urban transport if we are to meet the climate challenge. Companies such as the one behind the Westfield PODs in Dudley South are developing products that can succeed, thrive and help us to decarbonise, but too often the regulatory framework lags behind the innovation. Will the Prime Minister work with Ministers and our international partners to develop international type approval standards so that these products can succeed and we can decarbonise transport on an urban level as well as lead on personal cars?
The Prime Minister
I agree 100%. I am looking forward to seeing the Westfield PODs and their means of conveying human beings around, although I cannot quite imagine what they are. What we want in this country is regulators for growth, and for green growth. We need a much more proactive approach that engages with brilliant ideas like that.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Moving to rail travel and away from more carbon-intensive forms of transport will be essential if we are to meet our ambitions to tackle the climate emergency. Two years ago, the Prime Minister visited Poulton and announced his commitment to reopen the railway line to Fleetwood. Can he tell my Fleetwood constituents what progress he is making with that, and when they can expect to catch the train from Fleetwood to the entire national rail network?
The Prime Minister
What we are doing is a general programme of Beeching reversals around the country. I will get back to the hon. Lady as soon as I can about what is happening in Poulton, but this is the biggest investment in rail for a century or more.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
An estimated 15% of global carbon emissions come from livestock production around the world—more than all transportation put together. On the former, what discussions have been had at COP26 with our international partners on reductions? On the latter, what discussions have there been about the rest of the world taking the lead from the United Kingdom in sustainable aviation technology?
The Prime Minister
On livestock emissions, my hon. Friend is right that methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. It degrades quite fast, so it is not as bad as CO2 in some ways, but we do need to cut methane emissions and we have committed to doing it by 30%. Agriculture is a particularly difficult problem, but there are ways of doing that, without moving away from livestock farming. There are things we can do with breeding and other techniques to reduce methane emissions and we are certainly looking at that.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Prime Minister is right to tell the House, and indeed the world, how exciting these promises on reforestation and methane reduction are. However, he will recall that, 12 years ago, when the rich countries committed themselves to transferring $100 billion to the poor countries every year, there was no mechanism for measuring the progress of that transfer, and the world failed. Can the Prime Minister tell us what the legacy will be, particularly in respect of deforestation? Will there be a proper mechanism to hold to account President Bolsonaro, or the Indonesians, or any other country, wherever it may be?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has made an incredibly important point. There are two ways of holding Governments to account, whether they are the Governments of China, Brazil or Russia, or indeed ourselves. First, it is not only the Governments who have signed up, but corporations—the big commodities corporations, such as Cargill. They have agreed no longer to use products that are sourced as a result of deforestation, and consumers will hold them to account, as well as Governments, for what they do.
Secondly, the financial institutions, worth trillions—Barclays, Aviva, and many others around the world—have agreed that they will not finance projects that depend on deforestation. Again, their investors and shareholders, and everyone involved with them, will hold them to account for what they do. If they cheat and invest in deforestation, they will suffer, because, as I said to the House earlier, what is changing now is the power of the consumer, the power of the voters, the power of the world —the power of those who want their Governments to do the right thing now.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the staff and pupils at Ysgol Dinas Brân school in Llangollen, whom I visited recently, on the excellent work that they are doing in studying climate change and working closely with Denbighshire County Council to ensure that their school operates on a carbon-neutral basis?
The Prime Minister
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Ysgol Dinas Brân, which I know from my own abortive attempt to win the seat that my hon. Friend now represents so well. I thank those at the school for what they are doing, and I think they are quite right to set the example they are setting. All new schools in our country are carbon-neutral.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I thank the Prime Minister for his updates on the G20 summit and COP26, and also for listening so carefully to the suggestions from these Benches. I am sure that he, too, is disappointed that the G20 could not agree on an end date for domestic fossil fuel use. Will he be brave, show leadership, and set an end date for the extraction and domestic use of all fossil fuels in the UK?
The Prime Minister
We will have no fossil fuels at all in our power generation system from 2035 onwards.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Six per cent. of global GDP is spent on fossil fuel subsidies, which is destroying our planet, and China spends more on them than the United States, Russia and the European Union combined. Will the Prime Minister take leadership in reducing fossil fuel subsidies? In particular, will he support the carbon border taxes that are being promoted by the EU, so that, for instance, UK steel made in Wales is not displaced by Chinese steel made from coal, which has twice the carbon footprint, and we can protect local jobs and save the planet through greener trade?
The Prime Minister
I think that our steel companies have done a great job in trying to reduce their carbon footprint. That is extremely hard for steel corporations, because they are one of the biggest emitters that we have. We must move towards zero-carbon steelmaking, while keeping a steelmaking industry in this country. The measures that the hon. Gentleman has described—such as the carbon border adjustment levy—are certainly worth considering.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The United Nations Secretary-General has said that it will be very difficult to secure the commitment needed for the 1.5° goal, and, in relation to new fossil fuel excavations, that
“we don’t need more oil and gas”.
Will the Prime Minister tell us what engagement his Government are having with the oil and gas industries to support them in their efforts to decarbonise sustainably?
The Prime Minister
We talk all the time to the oil and gas industry, which has a great and proud history in this country. I believe that the future for the industry—for hydrocarbons—is moving beyond the old combustion approach and towards the extraction of clean power. That is the direction in which we should be going.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It seems that we are in the last chance saloon if we are to make an impact on limiting the effect of climate change. Does the Prime Minister share my disappointment that China and India have failed to match many other countries’ commitments to reach net zero by 2050, placing their targets 10 and 20 years later? Does he agree that if the remainder of COP26 is to be a success, we need to get some movement from them on that as well?
The Prime Minister
We will continue to push on the net zero dates. Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of those countries’ targets, I think we also need to look at what both of them are saying about what they will do pre-2030. As the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) pointed out, that is the key issue on which we need to focus. The Indians have now made a big commitment to decarbonising their power system by 2030, and the hon. Gentleman has heard what we have already said in the House about the Chinese commitment to “peak” CO2 output in 2030 or before. The question is, how long before? Both those countries have made substantial progress, but obviously it is not yet enough.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
In his statement, the Prime Minister said:
“We have the technology to do what is necessary: all that remains in question is our resolve.”
With that in mind, why do the British Government not extend the favourable financing model being proposed for nuclear energy generation to other technologies, such as the proposed Swansea tidal lagoon?
The Prime Minister
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I was very attracted to the Swansea tidal lagoon model, but it is extremely expensive for the energy it produces. I see Opposition Members shaking their heads. If they can produce plans that show a more economical way of doing it, I shall be only too happy to study them.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Earlier today at COP26, young people from the group Green New Deal Rising tried to ask the Chancellor directly why he was continuing to subsidise fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry to such an extent. Instead of engaging with those young people, whose generation could be the first to die from climate change rather than old age, the Chancellor promptly banned them from attending his talk. I wonder whether the Prime Minister and the Chancellor could instead engage with that generation of young people, and move on from greenwash towards a green new deal to raise Britain up and meet our climate obligations.
The Prime Minister
It is precisely for the sake of that generation—with whom, by the way, every member of this Government and, I am sure, Members throughout the House engage all the time on this issue—that we are doing this.
I am actually starting to think that we can fix this. I was pretty gloomy a while back, but I do now think that we have the technology, and we certainly have the finance. I think we have a growing package of solutions that we can bring to bear, and I think it will be of massive benefit to young children growing up in this country. I hope so, because one of the things I worry about is that young people in this country are mentally very badly affected by the prospect of serious climate change. I think that it preys on their minds. We need to lift that burden from them and show them that there is a more hopeful alternative—and I really think that it is starting to appear.
Schools and Educational Settings (Essential Infrastructure and Opening During Emergencies)
Wednesday 3rd November 2021
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Schools and Educational Settings (Essential Infrastructure and Opening During Emergencies) Bill 2021-22 View all Schools and Educational Settings (Essential Infrastructure and Opening During Emergencies) Bill 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
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Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for educational settings including early years, schools, colleges and universities to be classified as essential infrastructure and remain open to all students during public health and other national emergencies; and for connected purposes.
Between the start of the pandemic and July 2021, British children were out of their classrooms for almost half of the available school days as a result of nationwide shutdowns and isolations. The majority of the country’s universities switched to remote learning, with many students still not having returned to full face-to-face teaching. Those closures wielded a hammer blow to our children’s and young people’s education and wellbeing. The mechanisms this Bill will put in place will safeguard the education, mental health and life chances of those already hardest hit and of future generations.
Let me take a moment to give special thanks to the teachers and support staff who did all they could to keep children learning over the past 18 months. I especially welcome the support for the Bill of Children’s Commissioners past and present, of two former Children’s Ministers and significantly, of the parents group, UsforThem, which has campaigned day and night to keep schools fully open and our children learning in the classroom as they should be.
It is beyond doubt that for those who engaged in online learning, less material was covered than would have been covered in the classroom. Moreover, many children could not participate in online learning at all. School closures and the move to online learning increased the existing inequalities between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers. The facts speak for themselves and testify to what parents know instinctively. A tablet is no substitute for in-person schooling and the inspiration and guidance that teachers and support staff provide. A laptop cannot replace the enriching, nurturing and skills-building environment that the school community gives to our children, enabling them to thrive and develop to reach their potential. A screen cannot replace the social interaction and friendships that are the essential building blocks of childhood. Perhaps worst of all, school closures increased the existing inequalities between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their better-off peers. We must face and address head on the brutal reality that school closures have been a national disaster for our children.
Over the last 18 months, the four horsemen of the education apocalypse have galloped towards our young people, threatening their futures and holding them back from climbing the ladder of opportunity. The negative impacts of the pandemic are stark. School closures have contributed to a widening attainment gap and worsening mental health, not to mention numerous safeguarding hazards and diminished life chances. Even prior to the pandemic, disadvantaged pupils were already 18 months of learning behind their better-off peers by the time they took their GCSEs. The pandemic has turned the attainment gap into a chasm, undoing the significant amount of progress made over this last decade.
Recent research published by the Education Policy Institute has shown that at national level the average learning losses for primary school pupils were 3.4 months in maths and 2.2 months in reading. For disadvantaged pupils, learning loss was even greater, with 4.2 months lost in maths and 2.7 months in reading. A tsunami of mental health problems now threatens to overwhelm our young people. One in six children now has a probable mental health disorder, up from one in nine in 2017. The Department for Education itself has concluded that the evidence for the impacts of school closures on mental health and wellbeing is “substantial” and “consistent”.
Schools and educational settings play a vital role in safeguarding our young people from harm. Without that safety net, too many vulnerable youngsters have slipped through the cracks. Devastating figures from the Centre for Social Justice show that 100,000 children have failed to return to school, for the most part, since schools reopened. During the first lockdown, 94% of vulnerable children were not in school. A significant increase in social service referrals, domestic abuse and child safeguarding concerns has been reported between April 2020 and March 2021, which the directors of children’s services across the country have linked to the pandemic restrictions and the closure of childcare settings.
It is estimated that school closures will cost our young people between £78 billion and £154 billion in lost earnings over the course of their lifetimes, and those figures are for an optimistic scenario. In the worst case, as much as £463 billion could be lost. Report after report speaks to these harms, but they were not an unfortunate inevitability of an international public health emergency. Our children have missed more than double the amount of school as children in other countries, including France, Spain, Austria and Lithuania. British children have missed more school than any other country in Europe except Italy.
I come to my Schools and Educational Settings (Essential Infrastructure and Opening During Emergencies) Bill. Currently, the term “essential infrastructure” is used in our legislation to describe the facilities and systems necessary for a country to function, and upon which our daily lives depend. It would be inconceivable to close power stations, hospitals or food retailers during a time of crisis, and rightly so—they are lifelines to our communities. The educational devastation of the last 18 months has made it abundantly clear that for children, families and society, schools must also be seen as lifelines. In guidance issued in 2020, the Government defined educational institutions as “essential infrastructure” along with providers of power, healthcare and water. But despite this nominal definition, during the first and third lockdowns schools were closed to most pupils while other essential infrastructure remained open.
It is our duty now to treat our schools as essential infrastructure, both in word, and more importantly, in deed. To that end, this Bill will recognise and define educational settings as essential infrastructure in practice by enshrining in statute that we must never close our schools again, save in the most dire and exceptional circumstances. Furthermore, the Bill will put in place a triple lock of protections. This will mean that before any national or regional closure, the advice of the Children’s Commissioner must first be sought on whether such a closure is necessary, and laid before Parliament. We rightly follow the science and advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation when it comes to our health, so it is only logical that we must also follow the advice provided by those with the best interests of our children at the heart of their mandate. Secondly, any proposed school closure must be debated and approved by the House. Thirdly, in the event of an agreed closure, every three weeks that schools remain closed, the Education Secretary must return to Parliament, having sought the advice of the Children’s Commissioner, to seek its re-approval for a continued closure.
This triple lock will ensure that the needs and rights of children and young people are considered and upheld. It will mean that the relevant experts are consulted and their advice acted upon. It will ensure that this House is fully involved and accountable for any decisions to close schools and disrupt schooling. Lastly, it will make certain that any disruption will be tightly time-limited. These measures are no less than our children deserve. Diogenes once said that
“the foundation of every state is the education of its youth”.
We must learn from our experiences over the course of the pandemic to ensure that we prioritise children’s education. We owe it to our young people to safeguard the educational futures that covid-19 put on hold. Anything less would be a dereliction of duty.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Robert Halfon, Edward Timpson, Tim Loughton, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Christian Wakeford, Tom Hunt, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Greg Smith, Siobhan Baillie, Miriam Cates, Munira Wilson and David Warburton present the Bill.
Robert Halfon accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 February 2022, and to be printed (Bill 184).
Committee on Standards
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
15:29 - The House divided: - Ayes: 250 / Noes: 232 - Question accordingly agreed to.
15:45 - The House divided: - Ayes: 248 / Noes: 221 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
Before the debate begins, I think it would be helpful if I set out the procedure to be followed. The Leader of the House will move the motion. I will also allow enough time at the end of the debate to ensure that the Chair of the Committee on Standards has the opportunity to respond.
Members are, of course, free to consider and, if they wish, criticise the process that the House has set in place to consider Members’ conduct. However, there is a long tradition of not attacking individuals, such as Officers of the House, who are not here to defend themselves and do not have the ability to do so. They are doing the job that the House itself has set them to do. I remind the House that good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language. Please let us keep calm, keep sensible and make sure the House has a debate in which we are respectful and tolerant to each other.
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of Dame Andrea Leadsom. Under the terms of the business motion agreed yesterday, the amendment will be moved formally at the end of the debate, but of course she will speak sooner.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
I beg to move,
That this House–
(1) approves the Third Report of the Committee on Standards (HC 797);
(2) endorses the recommendation in paragraph 212; and
(3) accordingly suspends Mr Owen Paterson from the service of the House for a period of thirty sitting days.
As Leader of the House of Commons, it is important that I move this motion to facilitate debate on the report by the Committee on Standards. I have said before that Members of Parliament must uphold the highest standards in public life, which is why the process for this House to consider standards infractions is of the utmost importance. It must be fair and robust, and it must command respect on both sides of the House. There must be tough and robust checks against lobbying for profit, and there must be a proper process to scrutinise and, if necessary, discipline those who do not follow the rules.
However, it is also my role as Leader of the House to listen to the concerns and thoughts of Members on both sides of the House, which are now too numerous to ignore. Since the publication of this report, many hon. Members have expressed their concern about the way in which it was prepared, as is evident in the amendment to the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom).
Today I come not to defend my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) but to consider the process by which he has been tried. It is not for me to judge him—others have done that—but was the process a fair one? “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” Any disciplinary process concerned, as it is, with people’s jobs and livelihoods must be fair and must respect basic principles of natural justice.
The concerns raised with me in this case and other standards cases by hon. Members from Government and Opposition parties include: the lack of examination of witnesses; the unused mechanism for the appointment of an investigatory panel; the interpretation of the rules relating to whistleblowing; the length of time taken and the lack of continuity in participation and investigations; the application of aggravating factors; and the absence of the right of appeal.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
My right hon. Friend refers to the lack of appeal, which is a point I have heard on a number of occasions. Are not the oversight of the Committee on Standards and, indeed, the judgment of this House both effective appeal processes in this matter?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Committee on Standards is clearly not an appeal process, because it is the Committee’s report, not the commissioner’s report, that comes before us. The commissioner is the adviser to the Committee and is supervised by the Committee.
I wish this Chamber, as my hon. Friend suggests, were the court of appeal, but as this matter has been discussed we have seen how quickly what happens in this Chamber becomes partisan. [Laughter.] Opposition Members cackle and crow, and they have made my point. It is a sadness to me that this Chamber is not, as one would hope it could be, the apolitical court of appeal for standards cases, but the Opposition have absolutely no desire to do that. We therefore need to consider an independent appeals process, as we have with the Independent Expert Panel.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I simply ask the Leader of the House a question that I ask of all Conservative Members. Does he think he would be standing here today and making these changes if it were a Labour MP?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think the hon. Lady knows me well enough to know that the answer is yes. I would have no hesitation in doing exactly the same if I thought a Labour Member had not had a proper process and had representations of that kind.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give way?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am answering the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), so have patience.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has raised this point in previous debates, saying that she would have done something regardless of the party. In my view, she said that in good faith and I accepted her good faith. I hope she will do the same for me.
Dame Angela Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for giving way.
Today’s debate could be a turning point, and not of the kind that many of us would like to see. Can the Leader of the House tell us how often this House has overturned a report of the Standards Committee with respect to the behaviour of a particular Member?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am afraid the hon. Lady has not troubled to read the amendment, which does not overturn the report of the Standards Committee. The amendment asks whether there should be a form of appeal and sets up a Committee to consider how the standards process is working. As I said, there have been problems with the process.
On the examination, or non-examination, of witnesses, paragraphs (6) to (10) of Standing Order No. 150 allow the commissioner to appoint an investigatory panel to assist in establishing the facts relevant to an investigation. The Standards Committee is also able to request that the commissioner appoints such a panel. Under these provisions, the commissioner chairs the committee with two assessors, who advise the commissioner but have no responsibility for the findings. One would be a legal assessor and the other a senior Member of the House who would advise on parliamentary matters and be appointed by you, Mr Speaker. The commissioner would determine the procedures and could appoint counsel to assist the panel.
The Member against whom the complaint had been made would be entitled to be heard in person and would have the opportunity to call witnesses and examine other witnesses. At the conclusion of proceedings, the commissioner would report as usual. The legal assessor would report to the Standards Committee as to the extent to which the proceedings had been consistent with the principles of natural justice, which of course include the right to a fair trial under a proper and just process, and the Member assessor might report on the extent to which the proceedings had regard to the custom and practice of the House and its Members.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The Leader of the House started with a quote, and I am often reminded that what is false exists on the same judicial footing as what is right. I make no judgment about those who signed the amendment but, given that six of them have had allegations upheld against them by the Standards Committee in the last year, can he differentiate between how what was good enough for them is not good enough for the right hon. Member we are discussing?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I am grateful to him for doing so. The reason why this has come now is the volume of complaints that have come through and the more widespread feeling of unfairness, across all Benches, that has been brought to my attention and the attention of others. In simplistic, clichéd terms, this is the famous straw that has broken the long-suffering camel’s back.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
But I do not see any Opposition Members signing the amendment.
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is the point I made earlier about the unfortunate state of affairs whereby this House does not work as a court of appeal, but, regrettably, becomes partisan, which reinforces the need to have an independent body.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I am certainly getting up, as I know many Opposition Members are, not in a partisan way but because I care about the integrity and reputation of the House and our democracy. I have a lot of personal empathy with the individual who is subject to our debate today and the terrible personal circumstances he faces. But the matter has been considered twice, in two separate stages, in a procedure well known in this House.
The allegation is incredibly serious. It is that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) used his position of trust as a Member of Parliament and abused that for personal gain. I say to the Leader of the House that it would be absolutely terrible for our democracy if we did not take those decisions that have been unanimously agreed and endorse them in this House today. We would bring into danger the real trust in our democracy and the integrity of this House.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady says that this has been looked at, and it has, but there has been no form of appeal and many of the aspects of it have been contested.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I am a member of the 2019 intake. December will mark two years since I have been here so I confess that I do not know the rules and regulations inside out. However, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that under the rules paid advocacy has been banned from this House since 1695? Why do this Government appear to be bending the rules when it suits them?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Because the rules are not being treated in that way. The exemption exists for whistleblowing, which I will come to.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
We need to widen this out. People out there believe that the Government’s attempt to rewrite the rules is dodgy, and the reason for that is because it is dodgy. It is a plan to cover up the kind of corruption we have seen throughout the covid crisis. Polls show that the population believe that the Government are corrupt, and I am afraid that they are correct. This is the most corrupt Government in modern history. Unless they change their behaviour, will they not be doing further permanent damage to our democracy and people’s belief in it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am, as always, grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as he proves my point. The pieties espoused from the other side about being non-partisan are always undermined by the hon. Gentleman, who is the epitome—the very acme—of partisanship.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Is the plain truth not that if the amendment passes today, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) could actually find himself in an even worse position? He could be further condemned by an appeals process, which could find against him.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
My right hon. Friend was interrupted in the course of his speech by an intervention; he was about to say something regarding the question of contested cases, which is at the heart of this issue. Report after report, including by the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, has said that in such cases criteria for fairness have to be applied. As he has so adequately stated, this investigatory panel does provide for such a state of affairs but it was not applied by the Committee in this case.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a point that I am going to make in slightly more detail.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Leader of the House also accept that the report itself says, towards its conclusion, that “paid advocacy” and the exceptions are open to interpretation? That being the case, and given that there are two different interpretations here, surely the difference of interpretation should be open to some appeal.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and this is one of the key things that the Committee will be asked to look at, to see whether it can clarify the interpretation on the whistleblowing exemption.
Let me return to Standing Order No. 150, which appears to provide a mechanism for the investigation of contentious cases that respects natural justice, ensures that legal counsel is appointed, is appropriate for what is a quasi-judicial process, and introduces significant checks and balances into the investigation, such as the appointment of a separate member by the Speaker to act as an assessor and the right of the Member being investigated to call witnesses and be able to examine other witnesses, rather than leaving this to the discretion of the Commissioner. In a case where so many witnesses and so many Members have made their concerns known, it is unfortunate that the Commissioner did not appoint such a panel. Indeed, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Committee on Standards have never opted to use this mechanism, despite having had many contentious cases before them.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Some 17 individuals have come forward saying that they wish to give oral evidence, but that was refused. Is not the point that, whether or not someone is guilty of paid advocacy, there must be justice and that justice must be seen to be done? In this case, many right-minded people would say that justice has not been seen to be done.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am sure that the Committee we are setting up will want to consider the appearance of witnesses and whether that ought to be a fundamental right of people accused of serious cases—
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
If it is all right, I just want to respond directly to the point that has just been made. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
I would like to hear what the hon. Gentleman has got to say before we make a judgment.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman can intervene on me, but he cannot intervene on a point made by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant)—
Mr Speaker
Let me help. It is not going to be direct; I think it is direct to the point that was made to you, Leader of the House. I think we can dance around on the head of a pin, but that is not going to be helpful in a very important debate today.
Chris Bryant
I just wanted to make a simple point, which is that we reviewed and read all the witness statements. Nobody asked to make an oral witness statement to us. It is perfectly normal in most workplaces in this country, as a retired High Court judge confirmed to me yesterday, for witness statements to be read and considered, and not necessarily for witnesses to be questioned or cross-examined. We did a perfectly normal, fair hearing for the right hon. Member for North Shropshire. We considered all the witness statements and we published them.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The point is that there was this facility to set up an investigatory panel, which was not used. It would have been able to see all the witnesses that my right hon. Friend wanted.
Michael Fabricant
Is not the point on natural justice in this country about the ability to cross-examine witnesses? Is it not the case that written evidence is not the sort of evidence that can be cross-examined?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Mr Speaker, my hon. Friend has made a mini-speech very pithily.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
Once again, we are seeing this become partisan. We are examining the cases of the individual, but for me the key thing that is not right is that even the Commissioner is in an impossible position. Therefore, we desperately need to reform a system that puts the staff in that place.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because that helps me to get back to the point about process. The 2015 Committee on Standards report on “The Standards System in the House of Commons” noted that the provisions relating to the panel had “never been invoked”, questioned why the investigatory panel was “necessary” and recommended that the provisions be “reviewed”. However, the House never chose to remove these provisions, so this was an active mechanism open to the Commissioner and the Committee, which they decided not to use. It is the Government’s belief that it is right to allow the House to revisit whether, to ensure natural justice, our procedures should be changed to give Members of Parliament the same or similar rights—including the right of examination of witnesses—as apply to those subject to investigations of alleged misconduct in other workplaces and professions.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Before my right hon. Friend carries on, may I add that anybody who is complaining about the amendment to the motion is complaining about the procedures of this House as they exist in respect of standards cases? All standards cases come to this House for this House to dispose of as it thinks fit. That is what this House is debating now and that is perfectively legitimate. The reason why the mechanism to which my right hon. Friend referred has never been used is that, unlike what was recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the commissioner would chair the panel. For it to be an independent appeals process, it should be chaired independently. It has never been used because it would be so likely to arrive at the same conclusion.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. It is really important to remember that this House can never be and should never be a mere rubber stamp, which is not our purpose; we are a sovereign Parliament.
Let me turn to the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. The proposed Select Committee could consider, for example, whether the Standing Orders should be changed so that a panel was always established in contentious cases, or it could consider a new mechanism to ensure that witnesses were always called and examined.
Let me turn to whistleblowing and its relationship to the rules on lobbying, as raised by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). The rules related to paid advocacy have been considered many times over the years and rightly place restrictions on Members. In 2012, the House recognised the need for a whistleblowing provision to make it clear that in exceptional cases, if there were some serious wrong, a Member could approach the responsible Minister or public official, even if to do so might incidentally benefit a paying client. Concerns have been expressed about the commissioner and the Committee’s interpretation of the application of this exemption in the case of a serious public policy issue, and about whether the balance was correctly struck. We must therefore think carefully about how we protect the ability of our MPs to raise issues where they see them while ensuring that our system is robust against abuse. The balance is worth examining, and a Select Committee appointed for the purpose of reviewing our standards system would be able to give it due consideration.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
If any Member, regardless of their political affiliation, is involved in paid advocacy to the tune of £100,000 per year, I would expect the House and the Committee to come to the same conclusion—for a Member from any political party and of any affiliation.
Mr Rees-Mogg
That will be a matter for the proposed Select Committee to look at. The purpose of the exemption is for serious wrong and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire pointed out, the problems with milk and with carcinogens in processed food that he pointed out saved lives. If a Member comes into information because of an outside interest, should they really hold it back from Government officials—if it would save life?
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I am not without sympathy for the proposition that the rules require reform in this regard, but the Leader of the House knows, as we all do, that when the House requires reform, it can be done effectively only by building consensus. We build the consensus first and then bring it to the Chamber; I am afraid this Chamber is never where we build consensus. Surely it is already apparent to the Leader of the House that even if the House votes today to constitute the proposed Select Committee, the prospects of achieving consensus in that Select Committee are now as remote as they would be of achieving it in the Chamber today. I am afraid the way the Government are going about this is self-defeating.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member and quite rightly points out that consensus is very hard to achieve in this Chamber—indeed, this Chamber is physically designed not to achieve it— but our Select Committee processes do, on occasions, manage to achieve consensus from pretty stiff contention in this Chamber, so I am more optimistic about having a Committee that could come to a consensus.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, then to the right hon. Lady.
Peter Kyle
The Leader of the House is utterly detached from the reality of most working MPs in the House, so let me inform him that most of us do not need to get paid £100,000 to do the job we are already paid for. If we think something is endangering our residents’ lives, we do it for free.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am glad that I saved the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for next, because that point was so fatuous that it is not worth answering.
Yvette Cooper
A cross-party Committee, including lay members, has already considered this issue and come to a unanimous conclusion. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) asked the Leader of the House why the House should not just come to a conclusion on paid advocacy, which we are clear is against the rules, and the Leader of the House said that was a matter for the new Committee to consider. The old Committee, including lay members, has already considered it and come to its independent conclusion; why does the Leader of the House think the new Committee will somehow be better than the old Committee? Does he not realise that this just looks to everyone as if he simply does not like the conclusion that the old Committee came to?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Dare I say that the right hon. Lady is modelling herself on the deaf adder and, charm I never so nicely, she is not hearing what I am saying? The new Committee could come to the same conclusion, but the point at issue is that we are discussing the process, the lack of appeal and the failures in the processes as they currently exist.
Let me come to the length and continuity of investigations. Across many standards cases we have seen huge differentials among the lengths of time taken for investigations. There appears to be no consistency. For example, the case of the Chair of the Standards Committee himself, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), was completed within a week using the rectification procedure, after he had failed to declare something after two years. That is contrasted by the lengthy investigation into the case of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, which took just over two years from the start of the inquiry to the publication of the Committee’s report.
It is equally concerning—this is an important point for those who have been speaking up for the Committee—that the current processes do not ensure continuity of attendance at the Committee, with different Members present at the Standards Committee’s three formal meetings on the report. By the final meeting, only 50% of the membership had attended all three meetings, and four of the 11 members who attended that meeting had not attended the meeting in which the evidence of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire was heard. Although we all understand the pressures on Select Committee members, that seems to be in sharp contrast to the expectations in a judicial process such as jury service, when people are meant to be there to listen to the evidence, and a good reason to look again at our processes.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
Are the Government asserting, under that premise, that there will be a compulsion for Members to attend not only the proposed Committee but every other Select Committee?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The proposed Committee is very different from other Committees, but that will be a matter for the ad hoc Select Committee to consider.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
That is precisely the case when we serve on a Special Standing Committee for a private Bill: Members are required to be present because it is a quasi-judicial process.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for reminding us of the procedure in private Bill Committees.
The Committee on Standards has itself noted:
“Long investigations are undesirable…place the Member concerned under considerable strain”—
and—
“should be conducted as expeditiously as possible, so long as rigour and fairness are not compromised.”
In fact, the Committee is itself examining the length of recent investigations an adjudications, as part of its inquiry into the code of conduct, to see whether further steps can be taken—
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady chunters that I have taken a third of the debate; that is because people like her have intervened. Either I answer people’s questions or they just get a monologue. It is better to have a proper debate.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, an MP can be found guilty of sexual harassment and retain the Conservative Whip; can be found guilty of bullying and keep the job of Home Secretary, overseeing law and order; can break covid rules and be Health Secretary; can break the law and be Leader of the House; and can endanger the lives of our armed forces and allies and be promoted to Deputy Prime Minister. Why should we be at all surprised by the return of cash for questions and Tory sleaze?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It seems that these admirably non-partisan socialists can talk a lot of nonsense in this House and not have to correct the record later, but we shall see.
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
If the House does introduce an appeals process, it is very important that the appeal is heard in good time. If the appeal panel upholds the original ruling, what will happen?
Mr Rees-Mogg
If the original ruling is upheld, it will come back to this House for a vote on the proposal in the normal way. I agree with my hon. Friend that it should be timely.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Can I take the Leader of the House back to what he was saying a couple of minutes ago about the whistleblowing exemption? Does he recognise the grave danger that, if the interpretation of that exemption that he appeared to be commending was accepted by the House, there would in effect be no ban at all on paid advocacy?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Gentleman is a very distinguished and fair-minded Member of this House. It is fundamentally important that the whistleblowing exemption is an exemption and not a loophole that can be exploited for all purposes. Paid advocacy demeans the House and is not something that Members should be involved in. On the other hand, if people have come across a serious wrong in the course of something they have been paid for, I think most fair-minded Members would think it only right and proper that they should tell Ministers about it. There must be a clear dividing line, which I hope the Select Committee would be able to establish. That is at the heart of the disagreement between my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire and the Committee on Standards, and that matter needs to be clearer.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think the hon. Gentleman is going to speak at the end, so it may be best if he does that.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has already intervened. Let me continue, because I am conscious of time.
The Committee noted that the commissioner has, since March 2020, routinely conducted an initiation interview with a Member concerned in investigations that involve serious allegations to assure herself that the Member is fully appraised in detail of the allegations and the process at the earliest possible stage. That postdates this case, but it is worth noting that my right hon. Friend suggested a meeting in his letter to the commissioner on 16 January 2020. These are welcome steps, and a Select Committee appointed by the House could look further at how the system might be approved.
I will now move on to the aggravating factors that the Standards Committee refers to in a number of its reports. A consistent theme has been that Members’ refusal to admit wrongdoing in contentious cases has been considered an aggravating factor leading to greater punishment, but we do not want to encourage a system in which a person has to admit fault in order to receive a reasonable response from the Standards Committee. Members who believe that they are innocent must be able to continue to assert that from the beginning to the end without that being considered an aggravating factor.
Plea bargaining is not part of our system. Expectation of self-denunciation is not where we want to get to. We do not want struggle sessions, though the Opposition may like struggle sessions, in order to receive more lenient sanctions. We saw examples of that recently where a Member was considered to have a higher degree of culpability because he did not accept the judgment of the Committee and commissioner on his correspondence with the judiciary. There was also the case of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), whose punishment, for the arguably innocuous and legitimate act of writing to Michel Barnier after his request for the views of MPs, was shortened and not brought to the Floor of the House on the condition that he admitted wrongdoing. This is a concerning theme in these investigations that clearly warrants greater review.
Perhaps the most critical point to emerge on concerns expressed by Members is the question of a right to appeal. I consider that right to be fundamental to the provision of justice, which is regrettably not genuinely provided by the matter coming to the Floor of this House—a regrettableness that has been reinforced by the conduct of this debate so far.
I observe that, in the House of Lords, there is an appeal process that provides that the noble lord concerned has a right of appeal to the Conduct Committee against the commissioner’s findings and any recommended sanction. Having considered any appeal, the Conduct Committee, having agreed an appropriate sanction, reports its conclusions to the House, which has the final decision on the sanction. That is why I support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. It proposes setting up a Select Committee to review the standards process and consider whether Members should be afforded the same or similar rights as apply to those subject to investigations of alleged misconduct in other workplaces and professions, including the right of appeal, and to make recommendations for reform. The Committee will, therefore, be able to recommend setting up an appeals mechanism and recommend other changes to increase confidence. It will also be able to consider whether the case against my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire should be reviewed with the benefit of any new appeals mechanism, or whether the Standards Committee report should be considered by the House. It will be a method by which we can reset a process that has lost the confidence of many Members of this House.
Let me be clear: the new Committee will not be the judge, jury and executioner in this case. It will be time-limited and established for the particular purpose of recommending improvements to the standards system for the House to consider. For example, following the Committee’s work in relation to this report, it is entirely possible that a reformed process, including any new appeal mechanism, may conclude that this initial report and sanction was entirely correct. This complex case still demands proper consideration, and the Select Committee would in no way pre-determine that.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Can the Leader of the House explain why it is appropriate that this new Select Committee should have an in-built Government majority, while the Standards Committee with its lay members does not. If this is about trying to improve our processes, why is he running the risk of making it look to anybody looking in from the outside that, essentially, this is like someone who has been found guilty of a crime, but instead of serving a sentence, his mates come together to try to change the judicial system? It looks really bad.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Sometimes, to do the right thing, one has to accept a degree of opprobrium, but it is more important to do the right thing to ensure that there is fairness.
Chris Elmore
Can the Leader of the House explain to the House why, for all other Select Committees, Members of this House vote for the Chair, but on this occasion he has decided to appoint a Chair and still call it a Select Committee?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is not true that all the posts are elected. The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, for example, is not elected. The hon. Gentleman, who is on the Procedure Committee, really ought to know better and know the details of the composition of Select Committees of this House.
I shall turn briefly to a letter sent to me yesterday by union representatives about the importance—
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We only have an hour and a half to discuss this. This is the time that the Government gave us to discuss this matter. There is huge interest in this debate. Is there anything that you can do to encourage the Leader of the House to wind up his remarks?
Mr Speaker
I think the Leader of the House has just said that he is coming to his conclusion.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Thank you for your ruling, Mr Speaker. It is always a balance in this House as to whether one tries to answer as many questions as possible, which is, I think, the better way of conducting the debate.
A letter was sent to me yesterday by union representatives about the importance of maintaining independent and impartial investigations into misconduct. The standards system stands in contrast to the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, which has an appeal panel, chaired by a High Court judge. That is for the very reason that all parties referred to the scheme must have total faith in it. It has been absolutely essential in achieving positive cultural change in this House precisely because of its rigorous, judicial processes, transparency of operation and evident commitment to natural justice and the right to appeal. The House should be proud of the ICGS system, and it owes a debt to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire for its establishment. It is clear that we can learn many lessons from its operation, and I would encourage the Select Committee to look to the ICGS system, with its benefits of judicial experience, as an example of how a process of independent adjudication can be set up effectively.
In summary—I was expecting a “Hear, hear” for that, Mr Speaker, as I am coming to my conclusion—there are numerous problems with the operation of the standards system, a fact that has been highlighted by the concerns of Members across this House in this particular case and others. Given these concerns, I think that it is only right that consideration of this report be paused until our standards system can be reviewed. Therefore, I will support the amendment so that the new Committee can consider whether Members should have
“the same or similar rights as apply to those subject to investigations of alleged misconduct in other workplaces and professions, including the right of representation, examination of witnesses and appeal”,
and whether this case itself should continue through any reformed system recommended by the new Committee.
Members must act when we see a situation arise that we do not believe to be compatible with the principles of natural justice. This is about the process and not the individual case, but when considering this report how can one not consider the great sorrow that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire has suffered? The suicide of his wife is a greater punishment than any House of Commons Committee could inflict. As we all know:
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes”.
It is in this way that the House should consider this case and standards more widely. The system must provide justice tempered by mercy, for mercy is essential to justice.
Dame Angela Eagle
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House appears to have spent this whole time supporting the amendment and has not actually moved the motion that he was meant to be moving.
Mr Speaker
I think the Leader of the House did move the motion, although I agree that it was a variation. I want the shadow Leader of the House to put the other case now. I call Thangam Debbonaire.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
It gives me no pleasure to be standing here responding to a standards motion, although I now feel that what I am responding to is the Leader of the House moving the amendment, rather than the motion.
I would like to place on record my sincere thanks to the standards commissioner and her team, not only for their diligent work in carrying out this inquiry, but for all the other work that they do to actively promote high standards across the House. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who chairs the Standards Committee, and all the other Committee members who contributed to this thorough investigation.
Since 1695, there have been rules on paid advocacy. A motion passed on 2 May 1695 said that
“the offer of money or other advantage to any Member of Parliament for the promoting of any matter whatsoever…in Parliament, is a high crime and misdemeanour”.
If, today, the amendment passes or the motion falls entirely, it sends the message—to paraphrase my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), the deputy leader of the Labour party ,who said this better than me earlier today—that when we do not like the rules, we just break the rules; and when someone breaks the rules, we just change the rules. It turns the clock back to before 1695. Such actions were not acceptable then and they are not acceptable now.
Dame Margaret Hodge
Does my hon. Friend agree that the only logical explanation for the action by Government Ministers and Back Benchers today is not necessarily the recommendations of the report that we are considering today, but that there may be many others in line to come forward that will cause even greater embarrassment to those on the Government Benches?
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank my right hon. Friend, who is a distinguished Member of this House, for raising that point. It is hard to work out why this is happening. In fact, I am going to skip ahead to a later point in my speech. As you know, Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House stands up in front of us every week. If he wanted a debate on changing the rules and changing the system, he has had that opportunity every single week, but I have yet to hear him mention it until today, when we are considering a live case.
In this case, the Committee concluded:
“This is an egregious case of paid advocacy”.
It said that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson)
“repeatedly…used his privileged position…to secure benefits for two companies for whom he was a paid consultant”,
and that this
“has brought the House into disrepute.”
A lot has been said in the media about the standards process over the last week, but since 1695 this House has only ever strengthened the system. The Library and the appendix to the code of conduct can provide a timeline and details for any Government Members who are interested. The introduction of a House of Commons Standards Commissioner in 1995 and the Standards Committee in 2013 were key features of strengthening the system. It has worked well and has gone a long way to restoring public trust in the House. It is vital that the integrity of the standards system is maintained. In fact, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended just this week that the system needs to be strengthened, not weakened. But no—Government Members seem to want to rip up the entire system. Our Committees, which are cross-party, carry out their inquiries independently of influence from this House and that must continue to be the case.
Under the code of conduct, all of us are expected to adhere to the ethical standards of the seven principles of public life. It seems that some Government Members need a reminder that those principles are: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. That expectation is good for us all. If someone in this place falls short, there has to be a system in place to hold MPs and other public officials to account. That is our standards system. It is a standards system that our Parliament voted on and approved. Just changing the system when somebody does not like a result is not acceptable.
If the Government wish to debate the merits of the standards system, the Leader of the House can get up tomorrow and schedule time to do so. Some Government Members who have signed the amendment are Chairs of House Committees and could have initiated reviews or made proposals, but they did not. I hate to remind the Leader of the House, but today there is a motion before us about a report and its recommendations. It is absolutely in order for Back Benchers to table an amendment, but it is quite astonishing that the Government seem to have endorsed and whipped it.
Shamefully, it seems that Tory MPs have been backed by their Government to hijack this debate, which should have been about endorsing a Committee report. The Government are sending the message that paid advocacy—MPs selling their offices and position as an elected representative—is fine. I am afraid that some, including Government Members from the Dispatch Box today, are claiming that this is a process without an appeal, but the commissioner reviews cases, makes recommendations and refers them to the Standards Committee, which is cross-party, with a majority of members from the Government Benches, as well as lay members with expertise; they decide whether to approve the recommendations, and we debate and vote on them.
Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, the right hon. Member for North Shropshire had access to legal representation. His character witness statements are in the report and were duly considered. As some of my colleagues have pointed out to me, if everybody who wanted to give oral evidence to a court of law was just accepted, where would that get us? Is that really what we are saying—that there should be a system whereby if I want to give evidence, I get to say what I like?
The Committee process is, in effect, a process of appeal. The Committee upheld the commissioner’s report and recommendations, and so must this House. For the public to maintain their trust in us, it is crucial that our independent standards procedure is not undermined or, worse still, systematically dismantled all together, as I fear is happening now. Is that what the Leader of the House wants his political legacy to be—undermining Parliament and our MPs even further? Does he fully understand the potential consequences of doing this?
Standards are important; they matter. The commissioner and the Committee took careful consideration of a very large amount of evidence. It took a long time to read, and I strongly suspect that some Members did not read it. The Committee recommended the sanction on the motion before us. It would be extraordinary for this House to overturn that independent, cross-party recommendation.
I hate to remind the Leader of the House, but just last month Government Members said that they could not possibly support retrospective rule change; and yet, here we are. In the middle of a case, Tory MPs—yes, I am going to state that, because it is only Tory MPs who have signed this amendment—are trying to change the rules. It is a serious case of paid advocacy against the rules that are clearly set out. The public rightly expect us to abide by the rules and to be held to account. We must vote to do so today.
We cannot have a return to the Tory sleaze of the 1990s. Members and the public will remember cash for questions and those Tory scandals of the 1990s. This Tory dilution of our standards procedures sends a terrible message to the public and our constituents that it is one rule for certain MPs and another for everyone else. The enduring damage that that would do to Parliament’s reputation is something that none of us should be prepared to consider.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I do not think anyone enjoys taking part in this debate. Were the Government’s motion to be considered unamended, I would vote for it. Had the second amendment been selected, I would vote for it. I will not vote for the first amendment.
I was on the Standards Committee up to 2003, when I withdrew on a point of practice, rather than principle, that the House, the Speaker and the then Labour Government had not supported Elizabeth Filkin. I am not going to change my practice now.
I am one of the people, probably like most people in this House, who has read the full report. I have read what the chief vet said about the milk allegation. I have read what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) has said, and to whom I join in offering sympathy for what has happened in his life. I recognise that the involvement of Randox with Aintree and with him, and his wife’s role at Aintree, meant that he would be close to a business, and I recognise that much of what he said is uncontested by the commissioner and by the Standards Committee.
The issue is whether he would have done better, as I think was possibly indicated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in Prime Minister’s questions, to have said that he held one view, the commissioner and the Committee held another, that he now recognises that what they felt was reasonable, and he is sorry to have a had a view that has caused this upset and these difficulties to all of us. I still hope that were I in that situation I would have had the sense, basically, to accept that there are views other than my own and that I should not always see things with my own justification rather than in the way people outside this House, and some inside this House, would see them.
On the decision as to whether the contents of the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) are correct, I do recognise that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said, the 2003 recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life is worth looking at. But that was 18 years ago, and if this is a serious problem, it should have been brought back for consideration by the House or by senior Members of this House during the past 18 years. I am unhappy to bring it forward now as a way of changing what should be the normal process of upholding the Standards Committee’s endorsement of the standards commissioner’s advice to the Committee.
I refer to the debate in 2010 when Jack Straw was the Justice Secretary and Sir George Young, as he then was, contributed for my party, as did I. We chose the system we are now using. If we want to consider changing it, we should do it in a proper way. I do not regard this as appropriate now.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is a real pleasure to follow the Father of the House, who offers some realistic and sage advice about how we take forward processes and business such as this. It would be good if the Leader of the House was to listen to his very straightforward comments about what is going on today.
When I was first told about this, I thought it was some sort of joke. I thought, “They can’t possibly be serious.” I expected maybe to come to a debate that would be the usual suspects speaking on behalf of one of their pals—but not today. Today we have the full force of the Government whipping operation dragooning Conservative Members of Parliament through this House to overturn the decision of our Standards Committee and to introduce a new way of examining breaches of the rules in this House. It is an almost outrageous suggestion.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on the Government’s approach: seeking to introduce mechanisms to neutralise court rulings of the Supreme Court, seeking to defy the European convention on human rights, seeking to reform the Electoral Commission, and now this. Does he, like me and I am sure many others on the Opposition Benches, agree with the litany of Giovanni Capoccia that this is a dire warning of the pillars of democracy being undermined by the Conservative and Unionist party for its own nefarious needs?
Pete Wishart
Yes, I do. I say to my hon. Friend and to this House: the public are watching this. The public are examining how we do this type of business, and, I say ever so gently to my Conservative colleagues over there, they are not liking what they are seeing. They are extremely concerned about the way that this House is going when it considers some of these issues.
What the public are observing is a shoddy attempt to turn back the clock to the worst excesses of 1990s Tory sleaze. What they see is the return of the days of brown envelopes and cash for questions—the absolute worst of sleaze and cronyism. What they see is the Conservatives trying to get one of their mates off the hook by ignoring independent due process, and rewriting the rules because they do not suit them, to close down an independent process and replace it with a Committee of this House with a Conservative majority and a Conservative Chair. Let us get rid of all independent process and just have them adjudicate on everything. Why do we not get the executive committee of the 1922 Committee to replace the whole of the judicial system across the UK? If a Conservative supporter is found guilty of any offence, why do we not get a committee set up to reconsider that verdict and have a look at it once again? That is the type of realm of possibility we are getting into with this.
I do not care if this place seems as sleaze-ridden and crony-ridden as it wants to be. In fact, it does me good if people from Scotland are watching and observing this place descending into the midden that we know it can become. It serves my purpose to see it do that. But is that what the Conservatives want to do with this House—to so debase and degrade the way that we do things that the public will start to look on this place with nothing other than utter contempt?
Let us just remind ourselves about what the Standards Committee found. It found that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) broke multiple rules when he lobbied the Government on behalf of Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods. The Committee’s report said:
“No previous case of paid advocacy has seen so many breaches or such a clear pattern of behaviour in failing to separate private and public interests.”
It quite rightly imposed the maximum sanction available to it. What the Conservatives now want to do is to overthrow that verdict of this independent Committee and to have the matter determined by a Committee with a Conservative Chair and a Conservative majority. That is natural justice Conservative-style for you. Can I say this to you, Mr Speaker? This Committee is supposed to have a Conservative Chair, four other Conservative members, three Labour members and one Scottish National party member, but the Scottish National party will not serve on any kangaroo court designed and determined by the Conservative party in order to do away with an independent process for looking at a breach of the rules.
God know what Kathryn Stone must be making of this. She has every right and every entitlement to walk right away from all this and have nothing further to do with this House that now attempts to change the rules midway through the process. The shadow Leader of the House is absolutely right. We were only told a couple of weeks ago that we could not change the rules retrospectively, but here we are in the middle of considering a standards report, and that is exactly what we are doing. What a way to do our business. What a shoddy return to the days of Tory sleaze. What a way to reduce this House into the absolute shambles that it is.
Today, Tory MPs are being instructed by their Whips to vote for this. We are doing this without any scrutiny or consideration of how these rules are rewritten. If the Leader of the House wants us to look at how we approach these things in future, he should bring forward a debate, not just 90 minutes where he took up half the time, because nobody has an opportunity to get in and say anything. Do it properly. Why are we doing this when we are considering a standards report? We will not take our place on this Committee; we will have nothing to do with it. I hope that Labour Members do not take their places on it either. If the Conservatives want to be the judge and jury and the arbitrator in all this, that is up to them. Get on and do it; we will have absolutely nothing to do with this process at all.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am very disappointed in the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), because, in effect, he is accusing me, having worked with me over years on achieving justice for this place, of being completely disingenuous. I find that very personally disappointing.
Today is a day for serious consideration by all colleagues across this House. We must address the grave concerns about the way in which we are held to account under our own Standing Orders. My amendment is not about whether the findings of the third report of the Committee on Standards are correct or incorrect. It is not about whether Mr Owen Paterson is innocent or guilty under that report. It is not about letting anyone off, stitching anything up, or any of the other accusations flying around the Chamber. Today’s amendment is about the process of investigations into Members and the question of whether this process must now be reviewed by a politically balanced Select Committee that will consider some exceedingly serious questions. First, there is the question of whether our investigatory process should more closely reflect the laws of natural justice, where an accused Member can expect to have their own evidence taken into account, to put forward witnesses in their defence, to be interviewed early in the process and provide their own explanation and, vitally, to access an independent appeal process.
Secondly, there is the serious question of whether Standing Orders Nos. 149, 149A and 150 are entirely fit for purpose. Those are the Standing Orders that govern the make-up of the Committee on Standards and the powers of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
I worked with Kathryn Stone when I was Leader of the House, and I know she takes her role seriously and strives to take a balanced view. However, the PCS does not have a legal background and is not required to by orders. She works as both sole investigator and judge. The Committee on Standards can change her recommendations, should it choose, but there is no clarity on when or why that would happen. The Committee will perfectly understandably tend to prefer to uphold the system over the individual. The PCS can decide to establish an investigatory panel to help her, and the Committee can even require her to establish such a panel, but again there is no clarity in Standing Orders on when that should be done, and it has never been done to date.
As Leader of the House between 2017 and 2019, a cross-party team of Members worked flat-out under my chairmanship—I pay tribute to them again today—to establish an independent complaints and grievance scheme. I know well that the scheme has its detractors and is still disappointingly slow to dispense justice. However, that cross-party team made great efforts to ensure that it followed the laws of natural justice—specifically that, first, both alleged perpetrator and alleged victim are very clearly able to give their side of the story to an independent case manager; secondly, witnesses can be presented in support of either side; thirdly, legal support can be provided; fourthly, there is a clear hierarchy where the investigator is not also the prosecutor, and fifthly, there is a clear appeals process. Furthermore, until found guilty, the alleged perpetrator is presumed innocent, and the investigation is confidential. Vitally, the whole scheme is reviewed on a regular and timetabled basis to ensure it continues to be fair and impartial.
Yvette Cooper
The right hon. Lady did important work on the independent complaints process, but she will recognise that, as Leader of the House, she had considerable time to propose reforms and amendments to the Committee on Standards process, should she have chosen to do so. Does she not recognise that proposing reforms now, in conjunction with this individual case—where an independent investigation and an independent cross-party Committee have come to very clear conclusions about paid advocacy—undermines the decisions and integrity of this House and any positive purpose to any reforms she might want for the future?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am incredibly sympathetic to what the right hon. Lady says. In fact, I was about to come on to what many in the Chamber are asking, which is, “Why bring forward this review today, on the day we are being asked to consider one particular case?” She asks why I did not bring forward these changes when I was Leader of the House. The answer is that I was working flat-out, on a cross-party basis, doing 18-hour days—many Members would support that point—on the independent complaints and grievance scheme. Had I stayed in post longer, I absolutely would have looked at this review. I am frustrated that these two systems have not been brought into line with each other. I share her frustration. I would have strongly preferred for this review to have been kicked off on its own merits at a time when the waters would not be muddied by the inevitable party political point scoring.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend was a distinguished Leader of the House. She has set out in her amendment a view about how this system should work, which would be far more judicial and forensic. I am sure that many of us in this House on both sides find these whole processes very unedifying and somewhat embarrassing. We do not vote on our remuneration packages. In the scenario she is setting out, would it be appropriate for the House still to vote on these reports, or, given the beefed-up investigatory powers that she is setting out—looked at by the Standards Committee—should it not come for a vote of this House at all? It should be at the Standards Committee, which should then opine on what it hears.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which came up time and again during consideration of the independent complaints and grievance scheme. It was made very clear that, in a democratically elected system, ultimately, it has to be for elected colleagues to be able to make the final decision. That is an incredibly important point of principle. It was put to me that, if we ever reached a point where unelected people could remove elected people, we would put ourselves into the position of a dictatorship. But I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case for reform, but as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, that reform can only work if it comes from all parts of the House. By bringing her amendment today, it looks like we are moving the goalposts. For that reason, I cannot support her. What might she say about that?
Dame Andrea Leadsom
As I just said in response to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I share the concern that we are bringing this forward today. I sincerely hope that colleagues from all parts of the Chamber will be prepared to join together to review this system, which is so clearly flawed. I ask all colleagues to search their hearts carefully today. As MPs, there is no doubt we are our own harshest critics and judges. We spend so much of our lives trying to deliver justice to our constituents and fighting against unfairness wherever we see it. Today’s amendment is not about one judgment on one person. It is not about letting anyone off the hook, and it is not about rejecting the report of the Committee on Standards.
Jess Phillips
With much respect, and having worked with the right hon. Lady for many months on the ICGS process, it is only fair, in the light of that, that I raise that today two of the people who went through that process have contacted me. They are victims of sexual harassment or assault, and they say that what is happening in Parliament today is very unedifying and makes them certain that victims will find it difficult to understand that we will not just overturn things and make it very hard for anyone to come forward about anything.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We have worked together on this for many years. I must make clear to her that the amendment is not looking at the independent complaints and grievance scheme. As I have set out, that was established under a cross-party review, and it had all the laws of natural justice taken carefully into account in its establishment.
Today’s amendment is an opportunity to review the process for fairness, natural justice and impartiality in the system that oversees Members of Parliament. The review is proposed to take place within three months from today, at which time the specific case can be brought back to the House for reconsideration.
Dame Andrea Leadsom
I will just finish, because time is pressing. A colleague texted me today to say:
“Achieving change in this place is tough, but today’s amendment could lead to a standards system that is fairer for all. It is so sad that it takes a tragedy for the House to act.”
There is never a right time to act, but let us please do our best for fairness and support the amendment today.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I am regretful at rising to speak in this debate. Although we have political adversaries in the House, we are also all colleagues who work together in the same place. I have the utmost sympathy for the family tragedy that hit the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) and the greatest admiration for how he then took up the campaign for the prevention of suicide to help others. In the more than 20 years that we have been in the House together, he has shown me nothing but kindness and courtesy.
It is very much because we as MPs know and understand each other that the House recognised that we needed a complaints system that involved a strong measure of independence. We all recognise that the public want, and are entitled to, the highest standards from their elected representatives, and we are proud to claim that that is the case. We all recognise that the people who elect us want us to act in their interest and in the public interest, and that they want no conflict of interest to blur the issue of our private financial interest with our role as MPs.
Trust in our democracy is all important, but it is fragile. The reputation of the House is easily damaged and, when damaged, hard to restore, as we discovered not only in the lobbying scandal, but in the expenses scandal. How we deal with this issue will reflect on the House as a whole and on each of us individually. I hope that Members on both sides are clear that this is House business, not Government business, and therefore the vote should not be whipped, much though the Whips will try.
We made these rules on lobbying; we need to enforce them. No one foisted the process on us; we initiated it and decided it. Where there are criticisms about the rules that we decided on, changes can be proposed, but as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, they must have an all-party basis to go forward with integrity. That is the way we should do things.
What we must not do is make the rules and then decide to set them aside when we have misgivings about the outcome. I will oppose the amendment and support the motion, and I urge right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to do the same.
Mr Speaker
I call Sir William Cash. Sir William, you have only three minutes. I am sorry about that.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
This case is about the whole House, not just an individual Member. It is about the manner, process and principle whereby the case was conducted by the Committee on Standards, although there has been much discussion about the role of the commissioner.
The responsibility lies with the Committee, which is ultimately a matter for the House as a whole. The amendment addresses a failure by the Committee in a serious contested case, as this was, to call for an investigatory panel as it had the right to do and should have done. Had an investigatory panel been set up, it would have brought into play the rules of natural justice, human rights and the criteria insisted on by a series of reports, including that of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege.
Under the Committee on Standards Standing Orders, in particular Standing Order 150(5), the commissioner may hold an investigatory panel but
“if so requested by the Committee”
is obliged to hold such a panel. Then all the aspects of fairness and justice that I have mentioned, and that have been insisted on in a series of reports, would have come into play. They include establishing disputed facts, the appointment of a legal assessor and counsel, the right for a Member accused of misconduct to be heard before such a panel, the right for such a Member to call and examine witnesses, and the opportunity for the legal assessor to provide an opinion
“as to the extent to which its proceedings have been consistent with the principles of natural justice”.
All that was denied to the Member in this case. In similar serious contested cases, it is as plain as a pikestaff that Members on both sides of the House would want to insist that such rules of fairness were brought into play for them, as would be expected in any walk of life. It would be utterly inconceivable for Parliament—it would be rightly condemned for doing so—to pass legislation denying to the courts, justice systems, statutory tribunals, professional committees or ACAS that a person accused of misconduct be granted such procedures. In a nutshell, although in courts, tribunals or professional disciplinary arrangements, any person in the land could apply for judicial review where there had been a failure to comply with such procedures, that does not apply because of parliamentary privilege and article 9 of the Bill of Rights.
There is a further question about the role of the lay members. In this case, for a variety of reasons, including recusal and the absence of some Members of Parliament on the Committee when the report was finalised, the lay members were left in a majority, which is clearly not the way in which the Committee was intended to operate, despite past warnings.
For all those reasons, and because the House as a whole has overall jurisdiction over all Standing Orders, I believe that the amendment is essential. An investigatory panel should have been set up to ensure that. If the Committee had requested it, which it did not, the commissioner would have been obliged, under the Standing Orders, to ensure it. I therefore strongly urge that the amendment be made.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—sorry, Mr Speaker.
Chris Bryant
I think he got the easier job.
I have not done any radio or television interviews on this matter because, as Chair of the Committee, I am a servant of the House. I thank the Commissioner and the Committee. In particular, I wish the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) well, because he is very ill at the moment. I hope that he will be back with us soon. It is inappropriate for people to comment on absences from the Committee when they do not understand why members might be absent.
I am painfully conscious that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) lost his wife in tragic circumstances in June 2020. I wish to express my sincere condolences to him. I have known suicide in my family, as he knows, and I have performed many funerals for suicides. I know the grief, the anguish, and often the guilt that is associated. The last year must have been very distressing for him, and the Committee took those circumstances fully into account when considering his conduct.
I will address the charges, the process, the sanction and the amendment. The charges are very serious. The Member repeatedly, over a sustained period, lobbied officials and Ministers on behalf of his paying clients, Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods, from whom he was receiving more than £9,000 a month, as he still is. He pursued their commercial interests. When they could not get meetings with officials and Ministers, he used his privileged position as a Member of Parliament to secure them. Providing privileged access is a valuable service.
The Member promoted what he called “Randox’s superior technology”. He wanted the Government to use Randox’s calibration system. He repeatedly used his taxpayer-funded parliamentary office for commercial meetings. That is paid lobbying. In some shape or form, it has been banned since 1695 and expressly so since cash for questions, which brought this House into terrible disrepute in the 1990s. One Conservative Member described it to me as a “catalogue of bad behaviour”. I have yet to meet a Conservative MP who has not said to me, “He clearly broke the rules.” I think that includes the Leader of the House.
The Member says that he was raising serious wrongs, but he did not say so at the time. If they were truly serious, one might have expected him to write articles or do media interviews, as he was perfectly entitled to do. He did not. He did the one thing that he was banned from doing: lobby Ministers time and again in a way that conferred a direct benefit on his paying clients. That is expressly forbidden. It is a corrupt practice.
On the process, the Member has had a fair hearing. We had legal advice from Speaker’s Counsel throughout. As one former High Court judge said to me yesterday,
“the procedure is consistent with natural justice and similar or identical to workplaces up and down the country.”
We on the Committee spent many hours reviewing the evidence in this case without fear or favour. The Member had prior notice of the charges and the evidence against him at every stage. He had his legal advisers with him. The Committee invited him to make his appeal against the commissioner’s findings in writing and in person, and I hope he would confirm that we gave him every opportunity to make his case to us and that the session was conducted respectfully and fairly. I think he is nodding.
The Member has said that his witnesses should have been interviewed. Natural justice requires that witnesses be heard, but that does not necessarily mean that they must be heard orally or cross-examined. We did what many courts and tribunals do every day of the week: we reviewed all the witness statements, took them into consideration and published them in full.
The Member claims that the commissioner had made up her mind before she sent her memorandum. That is completely to misunderstand the process. As the commissioner has done in every other case, she started an investigation and invited the Member to meet her and/or to submit evidence. Once she had completed her investigation and, by definition, found on a preliminary basis that there had been a breach of the rules, she submitted a memorandum to him for his comments, and then to the Committee. That is when we heard his appeal, in writing and in person.
I turn to the sanction. As the Committee says in the report:
“Each of Mr Paterson’s several instances of paid advocacy would merit a suspension of several days, but the fact that he has repeatedly failed to perceive his conflict of interest and used his privileged position as a Member of Parliament to secure benefits for two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, is even more concerning. He has brought the House into disrepute.”
A Conservative colleague whom I respect a great deal said to me on Monday that justice should always be tempered by mercy. I agree. But justice also demands no special favours.
These are the precedents that we considered: Patrick Mercer was suspended for six months; the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for 30 days; Jonathan Sayeed for 14 days; and George Galloway for 18 days. When Geoffrey Robinson failed to provide proper responses to the commissioner and Committee, he was suspended for a month. This case is just as serious because it involved at least 14 instances. It was a pattern of behaviour, and the Member has said time and again over the last week that he would do the same again tomorrow. If the House were therefore to vote down or water down the sanction, or to carry the amendment, it would be endorsing his action. We would be dismantling the rule on paid advocacy, which has been around in some shape or form since 1695. I am afraid that the public would think of us as the Parliament that licensed cash for questions.
Let me turn to the amendment. I have worked with the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) on many things; I think she is very wrong today. It is the very definition of injustice that one should change the rules or the process at the very last moment, and to do so for a named individual. That is what the amendment does. Retrospective legislation to favour or damage an individual because they are a friend or a foe is immoral and the polar opposite of the rule of law. That is why, as the Leader of the House knows, I spoke and voted with Conservative Members when we were considering a retrospective motion to subject the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) to a recall petition. The amendment should fail on that basis alone—it is the opposite of due process.
The amendment purports to set up an appeal process, but an appellate body must be independent and every single member of the body will be parti pris, by definition. They will have been whipped and taken a view today. They will almost certainly have voted. The proposed Chair, by agreeing to have his name put forward, is already not independent. I point out gently to the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire that it was her motion as Leader of the House on 7 January 2019 that set up the Standards Committee in its present form. At that time, she said that
“a greater element of independence was required, and that having seven lay members and seven parliamentary Members on the Standards Committee…provides the right balance—having the memory and the corporate understanding of being in this place, while at the same time ensuring that we can benefit from the experience and knowledge of independent lay members.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 128.]
The body she proposes today will have no independent members—no independence.
Chris Bryant
I will not take an intervention, if the right hon. Member does not mind. She must know that this is a retrograde step. She also said—I say this strongly to all hon. Members who have said many things about the parliamentary commissioner—that
“ensuring that the PCS can operate independently…is vital and will better enable justice for those seeking recourse.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 127.]
The amendment will drive a coach and horses through our standards system. We will have two rival Select Committees on standards at the same time, charged with the same piece of business. As many hon. Members may know, the Standards Committee is engaged in a review of the code of conduct, which we are required to do in every Parliament, and that will include review of the operation of the system. I am absolutely certain that there are things that we could do better. I am determined to make sure that we will do things better to ensure natural justice.
Chris Bryant
I will not, if the hon. Member does not mind. I want to conclude my remarks; I am sorry. He has already caught Mr Speaker’s eye.
We are close to agreeing a report on how we can improve the system. I would also say that the suggested process will keep this running for yet more months. I agree with the Leader of the House: I hate investigations that take a long time, but I will point this out gently. The commissioner was, I think, right to suspend her investigation on the right hon. Member for North Shropshire after his wife’s death. It was only once his lawyers said it was okay to restart that she initiated it again. All the delays in the process have been down to his seeking further extensions of deadlines, and we have always sought to meet those. I think it is inappropriate to keep it going any further.
I also draw a distinction between an appeal on the facts, which we have heard, and an appeal on the sanction. It may be right that there should be an appeal process on the sanction. That is not the process that we have adopted with any other Member thus far, and that is why I think it is wrong to confuse changing the process with the case in hand. It is, as I said earlier, by definition wrong to change the process at the very last moment.
The Committee also says in the report:
“A Member is entitled to contest, even vigorously contest, the Commissioner’s interpretation of the rules and her findings. We do not mark down any Member for doing so.”
The aggravating factor in this case was a lack of insight into a conflict of interest, not a lack of acceptance of breach. I will say this to the Member: this could have been very different if you had come to us and said, “I am sorry. I was trying to do the right thing, but I got it wrong. I want the House to uphold the highest standards, and I accept the reprimand and the sanction. I hope my constituents will deal kindly with me.” The danger is that, if the amendment is carried, his name will become a byword for bad behaviour.
Let me end with this. I hope all Members know that I care passionately about Parliament. The vast majority of Members are here to do good. We make significant sacrifices, as our partners know. We make a big difference, often on campaigns that have no party issue in them—indeed, I hope the House will support my Acquired Brain Injury Bill on 3 December. [Interruption.] I think that was unanimous, Mr Speaker. But if the public believe that we are marking our own homework, our reputation, individually and collectively, will be tarnished. Independence is essential to protect us. A Conservative MP said to me yesterday:
“There have been times when I have been ashamed of being a Member of this House, I don’t want to go back to that.”
Of course, as Chairman of the Committee, I remain a servant of the House, but I also have to look at the public. They want the House to uphold the highest possible standards. Nobody can be above the rules. It is the public who should judge this, and I fear they will find us all wanting if the amendment is carried today. I warn colleagues, with all my heart: do not do something today that we will rue in the future.
Mr Speaker
Can I just say before people vote: please, take your time going into the Lobbies. I am going to extend the vote, just because of the nature of where we are at the moment.
Amendment proposed: (a), leave out from “this House” to the end and insert:
“(1) notes the Third Report of the Committee on Standards (HC 797);
(2) notes concerns expressed about potential defects in the standards system and therefore declines to consider the report at this time;
(3) and resolves:
(a) that a Select Committee be appointed to consider and make recommendations by 3 February 2022 on the following matters:
(i) whether the current standards system should give Members of Parliament the same or similar rights as apply to those subject to investigations of alleged misconduct in other workplaces and professions, including the right of representation, examination of witnesses and appeal;
(ii) the extent to which the procedures under Standing Order Nos 149, 149(A) and 150 should be made consistent with the principles of natural justice;
(iii) whether the case against Mr Owen Paterson should be reviewed or whether the Third Report of the Committee on Standards (HC 797) should be reconsidered by the House;
(iv) and such other matters as appear to the Committee to be connected with the matters set out above,
and calls on the Government to bring forward a motion to give effect to any recommendations of the Committee within five sitting days of the publication of the Committee’s report;
(b) That the Committee consist of nine Members;
(c) That Mr John Whittingdale be Chair of the Committee and be given a casting vote in the event of a tie;
(d) That the Committee shall consist of eight other backbench members; to be nominated by parties in the proportion of four Conservative, three Labour and one SNP; nominations shall be submitted to the Committee of Selection no later than 15 November, after that date motions for nomination can be made notwithstanding any gaps in membership, and any motion made in the House on behalf of the Committee of Selection by the Chair or another member of the Committee shall be treated as having been made in pursuance of Standing Order No.121(2) for the purposes of Standing Order No.15(1)(c);
(e) That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; to adjourn from place to place, to report from time to time, to appoint legal advisers, and to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee’s order of reference.”—(Dame Andrea Leadsom.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) needs to be calm a minute while I do the next part of the script. [Interruption.] You might find it shameful, but I think I am in charge.
Main Question, as amended, put.
Mr Speaker
Just to let people know, I am not going to continue the debate. We have been through the debate, but I think that this might be a point of clarification, and I am happy to accept it in that light.
Chris Bryant
It is a very simple one, Mr Speaker. I do not want to delay the House. Some people have asked whether the Standards Committee continues to exist. It does, and we will be meeting on Tuesday morning. I will still be its Chair.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not believe that any hon. Member is truly honourable if they serve on this new Committee. Therefore I want my constituents to know that no Member of Parliament serves on this corrupt Committee in my name.
Mr Speaker
As I have said, we are not going to go through all the Members in the debate.
Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill
Wednesday 3rd November 2021
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Nuclear Energy (Financing) Act 2022 View all Nuclear Energy (Financing) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:36 - The House divided: - Ayes: 319 / Noes: 44 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:52 - The House divided: - Ayes: 256 / Noes: 80 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have not selected either of the reasoned amendments.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Hands)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I want to start by apologising the House for the fact that I will be unable to stay for all of the debate as I am taking the train to Glasgow to be there for energy day at COP and will therefore miss the wind-ups. I have informed Mr Speaker of this, and those on the Opposition Front Bench. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), the Minister for Science, Research, and Innovation, will be here for the debate and he will respond for the Government.
Two weeks ago, on 19 October, the Government published their net zero strategy. It is our vision for a decarbonised economy in 2050 and the policies and proposals that will keep us on course to reach net zero emissions through our five-year carbon budget. It is a strategy that puts the UK on a trajectory to meet carbon budget 6, a 78% reduction in emissions compared with 1990 levels by 2035, as the Prime Ministers reminded us earlier today. These kinds of ambitious goals are vital as we host COP26. Integral to achieving carbon budget 6 is our new ambition to fully decarbonise the power sector by 2035. This will mean that the UK is entirely powered by low-carbon electricity, subject to security of supply. Of course our electricity system must be resilient and affordable, as well as low-carbon. It will predominantly be composed of wind and solar but, as last year’s energy White Paper made clear, a low-cost, reliable system means that renewables will be complemented by technologies that provide power when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining. Large-scale nuclear power plants are the only proven technology available today that is deployed at scale to provide continuous, reliable and low-carbon electricity. Our electricity system needs nuclear power.
Greg Hands
Of course I will give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain why the SNP is so resolutely opposed to continuing the strong nuclear tradition in Scotland.
Alan Brown
I will do so later, but the Minister knows nuclear waste is a key issue. On proven technology working alongside renewables, he will be well aware that pumped storage hydro can provide that. Why will the Government not give the go-ahead for Coire Glas in the highlands, which has been progressed by SSE?
Greg Hands
The hon. Gentleman is right, and we are looking at that technology, but I stress what I just said about deployment at scale. We need something that can be deployed at scale to provide the bulk of our electricity when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. We are always open-minded on other new technologies, but the most important thing is what can be deployed at scale. The measures in this Bill are critical for ensuring we have the option to bring forward further nuclear capacity.
Twelve of the UK’s 13 current nuclear reactors, representing approximately 85% of our nuclear capacity, are scheduled to close by 2030. Although Hinkley Point C is under construction, additional nuclear is likely to be needed in a low-cost 2050 electricity system. That is why we have committed to bring at least one further large-scale nuclear project to final investment decision by the end of this Parliament, subject to value for money and all relevant approvals.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does that not mean much more nuclear is needed if it is the preferred means of backing up wind? The new nuclear the Minister is talking about will not even replace the nuclear that is closing.
Greg Hands
I have good news for my right hon. Friend, which is that the regulated asset base model that we are introducing here can be used for further nuclear power plants, including small modular reactors and other key nuclear innovations. He will also know that, in the net zero review, we launched a £120 million fund for new nuclear innovations, which will allow us to increase our nuclear commitments and capabilities beyond the existing commitment to one new plant having its investment case in this Parliament.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), Hinkley Point C will produce between 7% and 8% of the nation’s electricity needs once both reactors are up and running. A further plant of the same size would perhaps take it to 16%, but surely we need at least 25% to 30% if we are to make sure we have enough power to keep the grid going when the wind stops and there is no sunlight.
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend makes a good case for supporting this Bill, which will allow the financing options to expand our nuclear power base. I appreciate his support for Hinkley Point, as the MP for a nearby area.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
Is not the problem with the Government’s proposals that the new financing model, which is very favourable, goes towards only one technology? Are the British Government not therefore picking a winner from the available technology options? Does that not go against Conservative ideology?
Greg Hands
No, actually. In fact, the ability to add levies or extra payments on to bills is already in place for multiple technologies. It is not there for nuclear alone. The broad concept exists for other technologies, too.
Greg Hands
I will make a bit more progress.
The Chancellor’s spending review backs this commitment by providing £1.7 billion to enable the investment decision, alongside a new £120 million future nuclear enabling fund to tackle barriers to deploying new nuclear technology.
Greg Hands
I will make a bit more progress.
However, it is clear that we need a new funding model to support the financing of large-scale and advanced nuclear technologies. Under the existing mechanism to support new nuclear projects, the contracts for difference scheme, developers have to finance the construction of a nuclear project and only begin receiving revenue when the station starts generating electricity. That was the right model to use for Hinkley Point C, given that it was the first nuclear project to be built in the UK for a generation.
Greg Hands
I am going to make more progress.
But the lack of alternative funding models has led to the cancellation of recent potential projects, such as Hitachi’s project at Wylfa Newydd in Wales and Toshiba’s at Moorside in Cumbria. We have digested the lessons from Hinkley Point C; it is time to provide these alternatives.
Greg Hands
I am going to make some more progress.
This legislation will facilitate financing of additional nuclear capacity through implementing a regulated asset base model and additional measures to mobilise private capital into new projects. At this point, I will give way to the very patient Member from north Wales.
Mark Tami
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that since the advanced gas-cooled reactor programme, we have not had a programme of new nuclear reactors? We have had very drawn out processes for one-off plants, whether at Sizewell or Hinkley. We need to plan and have new reactors, preferably with the same build. If we look at what the French have done, we see that they can take one part of one reactor and put it in another one. We have always tinkered with reactors, rather than see this as a long-term project.
Greg Hands
I think the right hon. Gentleman is a supporter of the Bill and the approach being taken by the Government, because exactly this new financing model will allow us a greater diversity in our nuclear projects. It will allow us to bring in more private sector finance. I know he is a long-standing Labour MP, so perhaps he might want to reflect on Labour’s role in those lost opportunities over the years.
Greg Hands
Let me finish responding to the first intervention first. I was reading the 1997 Labour manifesto the other day. We remember those days when they came in as “new Labour”, and their manifesto said:
“We see no economic case for the building of any new nuclear power stations.”
The right hon. Gentleman has been here a long time, so perhaps he would like to say why he was a backer of the 1997 Labour manifesto.
Mark Tami
I actually came here in 2001, but I will leave that there. I have been a long-time supporter of nuclear power. I think that the problem, on both sides of the House, is that we have energy review after energy review, we identify what all the problems are and we do absolutely nothing about it. We need a long-term plan, and I am talking about both sides of the House here. I will certainly be supporting this Bill tonight.
Greg Hands
The right hon. Gentleman said he was first elected in 2001, but my guess is that he was a supporter of the 1997 manifesto. What says supports what the Government have been doing here for some time, which has been to increase our nuclear capacity and make sure the financing models are in place to support the funds. I am surprised he voted against the Budget last week, with its £1.7 billion made available for new nuclear. Perhaps he might explain to his constituents why he was against that Budget.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
Just to carry on the point about Labour’s involvement in this, I should point out that at his final party conference Tony Blair said:
“10 years ago I parked the issue of nuclear power. Today, I believe without it, we are going to face an energy crisis and we can’t let that happen.”
For the first time in my life, I am going to say that Tony Blair was right. The French are reaping the rewards of Messmer’s nuclear legacy. Will my right hon. Friend commit today to his Messmer-style nuclear legacy for the UK?
Greg Hands
I, too, do not often agree with Tony Blair, but it was good to see his conversion in the end, albeit that it took him 10 years. I have always been a passionate supporter of nuclear power, right since I was first elected in 2005, which was round about the time of that Labour volte-face. I was a strong supporter of Labour’s changing its view at that time; it is just such a pity that there was a lost decade before it came to that view.
Let me move on—
Greg Hands
No, I am going to make some progress. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
The Bill could help to get new projects off the ground throughout Great Britain, including, potentially, the Sizewell C project in Suffolk, which is the subject of ongoing negotiations between EDF and the Government, as well as potential further projects, such as on the Wylfa site in Wales.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this landmark Bill, which will help us to reach our net zero targets by 2050. Does he agree that it creates an incredible opportunity to replace the soon-to-be-decommissioned reactor in Hartlepool with a new advanced modular reactor, which could create the high-quality, high-temperature steam that we need for hydrogen production in Teesside?
Greg Hands
I visited my hon. Friend’s constituency with her two or three weeks ago—in fact, it was my first ministerial visit under my new portfolio—and I was impressed by the commitment to hydrogen in the area and to our new approach to energy overall. The most important thing to understand about this Bill is that it enables future nuclear projects and a diversity of financing models, with greater access to private sector finance in particular, so that we are less dependent on overseas developers as we go forward. That is the most important thing to take away. I would of course be delighted to come back to Hartlepool to see what it has to offer in this policy space.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
When will I be able to get one of these little modular, Rolls-Royce reactors?
Greg Hands
I think my right hon. Friend is referring to small modular reactors, the technology behind which the Government have put their support. The ability to finance them will start to come in, and I would hope to speak further on that with my right hon. Friend.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
My understanding is that eight sites around the UK currently have planning permission for new nuclear power stations. I have two nuclear power stations in my constituency and we would welcome a third; will the Bill help in some way to speed up the planning process so that we can get investment into communities? My local nuclear power stations are supposed to be decommissioned within the next 10 years.
Greg Hands
The Bill does not change the planning process, but it does change the investment case and the ability to bring in private sector investment, particularly institutional funds, including British pension funds, that are currently put off or find it difficult. It also affects the ability to bring in private institutional investors from overseas—we have seen the difficulties at Wylfa and at Moorside. In that sense, my hon. Friend will find the Bill of great encouragement in respect of future nuclear builds in his constituency.
Greg Hands
I am going to make a bit more progress. I have taken a lot of interventions, and the time for this debate has been a little curtailed.
The Government are introducing this Bill at a time when the cost of energy is on all our minds. We are committed to making the transition to low-carbon power affordable to households and businesses. Nuclear is part of a low-cost future electricity system and helps to reduce our exposure to volatile global gas prices. The measures in the Bill mean that we can keep nuclear in the mix at a lower cost than would otherwise be the case.
Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will be able to designate a company to benefit from a RAB model, provided that it satisfies certain criteria. This will empower the Secretary of State to insert new conditions into the company’s electricity generation licence to permit the company to receive a regulated revenue in respect of the design, construction, commissioning and operation of a nuclear project. A RAB model allows a company to charge consumers to construct and operate new infrastructure projects. It allows the company’s investors to share some of the project’s construction and operating risks with consumers, overseen by a strong economic regulator. That in turn significantly lowers the cost of capital, which is the main driver of a nuclear project’s cost to consumers.
Greg Hands
I will make a little more progress.
RAB is a tried and tested method that has successfully financed other large UK infrastructure projects. The introduction of a special administration regime will prioritise the plant’s opening and continuing to operate in the unlikely event of a project company’s insolvency. That will protect consumers’ investment in the plant and ensure that they realise the plant’s benefit. Members should know that this legislation is not specific to one project, as I have already said, and could be applied to nuclear projects across Great Britain.
Greg Hands
I will make progress.
The RAB model could open up opportunities for British companies and our closest
partners to develop new projects and technologies, including the Wylfa Newydd site in Anglesey and small modular reactors, as well as the Sizewell B project.
Greg Hands
I will make more progress. I have taken a lot of interventions.
The legislation will also make technical changes to the regime of funded decommissioning programmes, removing barriers to private financing of nuclear projects in support of our nuclear energy ambitions. That section will not apply in Scotland.
Members will be pleased that this new funding model will reduce our reliance on overseas developers for financing new nuclear projects. It will substantially increase the pool of potential private investors to include British pension funds, insurers and other institutional investors.
The funding model will require consumers to pay a small amount on their bills during the construction of a nuclear project. These payments from the start of construction will avoid the build-up of interest on loans that would otherwise lead to higher costs to consumers in the future.
Greg Hands
I have given away enough.
Members will be reassured that a project starting construction in 2023 will add only a very small amount to the average dual-fuel household bill during this Parliament, and, on average, less than £1 per month during the full construction phase of the project.
Greg Hands
I will give way to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) because I have not given way to him yet in this debate and I miss him from the International Trade Committee.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. We had many a good exchange at that stage, but I want to take him back a little further to when I was Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee. It was pointed out in representations that were made to me that, sometimes, the Government ask the wrong questions. When they say they want nuclear, what they really need are 6 GW baseload. That might be achievable with a mix of technologies and at a cheaper strike price. Hinkley, for instance, is £92 per megawatt-hour, index linked to, I think, 2012 prices. Had that question been asked differently, not stipulating nuclear but asking for 6 GW, the price achieved might have been around £70, saving bill payers, taxpayers and everybody an awful lot. I caution the Government against going down one route and prescribing the technology—the Minister did mention technologies. Perhaps he should say what he needs, which is 6 GW baseload.
Greg Hands
As I have outlined, the Bill is about nuclear. Creating a more diverse potential finance base is exactly what it is about. It is not biased in favour of one technology vis-à-vis another, but, as a Government, we have been absolutely clear about the important, growing role that nuclear will play. On Hinkley Point C, we think that that was the right model for the decision at that time. I think the hon. Gentleman’s problem is with nuclear as a whole rather than specific problems at a nuclear plant. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe said:
“International climate objectives will not be met if nuclear power is excluded”.
I think his policy is to exclude nuclear power in its entirety.
Members will be reassured that a project starting construction in 2023 will add only a very small amount to the average dual-fuel household bill during this Parliament—on average less than £1 per month during the full construction phase of the project. I believe that these bill impacts are proportionate, given the benefits that nuclear offers our electricity system. Ultimately, nuclear power will deliver a lower-cost system for consumers compared with reliance on intermittent power sources alone. The RAB model will make new nuclear projects cheaper. Our analysis has shown that using this funding model for a nuclear project could produce a cost saving for consumers of more than £30 billion, compared with funding projects through a contract for difference.
Greg Hands
No, I am going to make more progress.
That saving equates to more than £10 a year for an average domestic dual-fuel bill throughout the life of a nuclear power station, which can operate for 60 years.
The UK has a pioneering history in nuclear energy. We were the first country in the world to set up a civil nuclear programme, back in 1956. There are proud communities—I see many Members who represent them here today—who have been working in the industry for more than 60 years. Creating new nuclear projects will support this important sector and help to level up the UK. The civil nuclear sector is already a major provider of high-value, high-skilled jobs across the entire country. It employs approximately 60,000 people, with nearly 90% of those jobs based outside of London and the south-east. New nuclear projects will be important sources of economic opportunity for the whole country. Hinkley Point C has already created well over 10,000 job opportunities. Future nuclear projects bring with them significant opportunities for training the future nuclear workforce through apprenticeships and training schemes to increase skills.
This legislation will vary in application across the UK. The Government are undertaking close joint work with other stakeholders on the potential options for nuclear at the Wylfa site. The RAB model could play a key role in funding any future project there.
Greg Hands
No; I am going to have to finish.
Members will know that the Scottish Government have a different position with regard to new nuclear projects. To be clear: this Bill will not alter the current approval process for new nuclear, nor the responsibilities of the devolved Governments. Nothing in this Bill will change the fact that Scottish Ministers are responsible for approving applications for large-scale onshore electricity-generating stations in Scotland. The steps taken in this Bill will mean that Scottish consumers will benefit from a cheaper, more resilient and lower-carbon electricity system, so it is right that Scottish consumers should contribute towards the construction of new projects.
Northern Ireland is part of the single electricity market with the Republic of Ireland. As such, energy users in Northern Ireland will not pay towards nuclear projects financed through the RAB.
Taken as a whole, the Bill will ensure that consumers across Great Britain will benefit from a cheaper, more resilient and lower-carbon electricity system that is funded in a fair and affordable way. I hope that Members will agree that this is an important and timely piece of legislation. Recent increases in gas prices have demonstrated the key role that reliable low-carbon power through nuclear has to play in our transition to net zero.
The Bill is a unique opportunity to deliver a trinity of benefits, as it will: help us to create a resilient low-carbon energy system; deliver value for money for consumers; and deliver and create thousands of well-paid jobs across the country. I hope that Members will take the next step towards net zero and levelling up the whole UK. I commend the Bill to the House.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Labour believes that new nuclear has an important supporting role to play in the energy mix, alongside the decisive shift to renewables that we need to deliver the climate transition and secure our energy security. As set out by the Climate Change Committee, we need all the low-carbon power sources at our disposal to deliver the rapid and fair transition that is required.
I am sorry that the Minister, in presenting the Bill, has chosen the partisan knockabout route, rather than giving it the serious consideration that it deserves. If we want to go down that path, we can reflect on the decade of dither and delay on the Government’s part, with mixed messages from the Conservative Government on new nuclear. The result is that, after 10 years, we have one half-finished nuclear plant, which is funded by a mechanism that, as the Minister himself accepts, is quite disastrous in terms of future prices. The record of this Conservative Government on new nuclear is frankly very poor. At last we have a Bill that might rectify some of that poor performance over the last 10 years. We need to support the need to finance new nuclear. We will scrutinise this Bill to guarantee fairness for bill payers, including protecting consumers against any potential cost overruns, protecting the poorest households, and scrutinising the balance between public spending and bill payers.
It is welcome that at long last we are coming to the key issue in nuclear power, which is how we build the power stations that we seek to place in the mix of low-carbon energy for the future. We know how not to do it, as I mentioned. We have already seen from the passage of building Hinkley C, and the disappearance of many nuclear projects and programmes, that the model that the Government have long stood for—that power stations should be built entirely by the private sector, and that private-sector security can be bought by price mechanisms that grossly inflate the cost of energy to the customer in the end—is highly flawed.
We are facing a last-chance saloon for new nuclear build that requires us to throw away those principles and start again, because most of the programme of new nuclear power stations that the Government have been envisaging over the past 10 years has been washed away. As late as 2018, there were possibly three consortia actively pursuing an interest in building five new nuclear power stations. These have progressively fallen by the wayside. Consortia have fallen apart, companies with an interest in financing projects have pulled out, and we are now left with one proto-consortium—effectively just EDF—building Hinkley C and with active plans to build a new power station at Sizewell. It is not only an active interest. Sizewell is designed to be effectively a clone of the plant that is currently being built so that it can start to build as Hinkley completes its construction phase and the workforce currently undertaking construction at Hinkley can transfer to the building of its clone at Sizewell.
We ought to add two other factors that will have a substantial bearing on how we proceed with building plants—or in this instance, a plant, because that is all we have under consideration right now. First, the consortium proposing to build Sizewell is not exactly champing at the bit to finance it. EDF has effectively mortgaged itself to the hilt in financing 65% of Hinkley C and has stated unequivocally that it is not about to do the same with Sizewell C. Secondly, we still have the arrangement in place concluded by the then Chancellor George Osborne to arrange a fast track into the heart of our nuclear programme for the China National Nuclear Corporation via a Secretary of State’s investment agreement to help fund Hinkley C power station to the tune of 35% of the upfront capital; 20% of the second in the EDF consortium’s programme, Sizewell C; and the big prize for the Chinese—control of the financing, build and running of a third nuclear power station at Bradwell in Essex, which is now unlikely, to the point of impossible, to happen.
It is likely that the Chinese will not be able to get their hands on a real nuclear power station all of their own and they will not be investing into 20% of Sizewell—indeed, the Government seem to have set aside £1.7 billion in the Budget to buy out their interest in Sizewell C. Labour has long warned that the Government are playing a dangerous game when they outsource the funding of critical national infrastructure to foreign Governments. We are now seeing the results of a decade of Conservative Governments doing exactly that, and mostly failing to get anywhere. There we have it in terms of the UK’s nuclear programme for the foreseeable future—only one plant in prospect for a start before the late 2020s.
John Redwood
The shadow Minister is very thoughtful on these matters. How much standby capacity does he think we need to back up the wind and solar that will be the majority of our generation in due course?
Dr Whitehead
Interestingly, the Climate Change Committee, which has looked into this matter in great depth, considers that in the overall long-term future make-up of our energy mix, about 8 to 10 gigawatts of standby power—therm power—is likely to be required in the shape of new or existing nuclear power stations. That is about the size of the difference with an overwhelmingly renewable but variable economy, with elements of firm power backing it up.
I have mentioned that one plant only that would be included in the suggested 8 GW to 10 GW is in prospect for a start before the late 2020s, because every other proposal has fallen away. However, it is not financed and is probably not financeable by private capital. It is only part financeable by a state financer, with which we do not now want to do business. Let us be clear before we go any further: this Bill is about finding a formula to fund and build Sizewell C power station. Whatever its generic pretensions, that is the issue we should be concentrating on. Even so, getting that plant going would cover most of what the Climate Change Committee considers is the presence in the mix needed.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from discussing the financing for Sizewell C, does he agree that it is important, when we are talking about financing, that the financing is not just in place for the build of the power station itself, but for the necessary infrastructure and mitigation measures for the local communities in the area, who will be suffering from construction traffic and the like for potentially a 12-year period?
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the build cost and financing of a nuclear power station has to include not just the obvious things that we think are associated with a nuclear power station, but all the other infrastructure around that nuclear power station and contributions to decommissioning costs. That is what we are talking about in terms of an overall financing package, and that is why a financing package has to last over the whole life, effectively, of that nuclear power station. I do not intend to move on from the financing of Sizewell C, because that is essentially what this Bill is all about. It is about all those things that the hon. Gentleman mentions, so far as that particular project is concerned.
This plant, if it goes forward—we hope it will go forward with something like this kind of financing—would cover a substantial part of what the Climate Change Committee considers necessary in the mix of low-carbon energy to drive power towards net zero by 2050. I have mentioned that it thinks about 8 GW to 10 GW of new nuclear power would be needed to complement a predominantly renewable power line-up so that firm power considerations are met, without being in such numbers that it puts the development of renewables into jeopardy. That 8 GW to 10 GW includes new nuclear power, but also the one existing power station that will probably last beyond the 2030s in Sizewell B.
Hinkley and Sizewell C together therefore would go a long way towards meeting that assessment by the end of the decade, with two 3.2 GW power stations with reactors in each, and the remaining Sizewell B power station continuing in action. It is not surprising then that we are talking about nuclear financing, which is pretty much all the Bill covers. Exam question: how do we finance an unfinanceable nuclear plant when we know we have got to do it because there is no other option? Even if we did decide to repeat the frankly disastrous device of providing a CfD for the plant at Hinkley, which is likely to produce power at twice market cost, it still would not work, because that does not solve the problem of getting investors into the plant for the lengthy period before production starts. There are ways in which nuclear finance can be sorted out.
Jonathan Edwards
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the very considered manner in which he is presenting his case. Is there anything in his mind that would stop the UK Government using this new financing model for other technologies, such as the tidal lagoon in Swansea, or is it blatantly unfair that one technology has a very favourable financing scheme, while another technology that could provide many of the solutions that he seeks is stuck on contracts for difference?
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Member mentions tidal power. Of course, a regulated asset base system can be used for any sort of major infrastructure project—and indeed has been already, as I will come to. I do not see the discussion on that system as being about just nuclear power, but a method of funding a large infrastructure project that has certain requirements that must be met by continuous funding throughout its operation. He is right that infrastructure projects other than nuclear in the energy sector could and should be funded by that system.
The National Audit Office discussed those options when it reviewed the decision making and value for money that the CfD process for Hinkley entailed. The route adopted by the Government, after much internal wrangling and delay, is a regulated asset-based model that is essentially constructed along the lines that it has been used for already in capital projects such as Heathrow terminal 5 and the Thames Tideway project. That is, the whole project is part-funded by the proceeds of a levy on bills. The levy varies in size during different phases of the project and, in the latter phases of production, lowers or even goes negative if the project’s income exceeds the ceiling of allowable costs under RAB.
There are substantial advantages to the RAB model for making the project investable. It provides returns for investors as the project proceeds rather than at the end of it, as does the CfD model, which allows investment to be brought into the frame for the project from sources that might otherwise baulk at the timetable between investment and return. It also reduces the hurdle rate for investment in the project, thereby in theory substantially reducing the overall cost of financing the project and likely resulting in cheaper prices for the energy produced by the plant.
There are also substantial risks with RAB that need to be managed. It places the cost and risk of financing the project on the shoulders of customers, in this instance electricity bill payers, which adds to bill costs through a levy on their bills before anything has materialised. In the event of the plant not being completed, it lumbers them with bill costs without the benefit of the plant for which they have paid producing relatively cheaper electricity.
RAB also adds to the burden of bills unpredictably if the project overruns on cost or time—both of which, as we know, nuclear plant development is rather prone to. The extension of the construction period for a project, when the highest effect is felt on bills, lengthens that higher take period. An increase in cost may also cause revisions to be made to allowable costs ceilings, and hence cause heavier costs on bills.
We are in somewhat uncharted waters with a project such as Sizewell C because of its size, complexity, timescale and investment costs compared with the more modest sums and shorter timescales involved in existing RAB projects. Nuclear power stations elsewhere in the world have been funded along RAB lines, but have simply not been completed, which has left consumers with a huge bill and no benefit.
In short, we need to go into this kind of arrangement with a clear eye about the advantages and risks of a RAB model for nuclear. As far as we can, we should attempt to mitigate the risks and play up the advantages. It is workable, but only if the Government have a serious plan.
The Government have sought to alleviate at least some of the disadvantages by introducing to the Bill a special administrative regime for the project in the event of a failure of the company involved during construction. We will look carefully at those provisions, but they seem to be a useful commitment to ensure the robustness of the overall project, even if its prime developer fails to deliver. We also accept that provisions in the Bill on who may be involved in legacy and decommissioning costs will help to clarify the risks for security trustees and secured creditors.
There is much to agree with in the Bill, given the evident need to secure a mechanism that enables Sizewell C to be developed and come into production at a reasonably early date. There are measures to lower the overall cost of the project so it is investable and less price inefficient than its immediate predecessor, and to ensure that the project stays on track and delivers at the end of it. However, there are still many questions to be answered, particularly on the robustness of the RAB model under circumstances where the inevitable “optimism bias” of project costings—that candid acknowledgement comes from the Bill’s impact assessment—proves to be disadvantageous and costly to consumers who, after all, are supposed to be paying up for a benefit later on. It is important that we look at such matters carefully, with a clear eye on consumer protection, and do not just assume that the mechanism will milk customers for whatever it takes to produce an outcome in the end.
We need much greater clarity about the Government’s intentions on the difficult situation concerning Chinese investment in Sizewell. That may not be central to the Bill and the RAB model, but it is indirectly affected. The project’s overall shape will be affected by whether the Government take over the Chinese share, offer it to other investors or even calculate that RAB is a sufficiently powerful tool to enable investors easily to come in and scoop it up once the Secretary of State’s investment agreement provisions are untangled. We need to know in the Bill’s early stages what the Government will do about that and through what mechanisms.
As the Bill progresses, the Government can expect Labour’s overall support but also a proper, critical eye on aspects of the mechanisms they are adopting and a particular emphasis on protecting the people, who will either stand to benefit from a reliable power station producing needed energy at reasonable cost if it goes right or suffer grievously if it goes wrong. In other words, the customer must be first in our minds in taking such decisions, and we will stand up for them as the Bill progresses.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s action to introduce the regulated asset base funding model for the financing of new nuclear power plants. As a former energy Minister, and indeed a former science Minister twice, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see at first hand the brilliant services that our nuclear energy industry provides, despite the many compounding hardships that it faces.
Nuclear power currently provides just under 20% of the UK’s energy needs, but almost half that capacity will be retired and lost by 2025. For the UK to achieve its net zero obligations and beyond, expanding our nuclear energy fleet will be paramount as it provides emission-free energy without the need for the wind to be blowing or the sun to be shining. The case for nuclear energy as a clean source of power should be evident. It may have done more for decarbonisation and reducing carbon emissions in the past 70 years than any other industrial sector.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The right hon. Member speaks of the baseload and the constant flow of energy from nuclear. Does he support the tidal energy efforts being made in Scotland? Would he support far more investment in that?
Chris Skidmore
I believe that we do not have a choice. We must look at every form of renewable energy, nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen to reach net zero. We cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good. Equally, in looking at how to decarbonise, there are no good and bad actors; the most important thing is outcomes. We have a target set for 2050 but cannot ignore that we wish to reduce our carbon emissions now. I therefore welcome any technology that can achieve that sooner rather than later.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows a lot about these things. What percentage of our energy does he estimate will be produced by nuclear power stations by 2050?
Chris Skidmore
That depends on the potential for innovation for the future. We have an energy crunch coming down the line with perhaps just a single nuclear plant open by 2030 and, at the same time, we will move from existing nuclear fission reactors through to small modular nuclear reactors, advanced modular nuclear reactors and, ultimately, fusion.
As science Minister, I assigned Government investment for the spherical tokamak for energy production units. We need certainty and a clear strategy for where the nuclear pathway is going beyond the existing reactors and to front-load that investment now. I will come to why the RAB model is so important as it allows that front-loading.
As I mentioned, nuclear power has resulted in an annual saving of 22.7 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of taking one in three cars off the road. The Government’s proposal to adopt the regulated asset base funding model for nuclear power is bold and ambitious, but it is also needed. The beauty of the funding model is that it inherently encourages a wider range of private investment in new nuclear projects, reducing the UK’s reliance on overseas funding.
As it stands, developers are forced to provide the finances for construction up front and begin receiving revenue only when the station starts generating electricity. Even in the best of times for energy markets, which we certainly are not in now, that lack of certainty diminishes how investable nuclear power projects are. As we have seen, sadly, with the nuclear projects at Moorside and Wylfa, our current funding model is simply not fit for purpose; 5.8 GW of nuclear energy, just over half our current supply of nuclear power, was lost directly because funding could not be secured. Those locations have both been described as highly desirable sites for new nuclear power plants, but even after the Government offered to take the equity, provide all the debt finance and back a revenue-stabilising mechanism, private investors still had to walk away.
Jonathan Edwards
I do not question the hon. Gentleman’s expertise or knowledge on this issue, but perhaps he can help me out. From the Minister’s letter, and from what the hon. Gentleman himself has said during the debate, we know that 12 of the UK’s 13 current nuclear reactors are scheduled to close by 2030. The main argument for large nuclear is the baseload protection it gives that other technologies cannot provide, but it seems to me that it is highly unlikely, even with this new financing model, that a large new nuclear plant will be built before 2030. The question that arises from that for me—I admit that I am not an expert—is, how will that baseload be covered while we are waiting for the new large nuclear plants to be built?
Chris Skidmore
That is a very important question. It is not just 2030 that I am concerned about, but 2025. Nuclear currently accounts for 18% of electricity generation. The current closure rate of plants means that by 2025, nuclear will go from 18% down to 10%, so we will lose 8% of energy supply in the next three years alone. We will not be able to cover that gap; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are behind the curve here, which is why the Bill is vital. No one should vote against it tonight, because to do so would simply be to kick the can further down the road.
Nuclear also provides a fantastic opportunity to level up. Think of the jobs that it can provide: no one who lives near an area in which there is a nuclear power plant is against nuclear. Hinkley C in Somerset, relatively near my constituency, provides 30,000 jobs, of which 70% are local. It offers enormous potential for creating a sustainable pipeline of skill and talent for the future.
On the RAB funding model, others have asked during the debate, “What about other technologies?” The RAB model has also been established and received strong support from investors in other large infrastructure projects. Indeed, RAB-based funding has provided the funding mechanism for numerous financings of offshore wind transmission cables and infrastructure, as well as Legal & General’s financing for Mutual Energy’s Gas to the West gas network expansion project in Northern Ireland.
Yet the real advantages of this new funding system will come in relation to emerging innovative nuclear energy technologies. As anyone who is interested in reaching net zero will be aware, plans to develop third-generation nuclear reactors are well under way, with British companies such as Rolls-Royce leading the way. Some of those innovations—I have mentioned small modular nuclear reactors—have been designed to be able to be mass-manufactured at one site, powered by an SMR nuclear power plant, and then shipped domestically or internationally, massively reducing the cost. That brilliant technology will have the added benefit, I believe, of helping to power hydrogen electrolysers, which are highly more efficient if they are given a supply of heat. In turn, those will be able to decarbonise sectors that are the most difficult to decarbonise—the hard-to-abate groups that energy cannot touch, which need liquid fuel. The potential for nuclear heat and energy to generate hydrogen I think has the potential, in turn, to generate a clean energy revolution.
Those exciting technologies look to radically shake up the international energy supply system, but it is only through an adequate and appropriate funding model that we can take full advantage of their possibilities. As we have seen with the recent rise in global energy prices, energy security must be at the forefront of all our minds when debating policy. One of the best ways to avoid the situations that the world currently faces is by having a diversified energy supply, nuclear included. Additionally, it is only through the correct development and deployment of innovative technologies that we can both secure our energy supply system and achieve our net zero obligations. Net zero by 2050 is the ultimate mission for our generation and one that we must achieve as quickly, efficiently and effectively as possible. The RAB funding mechanism provides a clear path for nuclear to play its part in that mission.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Not for the first time I think I am going to express a minority view in the Chamber, but I am sure everyone will listen carefully and, once I present my arguments, change their minds and agree with our point of view.
The real debate is whether we need new nuclear or not. I intend to spell out why we do not need new nuclear and, therefore, why we do not need the Bill. Before doing so, I want to highlight the UK Government market failures that have led to the Government scrambling to bring forward the Bill.
We know that Hinkley Point C is currently under construction, but it is under construction as the most expensive power station in the world. There are several reasons for that and how it came about. First, successive Governments seem to have developed a groupthink, following lobbying from the nuclear industry, that somehow nuclear is a prerequisite for our future. Then came the rationale that building a suite of new large-scale nuclear power stations would lead to competition and cheaper costs. However, that philosophy was flawed in that there were not enough competitors to start with and then a piecemeal approach was taken by nominally awarding sites to different preferred bidders. For Hinkley Point C, that meant EDF was the only game in town, so there was no competition when negotiating the contract. EDF had already been beset with problems with its EPR prototypes in Finland and France, so it had to be more cautious in its pricing. It is little wonder then that the UK Government ended up with such a bad deal. They have since tried to tell us that the eye-watering strike rate of £92.20 per megawatt hour for a 35-year contract, while the cost of offshore wind dropped to £40 per megawatt hour for just a 15-year concession, meant that the nuclear deal was a good deal.
In a letter last week, the Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), was effectively saying, “By the way, the Hinkley Point C deal was actually rubbish and poor value for taxpayers, so now we have an alternative funding model and we’re bringing that forward.” Interestingly, it was stated in the letter that the new funding model could potentially save the taxpayer £30 billion to £80 billion. How much money do the Government estimate has been wasted on Hinkley? How many billions of pounds are the Government willing to commit bill payers to if they say they can save up to £80 billion? Logic says that hundreds of billions of pounds would have to be spent to be able to argue that there could be a saving of £80 billion. I will happily give way to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), if he can tell me how much money that £80 billion saving is estimated on? The right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham would not give way, but I am happy to give way if the hon. Gentleman can tell me how much the Government estimate—[Interruption.] I take it that he will not give us a figure. The Minister will not come forward and give a figure. That does not add confidence. The Government are saying the saving could be between £30 billion and £80 billion. That is a huge range and that does not give confidence to the estimating proposals either.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
Just to correct the record, it does not at all mean I am not going to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. It means that I will do it in the usual way, when I wind up at the end of the debate.
Alan Brown
I was so hopeful that I was getting an answer there on the hundreds of billions of pounds that are being committed.
Returning to Hinkley Point C, we hear how advanced the project is and how well it is going, but the reality in terms of cost is that it is £4.5 billion over the initial estimates, which is 25% over budget. On progress, the commissioning date for unit one has now been put back to June 2026, instead of the anticipated 2025, but they also admit there is a programme risk of up to 15 months on top of that. That means that it could be September 2027 before unit 1 of Hinkley is operational and unit 2 will then follow a further year behind. So it is realistic to say that Hinkley Point C will not be fully operational until 2027-28, which is 10 years after we were initially told that Hinkley Point C was required to stop the lights going out. Given that the lights have not gone out, that undermines the original case for Hinkley.
We have to bear in mind that the EPR system has still not been shown to be successful. Flamanville in France is expected to start generating to the grid in 2024, 12 years late. Finland’s project has been delayed yet again, until next year, and it is 13 years late. Both have been crippled with spiralling cost increases.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Further to those costs, we know that the permanent safe disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants has not yet been achieved by any country. A 2018 study from the department of geology at the University of Kansas recently suggested that nuclear waste disposal would be two and a half to four times more expensive than has been estimated. Those costs will be passed on to those who come after us. Is my hon. Friend satisfied that these possibilities have been fully taken into account in the financing model?
Alan Brown
It will be no surprise to hear that I have no confidence that the true costs of nuclear waste disposal are actually included. We hear that this is rolled up in the strike rate for Hinkley, but if something happens and EDF goes out of operation, who will pick up the additional costs? It will clearly be the bill payers or the taxpayer. We hear about the fact that nuclear is supposed to be clean energy, but how can it be classed as clean energy when we are burying radioactive waste and having to store it for up to 1,000 years? That, to me, does not mean clean energy.
Taishan in China was held up as an exemplar EPR project when it was commissioned, but it has been offline since June this year due to safety concerns and rod damage. It is clear that the design and construction of EPR nuclear stations has still not been bottomed out properly. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), said, a reliance on French state-owned EDF and the Chinese state company China General Nuclear kind of undermines the argument about having sovereign energy security. It makes no sense.
Despite the cost and programme issues at Hinkley, we are told that Sizewell C will somehow be different. There will be cost savings from learning on Hinkley. The design will be replicated, saving more money, but the reality is that the site at Sizewell C is bound to have different ground conditions, different environmental considerations and different logistics and site constraints, which affects methods of working, and that means that we cannot build an exact duplicate station the same way.
Even if savings are realised on Sizewell C compared with Hinkley, what does that mean cost-wise? If Sizewell C saves 25% compared with Hinkley, that is still a capital cost outlay of £18 billion. Surely there are better ways to spend £18 billion. We heard from the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) about the number of jobs being created. If I was given £18 billion to £20 billion, I am sure that I could create 30,000 jobs —by the way, that is £730,000-odd a job in capital costs alone. That is not a good return.
On costs, we are told that a new deal signed under the proposed new funding model in the Bill will cost consumers only £1 a month during construction, but if we look at a 10-year construction period for Sizewell C, we see that that means that bill payers in 28 million households will pay £3.4 billion before it is operational. That is a further £3.4 billion in expenditure when that money could be better invested elsewhere.
We still do not know with this Bill what the long-term pay-back options will be. Will there be a further agreement on the strike rate or a minimum floor price on the sale of energy? What length of contract will bill payers be tied into once a RAB model for an agreement is signed off?
What else could we do with that amount of money? We could upgrade all homes to energy performance certificate band C. We could have wave and tidal generation. The UK Government are willing to introduce the Bill and commit hundreds of millions of pounds to nuclear—the Budget has £1.7 billion just for developing nuclear to a negotiation stage—but they will not even ringfence £24 million for wave and tidal in pot 2 of the forthcoming contracts for difference auction. The disparity is clear.
It is time the Government took their blinkers off. It will be a real disgrace if they do not provide a pathway for wave and tidal projects to scale up. Scotland is currently leading the world on the issue; the O2 tidal generator is operational and grid-connected in Orkney. I hope that the Minister will reconsider the request to ringfence a small amount of money in pot 2 of the forthcoming contracts for difference auction.
Mark Jenkinson
I am a huge supporter of tidal energy, but is it not the case that nuclear, given its energy density, is the most environmentally friendly and low-carbon technology that we have, while tidal has the potential to significantly damage marine ecosystems? I am a big supporter of tidal energy, but we have to be really careful about where we deploy such things. We have a ready-built, proven technology here—the most environmentally friendly and low-carbon technology that there is.
Alan Brown
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman about nuclear being clean—oh, wait, apart from the radioactive waste that we still do not know what to do with. We will ignore that point, but he has a valid point about the need for clear environmental considerations with respect to where we site any marine project. That should be part of a robust, up-front planning process, working with the likes of Marine Scotland. There are regulatory bodies that have oversight of these projects, so it is important that they be involved in the planning process. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is still a huge future for wave and tidal.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman highlights the value of marine energy in Scotland and elsewhere; he and I are absolutely on the same page on that. Does he agree that one thing it would be very helpful for the Minister to take away is the need to clarify the precise size of the pot that will be available specifically for marine energy in the next contracts for difference auction round, CFD AR4? There is a danger that unless there is a specific pot, the marine energy providers will be rather crowded out by other forms of renewable energy.
Alan Brown
I completely agree. I was happy to co-sign the cross-party letter from the all-party parliamentary group on marine energy, which I fully support. I hope that the Minister is listening, because this is a matter that we agree on across parties.
Looking at other technologies that we should be spending money on, I compliment the UK Government on seeing the opportunities that floating offshore wind can bring, but let us start deploying it much more quickly and investing more money, because that is where the real future is. Clearly, the further out to sea the turbines are, the greater the reliability of wind and subsequent generation.
There needs to be much greater investment in carbon capture and storage. The Government need to reverse their disgraceful decision not to have a Scottish cluster as part of their track 1 CCS projects. A Scottish cluster would also deliver hydrogen production, which is vital on the pathway to net zero.
We heard earlier, as we always do, the argument that nuclear is required for when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, but as I have tried to point out to the Minister, there is an existing technology that can address that issue: pumped storage hydro, a renewable energy source that utilises surplus grid energy to fill the reservoirs and can then dispatch electricity when required. Pumped storage hydro is the perfect foil for intermittent renewables, rather than big, inflexible nuclear power stations that invariably pump energy to the grid when it is not required. An Imperial College report suggests that there could be system savings of £700 million a year from using pumped storage hydro technology instead of nuclear.
SSE has all the necessary permissions in place, right now, to progress a new pumped storage hydro scheme at Coire Glas in the Highlands. It is progressing the design at its financial risk, and all that it needs is agreement with the Government and a minimum floor price for electricity—not a strike rate and not direct funding, just a minimum guarantee on the sale price of electricity. Then the development can reach the construction stage, and can be commissioned in the same timeframe as Hinkley. I ask the Government to reconsider, and to get round the table with SSE and other developers.
Mark Jenkinson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene again. I am a big supporter of pumped hydro, which is great for storage, but we cannot neglect the fact that we require a surplus of electricity to pump the water in the first place, up to the point of that storage. It is great to be in control of when we release the water and use the energy, but we have to think about how we get it up there in the first place.
Alan Brown
Absolutely. That is my point. This is about utilising spare energy and then filling the reservoirs. That is much more productive than, with nuclear, putting additional electricity into the grid and then making constraint payments to wind farm developers to turn the turbines off. Those turbines could be used to much greater effect for the likes of pumped storage hydro, or generating green hydrogen.
It is clear that there are alternatives to nuclear. The Government have rightly pointed out that the existing nuclear fleet is coming to an end, but they have wrongly concluded that that means we need new nuclear. Dungeness went offline earlier this year, seven years early, because of safety concerns. Hunterston B is about to go offline, and Hinkley Point B will close next summer. Hartlepool and Heysham will follow in 2024. That means that Hinkley Point C will not even replace the lost capacity, and by 2024, 5.3 GW of nuclear capacity will have been lost to the grid.
If the grid can operate successfully without that 5.3 GW of nuclear for three or four years until Hinkley’s 3.3 GW comes on line, that in itself confirms that new nuclear power is not required. In all likelihood, Torness and Heysham 2 will not last until 2030, so all but one of the existing stations will be offline before Hinkley comes online. By not replacing the existing nuclear fleet as it comes to the end of its life, the UK Government are themselves proving that we do not need a nuclear baseload, because the grid can operate without it, unless an energy security crisis arises when all the other stations go offline. The Minister can address that later if he wants.
Although here in the Chamber it is just me saying that we do not need new nuclear, plenty of experts agree. Back in 2015, the then chief executive officer of National Grid, Steve Holliday, said:
“The idea of large power stations for baseload is outdated”.
In the 2019 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, Mycle Schneider, who was the lead author of the report, said that nuclear power
“meets no technical or operational need that low-carbon competitors cannot meet better, cheaper and faster.”
A recent study by Good Energy and the Energy System Catapult demonstrated that carbon emissions from the power sector could be eliminated as early as 2030 without the need to develop new nuclear power. Sarah Darby, associate professor of the energy programme at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, has said:
“Nuclear stations are particularly unsuited to meeting peak demand: they are so expensive to build that it makes no sense to use them only for short periods of time. Even if it were easy to adjust their output flexibly—which it isn’t—there doesn’t appear to be any business case for nuclear, whether large, small, ‘advanced’ or otherwise.”
It is clear that there is not a case for new nuclear—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) pointed out earlier, we have yet to address the nuclear waste issue. It will cost £132 billion to deal with the existing nuclear waste legacy. Why do we want to create another waste legacy for future generations to deal with?
So we do not need nuclear, and we do not need this Bill. Even if we consider what it aims to achieve, the fact remains that there is market failure, given that Hitachi has walked away from Wylfa and Oldbury and Toshiba has walked away from Moorside. So there is no competition to drive down cost, and EDF and China General Nuclear are still the only show in town. As the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) asked, while the RAB model may might bring down costs, what protections are there in the event of project overruns?
Clause 2 puts all the powers of negotiation and contract award into the hands of the Secretary of State, and allows the Secretary of State to determine what is value for money. We all know how good the Government are at direct negotiations, so how can they guarantee value for money in a transparent manner?
As I touched on earlier, we have been told for five years that Hinkley is good value for money, but now the Government have come back to the House to say that actually that is not the case and they have a new plan for how to deliver nuclear. I therefore cannot possibly support this Bill, especially as the electorate of Scotland have consistently voted to elect a Government on a “no new nuclear” manifesto. Why should Scottish bill payers be forced to pay for nuclear energy that they do not want or require? This is another democratic deficit for Scotland, especially when so much of our renewable energy is not being supported at the moment and we are stuck with the highest grid charges in Europe. It really is time that Scotland had control of its own energy decisions, but in the meantime I will be proud and pleased to vote against this Bill.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
It is an honour to be called to speak in the debate and to follow the excellent speech from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). In my constituency we have two nuclear power stations, whose output going into the national grid at any given time makes up about 10% of our national energy. They are the largest employer in my constituency, and I have extended family members who work in the nuclear power industry. In fact, it is hard to find anybody in my constituency who does not. We do not just have nuclear, however; we have other forms of energy from wind all the way down to biomass and also, out to sea, what I believe is the largest offshore wind farm in Europe.
The initiatives that the Government are now bringing forward are long overdue. I remember, back in 2010, when the then Energy Secretary Chris Huhne delivered his first speech to the House under the coalition, in which he said that nuclear power would be funded by private enterprise. Afterwards, I had a chat with him about that and he told me that, in his opinion, nuclear was old technology and an outdated form of energy. Anybody in this House who knows me well, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker, will know my sense of humour. At that point, I said to Chris, “I think the wind has been blowing too hard between your ears, my old son.” He did not find that funny at all. The point I was trying to make to him was that we have an eclectic energy mix in this country of ours, from the great top of Scotland all the way down to the bottom end—and, dare I say it, we also get energy from the continent.
It is about time that we addressed how we are going to fund our future energy needs, especially nuclear. What has not been mentioned so far is that we are trying to get fossil fuels eradicated in one form or another within the next 40 years and that there will be more electric cars on the road. How are we going to power those electric cars? How are we going to meet that demand and keep the economy moving in an electrified form? It can only be done with nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the only form of energy we have that is constant. It is produced 24/7. The Walney wind farm produces a huge amount of energy for this country, but every one of those windmills would have to be producing energy at the same time to match the input into the grid of the two nuclear power stations in my constituency at that moment, whereas those two power stations are pumping energy into the national grid 24/7. It defies belief that we have not invested in nuclear power before now and that we have waited until this point to come up with a funding formula to do so.
Richard Graham
My hon. Friend is making some good points about the incredible efficiency of nuclear power operating 24 hours a day. On the specific point of how to finance new nuclear power, does he agree that, when the financing for Hinkley Point was being developed almost a decade ago, it would have been impossible to do a regulated asset-based proposal because, having not built a new nuclear power station for a generation, the risks to the taxpayer would have been enormous? Now that Hinckley Point is being done, however, we can take that same model on to Sizewell C and then hopefully on to Wylfa and elsewhere, gaining experience, expertise and reductions in cost as we go along. Does he agree that this is therefore the right model at this time?
David Morris
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We can take forward this model of heavy lifters, which is how I refer to the bespoke power stations at Hinkley Point. Rolls-Royce has talked at length about a factory in which it would build modular nuclear power stations akin to the power plants on nuclear submarines, which are built not far from my constituency—we see them across the bay.
There are different models coming forward, and we are looking at and accelerating different types of approval because of the need for the low-carbon efficiency of nuclear power. Hinkley Point is a bespoke model, just like the huge heavy lifters we have at the Heysham 1 and 2 configurations in my constituency.
I agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) that there are lots of jobs in the nuclear power industry. It is not just the people working in the power stations; it is the vast supply chain. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who is my friend outside the Chamber, raised his valid concern about the processing of nuclear waste, but at the old Sellafield site across the bay from my constituency there is a laboratory that converts used plutonium into forms we can use. Americium, for example, is a by-product of decaying plutonium and uranium, and it can be used to power satellites for 100 years—it cannot be used clandestinely. Plutonium is like a wine that gets better with age, and as it decays it produces something that can be used in a different context.
Other industries spin off from nuclear, and the reality is that we have to meet our energy demands. It is brilliant to see the new Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), in his place, and he is an old friend of mine. I am glad the Bill has been introduced, and I believe the whole House will back this initiative because we are a great nation collectively and this is how we will power our future industries, transport and economy.
It is good to see the Bill because nuclear is important to my constituency. We have one of eight footprints in the country on which we can build a nuclear power station, and my whole community welcomes this initiative.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate.
If we did not already know that decarbonising our energy supply is one of the most urgent challenges facing not just this country but the whole world, the ongoing discussions in Glasgow at the COP26 summit have certainly informed us. There is now worldwide consensus on the need to phase out the use of coal and other fossil fuels in energy production, transport, heating and industry, and it is encouraging to hear some of the commitments made by delegates towards that goal. We have quite a good story to tell already on that in this country. In the UK, energy production accounts for approximately 15% of all carbon emissions. One significant challenge we face is how to replace the role of coal and fossil fuels in energy production with carbon-free alternatives, but we have already made great progress in decarbonising our energy supply. Carbon dioxide emissions from power stations were 75% lower in 2020 than in 1990, and this change has come about largely from the introduction of new energy sources, particularly renewables, such as wind and solar. The use of coal in our power supply fell sharply from the mid-2010s onwards, after which the use of renewables expanded rapidly. Wind power is now the cheapest form of electricity generation, and it was Government policy that made the substantial difference to this change, notably the decision of the then Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change to introduce contracts for difference to incentivise private sector investment into the renewables sector. That Secretary of State was my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), whom, I gather, went on to more exalted roles.
The legislation has strong precedents. Unlocking the barriers to private sector investment into carbon-free alternatives in our energy market has catalysed the changes we need to see. We need to go further to make sure that we can completely decarbonise our energy sector, supporting renewables and household and community energy.
Mark Jenkinson
Does the hon. Lady not prefer France’s decarbonised electricity model to Germany’s model of ever-increasing emissions and air pollution because of its decisions to close down nuclear power stations and go back to burning lignite, the dirtiest form of coal there is?
Sarah Olney
My remarks are about the UK power sector, but I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about Germany. Clearly, as I think I have clearly stated, we want to move towards carbon-free alternatives to coal. I also want to make it clear that it is not our position that we should be closing down nuclear power stations; we support the ones that are currently operational and where contracts have been signed to open new ones. As I want to go on to make clear, our position is very much that there should not be new nuclear power stations. We need to go further to make sure that we can completely decarbonise our energy sector. We want to support renewables and household and community energy. It will create jobs. To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) about jobs in the nuclear sector, let me say that the advantage of jobs in the renewables sector and in other alternative energy supplies is that they can be spread over a much larger area of the country. I believe he said that there are probably 18 viable sites for new nuclear power stations, many of which are concentrated in his part of the world. I am interested in job creation right across the country, and renewables offer much better opportunities for us on that.
Of course, we want to cut fossil fuel imports. On that basis, I strongly back the Government in what they are trying to achieve here, but not for nuclear. I wish to reiterate the Liberal Democrat position: there is currently no economic or environmental case for the construction of any further nuclear stations in the UK. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) set out, in his extensive and detailed speech, very much what we believe: there really is not a case for such construction.
A further point I wish to make is that it will take 20 years to build a new nuclear power station, however it is funded. We have very ambitious net zero targets. As the Minister said, we want to be net zero in our power sector by 2030, which is much sooner than in 20 years. We need to move considerably faster than that, and we already have the tools and technology to cut carbon significantly in our power sector in a much shorter period, so we need to accelerate the deployment of renewable power. We need to remove restrictions on solar and wind. We need to build more interconnectors to guarantee the security of supply. If we did that, we could reach at least 80% renewable electricity by 2030, which would be consistent with the Government’s aims to achieve net zero.
Notwithstanding the points made by other Members about the growth in demand for electricity from electric cars, we can do much more to reduce demand for electricity from existing sources.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a strong case against nuclear power. Is she aware that it was her own party leader who signed off the Hinkley Point C deal?
Sarah Olney
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am fully aware of that; I just want to reiterate that Liberal Democrat policy is that we are against any further nuclear power stations. We want to redouble our efforts on renewables, and I think I have probably said that several times now. We believe there is no economic or environmental case for further nuclear power stations.
Richard Graham
The position that I think the hon. Lady is taking is that the Liberal Democrats believe that all our future energy needs can be covered entirely by wind, both onshore and offshore, and possibly a bit of marine energy. What happens when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining? That is precisely when the base contribution of nuclear energy is so vital. By not increasing nuclear capacity, the hon. Lady would not allow us to be able to produce the energy demanded by consumers, who include her constituents as well as those of all Government Members.
Sarah Olney
The current issue with renewables is one of storage, but the technology to address some of the problems is being developed at speed. It is clear that by putting our energies, investment and ingenuity into answering some of the questions in relation to storage in particular, but other things as well, we can achieve net zero much faster through renewables. It would be much more productive to invest in storage solutions than to invest in nuclear power.
Let me return to my point about the need to address electricity demand. Currently, households are a key source of demand, but a lot of that demand comes from inefficient buildings. We need to do much more to insulate the existing housing stock and to ensure that we have much better building standards for new builds. The Government need to do much more on that. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, and we have released a report on the green homes grant, which was a total failure, and the report goes into a fair amount of detail as to why. I urge the Government to redouble their efforts to get Britain’s homes insulated, because it is key that we use that as an opportunity to address the demand for power. We need to look at both sides of the equation.
If we can unlock more private sector investment, we can support investment in innovation and cutting-edge technologies, including tidal and wave power, energy storage, demand response, smart grids and hydrogen. My personal belief is that those things are much better uses of our time, energy, ingenuity and private sector capital than investing in more nuclear power stations.
In her intervention earlier the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), who is no longer in her place, highlighted the grave risks of nuclear power. I urge the Government not to ignore, in their enthusiasm for nuclear, the considerable downsides of nuclear waste. As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I visited Sellafield last year, and I hope that every Government Member who promotes this Bill will also take the opportunity to do so. I found it so eye-opening in respect of the consequences of dealing with nuclear waste and the considerable time, effort and money that is still now being spent to dispose of nuclear waste that was generated in the 1970s, before I was born. It was just extraordinary and really brought home to me the literally toxic legacy that we leave for future generations when we create nuclear waste. I am not confident in some of the proposed solutions to deal with it, which could have grave environmental consequences. We cannot be confident that in 50 years’ time people will take nuclear waste seriously and that the right procedures will be in place.
I urge the Government to take nuclear waste very seriously indeed. We spend billions every year to dispose of it, which is why it is of interest to the Public Accounts Committee. The issue dates back to the fuel crisis in the ’70s, when the Government prioritised keeping the lights on. The costs are an ongoing liability for future generations and divert Government spending from other purposes. We need to be very careful before we propose to increase the existing legacy of toxic waste. I feel very strongly about that and urge the Government fully to consider the downsides.
In summary, we do not need new nuclear power stations. We want more private sector investment in innovative solutions and to spread the jobs bonus throughout the country. We cannot afford the legacy of nuclear waste that the Government propose to leave to future generations. We will vote against Second Reading.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). It was interesting to hear the contrast between the position of the Liberal Democrats a few years ago and their position now, but we have to respect those views, which do change with time.
Part of the context of this debate is the concern over energy security, which is so important. Obviously, there have been spikes in gas demand and gas prices, but we need only look at the situation in Texas and California a little while ago to see how energy supplies can be affected, which is why we in the United Kingdom need to ensure that we have energy security. As with other European countries, we ought not to be as dependent on energy supplies from countries that are not as friendly as they might be to our national interests. We need only look at random events across the globe, such as the one that happened in the Suez canal, to see how supply chains can be so dramatically affected. We therefore need that secure energy supply, and nuclear is a key part of that for the United Kingdom.
We also need firm energy, or that baseload energy. We hear a great deal of discussion about solar panels and wind turbines, whether at sea or on land, but those provide intermittent energy. We cannot rely on that energy, although it does have an important contribution to make; that is why nuclear energy ought to form a key part of our reliable energy production.
There is a great deal of interest in this area in the north-west of England. Many of our skills are centred there, whether it be Sellafield, Warrington or Heysham, and that huge wealth of talent needs to be maintained. We also have the important Springfields site near Preston, which produces our nuclear fuels. We need to ensure that the site is secured. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that, when future contracts are given for nuclear power stations, the future viability of the Springfields site in the short, medium and long term is secured within the context of those contracts. Springfields does a huge amount of good for the local economy. It is also a wonderful source of apprenticeships. These are often very high-skilled and very well-paid jobs that we ought to be promoting and certainly protecting.
Hinkley Point C is at an advanced stage of construction. We need to look at the skills being developed at that site, and ensure that they are retained within the nuclear sector, so we need to be looking at when Sizewell C will be funded and brought online.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
That is exactly the point that Vulcain Engineering in Stroud has been explaining to me. We have a fusion bid in at the moment, which is an amazing opportunity, but the company is very clear that if we do not have another nuclear project in play we will lose so many of those jobs and skills—not only from the south-west, but from the whole UK. They will go abroad and will not come back.
Chris Green
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We need to secure those jobs and we need, as early as possible, to give that reassurance to engineers and others and say to them, “Your future is in the nuclear industry.” In that way, people can be focused on sticking with the industry and looking for that next job. It is about building that fleet of nuclear power stations. Whether it is Sizewell or further power stations down the line—there are already eight sites that have been identified for future nuclear—we need to give workers the reassurance that their skills are needed within the sector.
Richard Graham
My hon. Friend rightly referred to the phrase “a fleet of nuclear power stations”. Of course, in that context, Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C would be the aircraft carriers, as would anything in the future in Wylfa, but there are also opportunities for the smaller frigates. That is where the small modular reactors being proposed by Rolls-Royce could come as an extremely useful addition to those aircraft carriers. Does he agree?
Chris Green
That is such an important point. I agree entirely that we already have the larger-scale nuclear reactors and the established technology. It is so important that we look at SMRs and AMRs, and at the leadership that can be provided in a consortium by Rolls-Royce. If we get in early and develop that technology in the United Kingdom, we can export it around the world and create more wealth in the United Kingdom from this incredibly important source of energy and the power stations.
Bob Stewart
As I listen to discussions on the expansion of nuclear capability in this country, it slightly worries me that we have not talked about the security of those assets. My worry is that they could be interfered with by some foreign power in a cyber-attack. That must be part of all the planning for these places.
Chris Green
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The physical security is one aspect, but the cyber-security, including firewalls and other protections, is immensely important to the sector. This energy provision is a key strategic interest and we cannot allow anything to interfere with it, but I am sure that the Minister and the experts in the sector are well aware of those threats.
Alan Brown
On security, I presume that the hon. Gentleman shares my concerns about China General Nuclear being involved at Hinkley and still being in the mix for Sizewell C.
Chris Green
I am concerned about the strategic national interest, but I think that most people at home would need to have reassurance on this: the security risk of the technical aspects, to which people might be more sensitive, is different from the financial aspects, which is what the Chinese involvement is at the moment. Those are two very different things. However, I do acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.
Mark Jenkinson
On security, the Office for Nuclear Regulation is considered to be one of the best nuclear regulators in the world. I certainly have faith in its being able to do its job, but is not the reason why state-backed companies are involved in nuclear construction that they have the money to put in up front? Is not this legislation exactly what we need to remove the need for them to be involved?
Chris Green
I agree entirely that there are huge challenges for the private sector to come up with the cash for the nuclear sector, because of providing the money up front; it takes such a long time to build a power station before energy or electricity can be produced, and people can get returns for their money. That is why the regulated asset-based model is key. It has been used in other areas successfully, so it is now seen as a reliable way of financing large projects.
Now is the time to make progress in this area. We have the skills base, the national need and the national security questions. All these things come together at the same time to make a compelling argument, so I am pleased that the Government are bringing this legislation forward, whether it is for the larger-scale nuclear reactors or the smaller-scale nuclear reactors. Let me finally say to my hon. Friend the Minister—I know that he has an interest in this—that, in the slightly longer term, if we do develop the fusion reactors, perhaps this funding model could be used there.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green). I speak wearing my hat as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, and I want to touch on some of the environmental issues addressed by some Opposition Members.
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: the names of the world’s nuclear accidents haunt people around the planet to this day. Fears of lethal invisible radiation killing thousands of people and laying waste swathes of the planet—these are very audible concerns. But then there are the facts. No one died from Three Mile Island, and studies afterwards showed that there was no measurable increase in cancer rates. One person died from Fukushima. Again, post-accident studies showed no measurable impact on cancer rates.
Then there is Chernobyl. I have been to Chernobyl—to Chernobyl village itself. I went with the United Nations, which spent a long time studying the medical impact of the world’s worst nuclear accident for 15 years after it happened. There I saw the alarming sight of happy villagers who had refused to leave after the accident and were taking the opportunity to restore the beautiful Chernobyl village church; they took a delight in showing me around it. I met a mother in Chernobyl village who had conceived and given birth to a totally healthy baby. Yes, 41 rescuers died of acute radiation sickness in the immediate aftermath of the accident, and there was a measurable increase in childhood thyroid cancer, which is, luckily, vanishingly rare, but otherwise the UN scientists found no measurable negative medical effects from the nuclear accident itself and concluded they had been vastly exaggerated.
We have now had nuclear power around the world for nigh on 70 years, and it has proven to be just about the safest and greenest form of energy. Safety is measured in the industry in terms of deaths per terawatt-hour of energy production, taking all direct and indirect deaths into account, including through the supply chain. For coal, it is 24.6 deaths per terawatt hour; for oil, 18.4; for biomass, 4.6; and for gas, 2.8. For nuclear, it is 0.07. Yes, that is a bit higher than wind, solar and hydropower, although in roughly the same ballpark, but several orders of magnitude lower than other forms of power, and in terms of CO2 emissions, nuclear produces less than hydropower. It is about the cleanest and safest form of energy in the world, and it is, as we have heard today, massively scalable.
So why have we not embraced it? I will tell you why:
“Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.”
Those are not my words but those of James Lovelock, one of the most eminent environmental scientists, who founded the whole Gaia thesis. As a former environment editor of The Observer and The Times, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the environment, I believe that the environment movement has been one of the most important and positive movements of the last half century. The fact that we are all environmentalists now—including the Queen, I note—proves the positive impact the movement has had. However, the environment movement made a major strategic error by campaigning so hard against nuclear power. Increasingly, many environmentalists agree. Even as Fukushima was still smoking, George Monbiot, the environmental leader, had a damascene conversion and started making the moral case for nuclear power.
If we believe that climate change is the biggest threat to the planet, we have to use every tool in the toolbox to combat it. We have a moral obligation not to campaign against the one technology that can probably help more than almost any other to get to net zero.
Chris Green
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that with nuclear we have existing established technologies that can be used and rolled out, even though the timescale in the Bill is reasonably long, but other technologies that we would desire to come down the line in the future are not established and currently cannot work at the scale we need?
Anthony Browne
I absolutely agree. As I said, we have had nuclear for 70 years and we know that it works. The point I was about to come to, which my hon. Friend touched on earlier, is that the French have 70% of electricity produced by nuclear and they have a very well-established industry. It is not politically controversial at all. They have made it work and made it cost-effective. That is one of the reasons why France has far lower carbon dioxide emissions that we do in the UK. We should change to other technologies. We heard mention of tidal power earlier—yes, absolutely. However, there have been many projects to try to make tidal power work over the past few decades and none of them has yet quite succeeded, although we should still carry on trying.
As I have said many times in this House, the UK has had a really good track record in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, roughly halving them. Our per-capita emissions are now lower than those of many other countries, including green icons such as Denmark and Norway, but France has had lower emissions than us for decades because of nuclear power. I used to live in Belgium and got my electricity bills from France, and they used to have to say where the electricity came from: “nonante-neuf pour cent nucléaire”, which is—in Belgian French, not French French—“99% nuclear power”. That was always a delight for me. Driving around France, nuclear power stations are all over the place. It is not a political issue; people are very comfortable with it.
The environment movement has been very successful in demonising nuclear power beyond any scientific justification. That in part is why UK Governments have been so nervous, and it has meant as a country we have gone from being a world leader in nuclear power and one of the first to introduce it to being a straggler with a semi-clapped-out sector, as we have heard, with all these power plants going out and without much expertise, so that we end up depending on foreign companies and foreign Governments to be able to do anything. We have to build up our capacity again as a country. As we move away from nuclear fuels, we need a strong nuclear sector more than ever.
Alan Brown
The hon. Gentleman is talking about demonising nuclear, but is having a £132 billion waste legacy to clean up demonising nuclear, or pointing out a harsh reality?
Anthony Browne
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point, which I was going to come to. Clearly nuclear has to be cost-effective throughout the whole lifecycle, and there is a burden of responsibility on the Government to ensure that is the case, although I must admit I do not recognise the £132 billion figure.
As we move away from fossil fuels, we need nuclear power more than we did in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s when we were developing it. As we start using electricity to heat our homes and power our cars, we need more production capacity that is resilient and secure. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) made a point about energy efficiency, and I completely and utterly support that, but as we move away from fossil fuels across other areas of the economy and our lives, the demand for electricity will go up rather than down, whatever we do with efficiency. That is inevitable, so we need to ensure we have more production and more secure production.
The recent spike in gas prices has shown our national vulnerability if we do not have resilient energy suppliers, and we must guard against that happening to electricity suppliers. We cannot risk windless days and dark days leading to blackouts in future. Wind, solar and hydrogen power are wonderful. We have done great in rolling them out—wind power produces more energy than any other source and that is great—but they are not the sole solution. We need every tool in the toolbox. We need to ensure that we can provide the stable, resilient base-load that we will increasingly need as we move away from fossil fuels.
In the various debates I have had about nuclear power over the decades, anti-nuclear campaigners normally pipe up at this point with, “Nuclear power is not a good use of taxpayers’ money.” That is when I know they have largely run out of other arguments. Obviously nuclear has to be value-for-money. I am an economic, fiscal Conservative. We want to go for the best value forms of energy, not the expensive ones. It needs to be financially sustainable, and we need to look at the whole lifecycle costs of nuclear power. Clearly the Government have a duty to do that, and that is what the Bill is about. The Government have to ensure we have the right financial framework to ensure that the nuclear industry can survive and thrive and in the most cost-effective way possible. If companies are to invest multiple billions of pounds to build nuclear reactors, they need to do it in the lowest risk way, otherwise the cost of capital becomes prohibitive and the projects are not viable.
I used to work at Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank, and we had a big infrastructure fund investing in projects around the world—not nuclear, I have to say, but many other different sectors. When assessing new infrastructure investment, we have to factor in many of the risks. There is construction risk: can we build the thing? There is technology risk: if it is a new technology, will it work? There is political risk: what if there is a new Government who change their mind and say no? Then there is demand risk or volume risk: will there be enough demand for the product and will it be at the right price to generate the revenues to pay for the cost of capital being put up front to build it?
The trouble with the previous financing regime is that it did not deal with the first risks and expected companies to bear all those risks up front at cost to themselves. That meant that many companies found they had just too much risk to make the projects viable. It is not surprising that some companies ended up pulling out of nuclear power stations they had been planning to build.
The regulated asset base model that the Bill brings about is a far better model for financing the building of nuclear power stations, because it properly shares construction risk, political risk and technology risk between the public sector, consumers and companies. The RAB model is a completely standard model that has been widely used in other areas of infrastructure for decades and is well understood, as various Members have pointed out. The Government and companies have experience of the RAB model. We know it works well and we know how to make it work well in the interests of both parties. I am delighted that we are on the front foot again with nuclear power as a country. As we progress and improve our expertise as a nation, as we have heard we need to do, nuclear power will get more standardised, easier to build and better value for money. The Government must continue to have courage in their convictions with nuclear power. I fully commend the Bill to the House.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for energy security.
The development of new nuclear power stations in the UK is long overdue. Right hon. and hon. Members have made excellent points about the need for energy. The period of outright objection more than 20 years ago, and the stop-start nature of progress in the last decade, have largely stemmed from the funding challenges faced by new nuclear power stations.
The Bill is a major positive and significant step to help to meet our net zero carbon agenda and to secure our energy supply, which has come into clear focus in recent weeks. The challenge of the gas supply and the variability in renewable sources have led to a sharp rise in energy costs, the bankruptcies of many providers and an alarming worry for constituents. Some businesses have even been forced to operate at reduced capacity because of energy supply challenges. Europe as a whole has been exposed as vulnerable to other states’ decisions.
New nuclear diversifies the supply, delivers energy from within the UK, and offers a reliable, stable and clean source of energy that can form a major part of our baseload electricity needs. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) said, diversification is important and nuclear is fundamental to providing the necessary energy security.
The argument in favour of nuclear power has been won among the public for some time, yet until now, we have not been able to develop projects that minimise the financial risk to the public as taxpayers and as consumers. The regulated asset base financing model is therefore a significant positive step that I strongly support, because it has the capacity to reduce the cost of capital to allow projects that would otherwise remain on the drawing board to move forward.
Much of the policy’s success will focus on assessing risk. RAB has been used successfully in other major infrastructure projects around the world, and there is no reason it cannot be used for new nuclear, but its evolution will not be straightforward. The challenge will come in assessing and costing the risks faced by developers. New nuclear is different from some of the more predictable models that RAB has been used for, so we will have to be open and candid about the challenges as we develop the policy.
The biggest challenges of developing new nuclear come in the early construction stages when operation is typically 10 years or more away and when design problems and implementation faults emerge. They often lead to significant cost overruns and the need for changes at a huge cost financially and with long delays. Those uncertainties have hampered the development of new nuclear through more traditional financing models for so long. RAB will help, but the risks and costing the risks will remain.
I was closely involved in Wylfa Newydd, the Horizon proposal by Hitachi on Anglesey, and along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), developed a third-third-third finance plan between the UK taxpayer, Hitachi and the utility companies to bear the risks of the early stages in particular. Despite the Government offering a third of those capital costs, including covering the financing costs in the proposal, the project stalled. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) who is working tirelessly to keep the project alive. I am optimistic about its future. That highlights the challenges, but does not negate the risk or the assessment of the risk. RAB certainly overcomes the challenges of financing costs, which is welcome, but I ask the Minister to recognise that central to the policy’s success is assessing the risk and, therefore, the costing of the risk. Any further detail as the Bill passes through the House and the other place will be helpful in reassuring investors, policy makers and operators in the process.
The RAB policy is an excellent fit for SMRs and AMRs, and will be even more so once the first concept has been proven. The repeat structures of SMRs and AMRs will allow such projects finally to get off the ground significantly. I gently remind the Minister that when the nuclear strategy was launched, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells and I visited Trawsfynydd in north Wales to highlight how it and Wylfa on Anglesey were both perfect sites for small modular reactors. I hope that he will recognise that as policy initiatives develop.
I want to support the Minister and the Bill’s proposals. This is a welcome, major and positive step in satisfying our energy demand, achieving our climate goals and securing our energy needs and supply. Assessment of the risk is central. As I mentioned, despite challenges we sought to overcome with fair and generous offers, challenges will remain, but RAB will play a big part in overcoming them. The detail of how we assess and cost the risk as part of the RAB model will be fundamental to giving confidence to investors and the nuclear industry.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). As the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) pointed out, all the events of COP26 are proceeding in Glasgow as we speak, which reminds us forcibly of the need to reduce still further greenhouse gas emissions from our energy-generating sector. While recent years have seen a notable increase in energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar, it must be recognised—as many hon. Members have—that such forms of generation are intermittent, so other sources must be pursued to produce the reliable, predictable baseload of generation that a modern economy needs.
Hon. Members have pointed out other technologies that can produce reliable baseload generation. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) mentioned pumped storage, and of course the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme in north Wales is an exemplar of such technology. Similarly, there are proposals for a large-scale tidal range lagoon in Colwyn Bay in my constituency, which, with a projected installed capacity of more than 2 GW, would be a major generating station by any standards. However, we must recognise, as my right hon. Friend the Minister did in opening the debate, that the most proven technology is nuclear, and we should certainly pursue that, too.
While I was at the Wales Office, I devoted much of my personal energy to trying to secure the construction of the Wylfa Newydd nuclear station on Anglesey. I echo my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) for all her efforts in trying to revive that project. It was a happy day in November 2012 when Hitachi announced its purchase of the Horizon operating company. There was no doubt about its enthusiasm for the project. I visited the Hitachi construction factory in Hitachi city in Japan and spoke to a senior nuclear engineer. He told me that Wylfa was the very best location he had seen anywhere in the world for a nuclear power station, so it was not anything wrong with the site that saw off Wylfa Newydd; it was the contracts for difference financing model. The strike price that was offered was too low and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan pointed out, even an equity deal between the British Government, the Japanese Government and the operators could not make it work. The Government are therefore entirely right to look for a different funding model.
The regulated asset base model has a good track record of funding major infrastructure projects; it was successfully used to fund both Heathrow terminal 5 and the Thames tideway tunnel. Importantly, as other hon. Members have pointed out, it is a model that can be used to attract private funding, making the need to rely on foreign sources of funding less likely and, it is to be hoped, obviating the need to look to companies directly or indirectly controlled by foreign Governments, some not entirely friendly, to develop our new nuclear fleet.
The Bill will be welcomed in north Wales. I mention north Wales in particular because it has a long history of expertise in the nuclear industry. Not only does the Bill put the potential of developing Wylfa back on the agenda, but it offers hope of providing a funding model for a new fleet of small modular reactors. There has for some time been a call for a pathfinder SMR project at Trawsfynydd, where the old reactor has for many years been in a state of decommissioning. The local authority, and the Welsh Government too, support the development of SMRs at Trawsfynydd. This is the opportunity for Her Majesty’s Government to take the lead in an exciting new project that could establish the United Kingdom as a leader in the technology, as well as provide a new centre of excellence in a location that has established nuclear expertise.
I welcome the Bill, which provides the opportunity for a new funding model and the prospect of a revived nuclear industry in north Wales. However, I wish again to echo the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan. The question of potential cost overruns is a significant issue. It is important that the Government make a very careful assessment of the likely costs. It has been pointed out by commentators that pension funds may be reluctant to invest in such projects unless they can be assured that the costs will be kept under control, so that is key. Otherwise, I fully welcome the Bill and look forward to supporting its Second Reading.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I am pleased to speak in support of this Bill, which facilitates the provision of a secure energy supply, will ultimately keep down consumers’ bills, and is crucial to achieving our net zero obligations. Specifically, along with the announcement in last week’s Budget, the Bill paves the way for the construction of Sizewell C in Suffolk, which can bring enormous benefits to the county, to the Waveney area and to Lowestoft.
We need new nuclear, as it provides energy security. It is the only proven technology that can supply low-carbon baseload at scale. It complements, rather than competes with, the growth of renewables—in particular, in an East Anglian context, offshore wind. It also promotes the development of other clean technologies, such as hydrogen, which is planned at Sizewell, direct air capture and, in due course, small modular reactors.
The funding mechanism presented in the Bill is the regulated asset base model, which, with the right safeguards, has the advantage of driving down the cost of capital for such large infrastructure projects, acts as a catalyst for private sector investment and, according to Government analysis, can lead to savings to consumers of at least £30 billion.
Along with offshore wind, Sizewell C can bring great benefits to the local Suffolk and East Anglian economy. It is estimated that during the 12-year construction period, £2 billion will be put into the Suffolk economy. During that period, there will be three apprenticeship cycles and 1,500 apprenticeships can be created. This is an opportunity to leave an enduring legacy of knowledge, skills and infrastructure which in the long term, once construction has been completed and Sizewell C is operational, can make Lowestoft and Waveney an attractive location in which to set up and grow a business.
There is much work to do, but a good start has been made, with Sizewell C and East Coast College signing a memorandum of understanding to deliver the skills needed for this and other major projects in the area. It includes support for a civil engineering campus at Lound, to the north of Lowestoft; engagement with the Energy Skills Centre in Lowestoft itself; and collaboration on welding and fabrication capacity and capabilities.
The Bill and the hive of activity over the past 10 days are extremely welcome, although some might say 20 years too late. Subject to the development consent order being approved, let us get on with it and, in doing so, enhance our energy security, help to propel us along the road to net zero, and bring enduring jobs and prosperity to local people in Suffolk and in my constituency.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who is so erudite and passionate, and to speak on Second Reading.
My constituency of Ynys Môn is known as “energy island”: we have wind, wave, solar and tidal. We are soon to have hydrogen, and we have a long history in nuclear. Back in 1963, construction began on an £80 million nuclear power station at Wylfa head, near Cemaes on Anglesey. It was chosen for its strong rock foundation and its access to sea water. Its two nuclear reactors went live in 1971. At the time, Anglesey was considered to have
“leapt dramatically forward into the space age”.
The station was described as
“the nation’s biggest and most powerful…yet interfering as little as possible with the beauty of the Anglesey scenery”.
Some 3,000 people were involved in its construction and in 1964, 20 local 16-year-olds became the first apprentice intake. They trained to become
“the youngest engineers to take charge of an atomic power station in the world”.
At its height, Wylfa employed around 500 people. Just along the coast, an aluminium smelting works, employing a similar number of people, was built in Holyhead to be able to access cheap electricity direct from Wylfa.
In 2006, however, as the lifespan of Wylfa power station was drawing to an end, the Isle of Anglesey County Council voted to support the construction of a second plant. Wylfa B, now known as Wylfa Newydd, was intended to take over from Wylfa as it came to the end of its working life. Employment was a key factor. Losing so many jobs would be tough on any part of the UK, but on Anglesey there simply was not any comparable industry on the island for people to move to. It is estimated that at the height of construction, Wylfa Newydd, or new Wylfa, would employ around 9,000 and in steady state production would have a workforce of around 900.
The old Wylfa ceased generation in 2015. The aluminium works closed shortly afterwards and just under 1,000 jobs disappeared almost overnight, yet Wylfa Newydd is still on the cards. The people of Anglesey have been on a 16-year rollercoaster journey, with the prospect of quality new careers constantly just over the horizon. The majority of Anglesey residents actively support Wylfa Newydd, but they feel forgotten. They have had enough of being offered carrots only to receive disappointment. That is why the Bill is so important to my constituency of Ynys Môn.
When Hitachi withdrew the development consent order for Wylfa Newydd at the start of this year, it cited programme financing as the main factor. I am co-founder and chair of the nuclear delivery group, which I set up with my fellow atomic kitten, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who is a passionate advocate for nuclear. Over the past 18 months, we have regularly raised new-build financing as a significant concern. I am delighted to see BEIS respond to this issue and bring this Bill to the table. Companies such as Bechtel and Rolls-Royce are already keen to establish new nuclear at Wylfa Newydd, so this proposed regulated asset base model offers significant hope to Anglesey.
The Bill could be the starting point for regenerating an area that desperately needs levelling up. It could finally lead the people of Anglesey over the horizon into a whole field of carrots. With that in mind, I appeal to my constituents and the people of north Wales, who would also benefit: now is the time for us to come together as a community and embrace the opportunity that the Bill offers us. We cannot afford to stay in our partisan corners, we cannot afford to stay silent, and we cannot afford to let this opportunity slip through our fingers.
In 2015, the Welsh Government described Wylfa Newydd as a “once in a generation opportunity” and estimated that it could be worth £5.7 billion to the Welsh economy. Ten years on, this project will be a game changer locally, regionally and nationally. Nearly two decades of waiting for Wylfa Newydd may finally be coming to an end. Wylfa Newydd is rightly described as the best nuclear site in the UK. The Prime Minister has said that he is a “fervent supporter”.
I welcome the Bill and, for the sake of our young people and future generations, we must put aside our political differences and work together. Diolch yn fawr, Mr Deputy Speaker.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow such a powerful, articulate, passionate speech, as I think everybody would agree, and I want to develop some of the points that were made by my hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) and for Waveney (Peter Aldous).
I wanted to take part in this debate not because of any great knowledge of the nuclear industry, but because of the impact that it has on my region and the people in it. I am the chair of the all-party group on youth employment. We constantly strive to find new industries—new technologies—or developing existing industries to provide the high-skilled, high-paid jobs that people want in my constituency, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) and in the whole of the north of England. The north of England has a great legacy in nuclear. It was the home of the first nuclear power station 65 years ago and now houses close to half the country’s 60,000 employees in the civil nuclear workforce. They are all based in our region.
Therefore, what opportunities are we talking about? What opportunities does new nuclear present to the north of England? There is support for investment in businesses in the north in line with the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Jobs and skills were mentioned in various speeches by my hon. Friends. There is the preservation and growth of an expert, 60,000-strong supply chain, which includes Sillavan metals in my constituency, a company that is expanding, developing technology and giving young people opportunities through apprenticeships. All these industries are related to this Bill.
It is also fair to say that many jobs in the north of England have been revitalised by Hinkley Point C. Those jobs, skills and investment across the supply chain in the north of England come from investment in nuclear, but we also have clean growth, with low-carbon, always-on power to support renewables and facilitate the development of other clean tech such as hydrogen, direct air capture and small modular reactors to accelerate clean growth and new industries across the region, including decarbonisation clusters in Teesside and in Yorkshire and the Humber. There is energy security, with firm, clean base-load power to the grid that will support renewables and give us greater control in our transition to net zero while helping to wean Britain off its reliance on energy imports.
This truly is a Bill that is at the heart of the north of England and can have an impact on many, many lives. The regulated asset base that the Bill introduces has been articulately covered by other hon. Members, so I will speak about Sizewell C, about which I agree with every point that my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney made. I also agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead): essentially, I interpret the Bill as finding a way to finance Sizewell C and its positive impact.
Hearing of the developments happening in Waveney bring joy to my heart as chair of the APPG on youth employment, but there is no reason why those opportunities cannot be spread more widely, including in the north of England. Sizewell C is the only nuclear project that is ready to start construction and realise the benefits of new nuclear for the north of England, hopefully within this Parliament.
More than 90% of the UK’s civil nuclear workforce is based outside London and the south-east, with nearly half in the north of England. More than 500 businesses based in the north of England are currently involved in the construction of Hinkley Point, so Sizewell C presents a huge long-term opportunity for the north of England.
I am sure that many MPs have been contacted by the consortium that is involved and wish to take the project forward. We cannot ignore the fact that the consortium has pledged £2.5 billion of private sector investment and 13,000 jobs just in the north if Sizewell C goes ahead. There is a downside if it does not go ahead: there could be up to 10,000 losses due to the failure to properly transition workers from the Hinkley Point project.
Sizewell C is a legacy project that will generate 3.2 GW of clean, low-carbon electricity—enough to power 6 million homes, including across the north. What is there not to like about the Bill? As ever, the Government are levelling up, creating opportunities and ensuring that we have a clean, reliable, resilient source of the power that our country needs.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We now come to the wind-ups, but the shadow Minister is slightly detained.
Mr Deputy Speaker
What do you want to say, Mr Goodwill? You have only just come in.
Mr Goodwill
Well, I could say a few words if we have time. [Interruption.] Oh, he’s here now.
Mr Deputy Speaker
None the less, thank you for your consideration. Seamlessly, we now move on to the wind-ups. I call Matthew Pennycook.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker; I thought that another contributor was waiting to speak before me.
It is a pleasure to wind up the Second Reading debate for the Opposition. Notwithstanding the somewhat overly partisan opening from the Minister of State, who came along, as he often does, with a set of pre-scripted remarks that were in danger of being as old as some of the nuclear plants that are presently being decommissioned, it has been a considered and well-informed debate in the main. I thank each right hon. or hon. Member who has taken part.
I will pick up on three points that have featured prominently. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) argued convincingly, although the Bill has the appearance of a general piece of enabling legislation, it is in practice concerned solely with the future of Sizewell C; I believe that the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) has just conceded that. Sizewell C is a project that EDF has no intention of financing from its own balance sheet and that we know has failed to entice the necessary private investors, as the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) mentioned in relation to Moorside and the fact that the current funding model is not fit for purpose.
It is vital that we bear that point in mind as the Bill progresses, because unfortunately for some, and much as the spin might suggest otherwise, it does not herald the dawn of a new nuclear fleet. It is simply a necessary means of resolving the issue of whether Sizewell, the last potential nuclear project that could conceivably begin to generate by the end of this decade, is constructed or not, and—this was referred to by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) and, in an intervention, by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham)—the issue of whether the cost reductions that will flow from the plant being a clone of Hinkley Point C, and its ability to draw on the skills and workforce associated with that site, are secured.
Several Members, including the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), argued that nuclear should not form any part of the UK’s future low-carbon energy mix. We on this side of the House respect their strongly held views on the subject, but we take the view, as does the Committee on Climate Change, that a limited amount of new nuclear is required to achieve the decarbonisation of the UK’s electricity system within the next 14 years, and to meet our longer-term net zero target. Since Sizewell C is the only power station that can now feasibly come online within that timeframe, we want to ensure that it does, in order to provide the necessary amount of firm power to support a predominantly renewable energy mix.
Alan Brown
As I pointed out earlier—and the hon. Gentleman is well aware of this—much of the existing nuclear fleet is going offline before Hinkley even comes online. Does that not indicate that the grid could operate safely and we could have energy security without relying on a new nuclear station?
Matthew Pennycook
I listened carefully, as I always do, to what the hon. Gentleman said in his speech. I think what he misses is the fact that the demand for electricity will double, so I do not think that his argument about the amount of baseload or firm power that is required necessarily follows.
Matthew Pennycook
I will, but then I must make some progress.
Mr Goodwill
Does the hon. Gentleman also appreciate that we may need to generate large amounts of hydrogen, or indeed use nuclear energy for direct carbon capture, and perhaps synthesise jet fuel in that way?
Matthew Pennycook
I think we will need a range of technologies. Let me return to a point that has been made by several Members. I think we must take a lead from the Committee on Climate Change, which made its view very clear in its balanced pathway scenario for the sixth carbon budget. It estimates that we will need 10 GW of nuclear power by 2035. We will have a predominantly renewable energy system, but we do need the firm power that comes from a limited degree of nuclear to support that.
My second point relates to what has been the elephant in the room today, namely China’s involvement in UK nuclear power. As we debate the principle of the Bill today and scrutinise its provisions in the weeks to come, that issue cannot be set aside. Members in all parts of the House want to understand more fully precisely where the Government now stand on the deeply flawed deal that they struck with China General Nuclear in relation to Sizewell, which has been mentioned several times in the debate.
The CGN stake in Sizewell was without doubt a sweetener for the far larger prize of unfettered Chinese ownership and operation of a nuclear plant at Bradwell, but while it seems certain that the very notion of a Chinese-run UK nuclear plant is now dead, we have yet to hear Ministers say so explicitly, or tell the House how the Government intend to disentangle themselves from the 2016 investment agreement signed by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). We deserve to be told, and I hope that the Minister will at least make some reference to that issue in his closing remarks. We also need to know how the Government plan to divest CGN of its minority stake in Sizewell C, and what the estimated impact of that divestment will be on the overall financing of the project, because that issue has very real implications for the mechanism that the Government have chosen to enable Sizewell to progress, namely the RAB model.
That brings me to my third and final point. A number of Members, including the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) and the right hon. Member for Kingswood spoke clearly and forcefully about the advantages of the RAB model. It is not in dispute that the proposed model will lower the cost of capital on nuclear projects—I fully accept that—and it is also not in dispute that it would lower overall costs, although Labour Members take issue with the frankly heroic assumptions that underpin the claimed £30 billion to £80 billion in long-term savings vis-à-vis coal-fired financed projects. However, it is also undeniably the case that these advantages would be secured as a result of shifting a proportion of risk on to consumers.
It is worth emphasising not only that the RAB for which the Bill would provide, and the risk therefore entailed in it, are of a different order of magnitude from RAB arrangements utilised on other infrastructure projects, but also that when it comes to the yearly surcharges levied on customers on those projects financed via RAB arrangements—for example, the Thames tideway tunnel, which has been mentioned
several times today—there is an inherent degree of uncertainty about the level at which those charges might peak. That is why it is important that the right hon. Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) and for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) and the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) rightly emphasised the need to scrutinise the precise arrangements that will be brought forward and the need for safeguards when doing so.
While we on this side of the House acknowledge the advantages of the RAB model for new nuclear compared with contracts for difference financing, we have concerns about the potential exposure of customers if costs rise significantly or if serious overruns take place. We do not oppose the principle of the Bill, and we have no intention of voting against it this evening, but we intend to look very carefully in Committee at precisely how the Government intend to implement the RAB model in question, at whether its benefits are as significant as has been claimed, and at how many investors the Government expect to return to the UK market if this legislation passes. Most importantly, we want to work with the Government to explore ways in which consumers might be better protected from escalating costs in the event that things go wrong. New nuclear must provide secure and affordable low-carbon energy, but it is still by no means clear that the Bill stands to deliver in both those respects. It is imperative that it should do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), and I want to thank him and all hon. Members who have spoken in this important debate. We have had more than 15 speeches and a number of important interventions. I also want to thank the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) for his constructive approach to this important piece of legislation.
In the seven minutes available to me to wrap up the debate, I want to try to deal with as many of the points that have been made as possible. First, I would like to remind the House of what the Bill really signifies and what it does. The net zero strategy, published earlier this month, sets out our vision for a decarbonised economy by 2050. This will see the power sector fully decarbonised by 2035, with nuclear power playing a key role alongside renewables. As the Prime Minister set out from the Dispatch Box earlier today, he and the Cabinet are putting every effort at COP into delivering that international leadership to that end.
This Bill creates a new funding model for future nuclear projects that will support our transition to a secure, resilient and affordable low-carbon electricity system. The measures in the Bill are critical to ensuring that we have the option to bring forward further nuclear capacity, delivering a system that is lower in cost for consumers than if we relied on intermittent power sources alone. While consumers will contribute to the cost of new nuclear projects during their construction, analysis shows that lowering the cost of financing new nuclear will save roughly £30 billion over the life of this refinancing, compared with relying on existing mechanisms.
It is good to hear that the Opposition will, sensibly, not vote against the Bill tonight. I would be surprised if any Member decided to vote against it—
George Freeman
No, I will not give way. I am under time pressure and I need to deal with all the points that have been raised—[Interruption.] I have at least half an hour of questions to answer, not least from the hon. Member himself.
The Bill will make it easier to attract, and reduce the cost of, capital. However, a number of points have been raised by hon. Members. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who raised the urgency of tackling the downscaling and ending of the existing nuclear fleet, the urgency of getting this new financing in place and the role of nuclear in levelling up in Somerset and elsewhere in the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) powerfully set out the importance of tidal. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) set out the importance of the nuclear cluster in his constituency and the importance of the 24/7 supply of nuclear for reliability, resilience and baseload.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) highlighted the role of nuclear in developing apprenticeships and skills, and the role of this model in funding fusion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) raised the question of security. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) made a very powerful speech on the failures of the environmental movement, which has put such irrational fear in the way of the nuclear industry, setting us back two decades.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), the former Secretary of State for Wales, powerfully made the case that Wales stands to benefit substantially but we need to get the cost and the risk assessment right. He also highlighted the role of small modular reactors. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) highlighted the role of the Welsh cluster, and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) highlighted the role of Lowestoft in this industry in tackling coastal regeneration. I should also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), who has been a formidable campaigner for energy in her constituency and the whole of north Wales, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly).
Given the extraordinary benefits of this extraordinary sector—60,000 people employed in the UK, with 90% of those jobs not in London and the south-east but across the country; each worker in the nuclear sector contributing an average of £96,000 gross value added to the economy, 73% higher than the rest; and a median salary of approximately £45,000—it is extraordinary why anyone would oppose it, particularly hon. Members from Scotland, which has huge potential. The local economic impacts are huge: look at Hinkley Point and its well over 10,000 job opportunities and more than 3,600 British companies in its supply chain. Overall, the project is on course to create 25,000 jobs.
It is even more extraordinary to hear Scottish nationalist party Members when it is not just Conservatives, not just the nuclear industry and not just Her Majesty’s Opposition who favour it. Sir David Attenborough himself said:
“I do not question the use of nuclear energy as a way of solving our energy problems in the short term”
until we can solve
“the problems of storage and transmission of power.”
The UN Economic Commission for Europe said:
“International climate objectives will not be met if nuclear power is excluded.”
If that is not good enough for SNP and Liberal Democrat Members, Zion Lights, former Extinction Rebellion activist and founder of Nuclear for Net Zero, said:
“renewables alone would require unfeasibly massive amounts of storage”—
which we do not have—
“to keep the lights on… we are in a climate emergency and need all the clean energy we can build right now”.
That includes nuclear.
The GMB, Unite and Prospect trade unions are all strongly in favour. I could not put it better than Charlotte Childs, the GMB national officer:
“Our environment, our economy and our communities need Ministers and MPs to back new nuclear.”
I hope all will tonight. Even a member of the Green party, Josh Stringfellow of the Kingston Green party, said:
“As Greens we trust the science on climate change. As Greens we should also trust the science on nuclear”.
Across the board, there is recognition that we will not hit net zero unless we accelerate our investment in new nuclear. This Bill provides the framework for reducing the cost of capital and increasing our options for private investment, which makes it all the more extraordinary that we have had the opposition we have. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), in a thoughtful speech, mentioned a decade of dither and delay. I assume he means from 1997 to 2007, when the then Labour Government completely turned their back on the nuclear industry.
Interestingly, the Scottish nationalists like to have their cake and eat it. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) is opposed to nuclear power but, of course, Scottish consumers will benefit from being on the grid. They will benefit from the baseload, resilience and security it gives us. I hear loud and clear his call, and the call of others including my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, for more investment in tidal. I reassure the House that we are looking at making sure contracts for difference provide strong support for that sector.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), in a thoughtful speech, set out the importance of supporting net zero, which makes it all the more strange that the Liberal Democrats seemingly have an almost religious objection to nuclear energy. I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department of Energy and Climate Change when both the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and Chris Huhne were Secretary of State, and it was they who put in place the contracts for difference funding mechanism for nuclear, which did not work and which we are now having to sort out. It is easy to oppose with the benefit of hindsight, but the truth is that this is urgent and the Bill provides the basis for it.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park is right that household insulation is important, which is why we provided an additional £1.75 billion in the Budget to upgrade the homes of those on low incomes through the social housing decarbonisation fund and the home upgrade grant. The Government are consulting right now on raising the standards for home insulation in new houses that are built.
A number of Members mentioned wave and tidal, and I am delighted to confirm that not only is this Department funding great science and research in tidal, wave and other renewables but that at the global investment summit last week I visited wind and tidal technologies and we secured nearly £9 billion of private investment in the international renewables sector. We are actively considering whether we should ringfence tidal technologies in the next round of CfD, and it will be eligible under pot 2.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun challenged the £30 billion cost saving. The full analysis and methodology is set out in the impact assessment accompanying this Bill, and I confirm the current contract ensures that consumers will not pay for any overruns at Hinkley Point C.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) mentioned radioactive waste, and the truth is that we have been producing and managing radioactive waste perfectly successfully, without accident or danger to health and safety, for decades. Some 94% of the waste is very low level, and the Government, like previous Governments, have a strong plan for a geological disposal facility.
A number of colleagues raised the issue of national security. I want to make it clear that the Bill is not concerned with making it difficult for any particular country or company to apply. The quality of the bids will be considered in due course by the Secretary of State, with full accountability to Parliament. The Bill does not determine any future nuclear project’s ownership structure; it simply creates a new financing model that broadens our options for new nuclear.
As a package, the legislation before Members will help to end our reliance on overseas developers for finance, which has led to the cancellation of nuclear projects in the UK. Instead, the Bill ensures that our new nuclear power plants can be financed by British pension funds and institutional investors. However, this is not about shutting out individual companies or countries, and the Government have already taken significant powers through the National Security and Investment Act 2021.
A number of colleagues have raised the issue of the scrutiny of risk assessment, and I want to reassure Members that the Secretary of State will be required to act transparently and with full disclosure to the House. I close by thanking Members from across the House for their contributions, highlighting that I hope very much that the Scottish nationalists will not divide the House tonight on something that Scottish voters will benefit from. I strongly believe that this new funding model acts in the interests of the whole of this country, and I commend this Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Business without Debate
Delegated Legislation
business of the house (4 November)
business of the house (8 November)
Kennels and Catteries: Economic and Social Contribution
(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
The covid-19 pandemic has been unlike anything that we have experienced since the second world war. The mandatory closure of businesses and the restrictions on where we could go and who we could meet were unprecedented in our recent history, as were the restrictions on travelling abroad for holidays or business. Most of us are used to simply booking a flight, arranging for our pets to be looked after and heading off to the sun. I will talk about those restrictions and their specific impact on catteries and kennels.
The Government’s response to the pandemic made available unprecedented levels of support to businesses and to the economy as a whole. Without that urgent action, many businesses would have failed and our economy would have suffered untold damage. History will judge our actions and the support that we provided as necessary, proportionate and crucial; Ministers should be commended for putting it together so quickly.
As with any system, however, issues on the periphery inevitably meant that a limited number of specific cases fell through the cracks. After all, not everything fits neatly into a defined box or is easily categorised. I will highlight the example of kennels and catteries, which offer accommodation to pets 365 days a year and provide a vital service to travellers and businesspeople who need to go abroad.
Like other industries, kennels and catteries were affected by the lockdowns and their trade was restricted. Unlike a shop or restaurant, however, they did not simply spring back into shape after the lockdowns ended. International travel was still hugely restricted and the demand for travel was hit by a lack of confidence even when people could travel abroad. Indeed, much of the demand did not come back even after the rules surrounding opening businesses had lifted.
The difficulty is that restrictions remained in the tourism supply chain—industries directly affected by tourism—but, unlike other industries, kennels and catteries are not considered part of the tourism sector. This is where my constituents Claire and Craig Dodding, who run a cattery in my constituency, come in. In response to those difficulties, they set up the UK Alliance of Catteries and Kennels, which advocates on behalf of the industry and supports catteries and kennels across the country. They set out the problem in a recent email to me, which, if the House will bear with me, I will read in full:
“Our industry is regulated by DEFRA yet is not part of DEFRA. It is licensed by councils yet has no awarding body. Our industry is business rated yet has no guidelines regarding premises. Our industry is not recognised under any main SIC yet has Government-regulated bodies making decisions that impact it with no means of challenge. The industry falls into sub-representation with charities yet is a business, not a charity.”
In short, the industry is not easily categorised and so falls through the cracks.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making some interesting and important points. Businesses that have benefited from her constituents’ advocacy include Clearview Cattery in Burnley, which is run by Ryan, and the Pet Hotel. I thank her constituents for everything they do to advocate not just for themselves but for the whole sector.
Sara Britcliffe
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Craig and Claire have done astounding work with councils across the country, lobbying on behalf of all their members.
We see a discrepancy in how councils have awarded discretionary funding. Grants in Hyndburn, for example, have been different from others across the country, which can range from thousands of pounds to hundreds of pounds.
The industry has a huge number of regulations on everything from licensing and welfare to safety and staffing, yet there is no accurate number of businesses in the industry as they pay their licensing fees to local councils, and the bulk of councils do not collate that information correctly or at all. All councils are meant to have an accurate, up-to-date list of licensed animal boarding establishments available to the general public. However, the UK Alliance’s research suggests that 75% of councils either do not have that or they have information that is incorrect or out of date. I spoke to constituents today who explained that, when they were given a grant by a local council, it called a cattery in someone else’s patch and a lady who had not had her cattery for 49 years was still on the council’s list. That goes to show the issue that we have.
We need to focus on the industry’s place within the wider economy—it clearly needs to be part of travel and tourism. It is also important to consider how it is regulated and where it sits in relation to oversight and regulation. We must ensure that councils are giving it the support that it needs and that support is consistent across councils.
My constituents have specific issues and asks of the Government that they have asked me to set out. First, there is no standard industrial classification code for animal boarding establishments. I am told that, at present, the nearest code is 01.62/1, which is farm animal boarding and care—except pets. The UK Alliance proposes that we follow the USA’s SIC and create a new subcategory under section A called “animal services, except veterinary” and include the following: animal shelters; boarding horses; boarding catteries; boarding kennels; boarding of other animals; home boarding dogs; home boarding cats; home boarding of other animals; breeding of animals—
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend is clearly setting out the complexities of the industry—I will refer to it as an industry. Does she agree that businesses such as the Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel in my constituency want certainty and that, whether they are dealing with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the local council or their tax affairs, everything should be codified in one place so that they can understand what they are entitled to and what is available to them?
Sara Britcliffe
I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. She is correct. I have been getting that message loud and clear from the UK Alliance. Many Members of Parliament have been lobbied to put that message to the Government by their local kennels and catteries, who have really struggled throughout the pandemic. We must consider that going forward.
I will carry on with the list; there are only a few left. The new sub-category should also include dog grooming, pedigree record services for pets and other animal specialties, and the showing of pets and other animal specialties. That would bring all other animal services under one sub-category of section A. It would also bring all businesses that follow DEFRA’s 2018 boarding of cats and dogs regulations under the same sub-category.
The UK Alliance has also suggested that the Government should establish a centralised professional body, which would be responsible for issuing licences to these businesses. The system is currently fragmented and operated by individual local authorities. That professional body would ensure that a current list of inspected and regulated businesses was available to the general public, deal with requests from business owners and the general public, and maintain a database of inspected businesses to be available at all times.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case on behalf of the kennels and catteries industry. May I cheekily take the opportunity to raise the case of Eardley Hall kennels in my constituency of Newcastle-under-Lyme? It suffered not only from the impact of covid, which she has already spoken about, but from flooding caused by a broken culvert on an illegal waste dump. I am trying to adjudicate between the Environment Agency and Staffordshire County Council as to why that has happened. The Minister is in her place; perhaps she will hear what I am saying too. Eardley Hall kennels, and all the other kennels and catteries in Newcastle-under-Lyme, contribute a huge amount to our local economy and I am very glad that my hon. Friend has secured this Adjournment debate.
Sara Britcliffe
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that case and I completely agree with him. I can imagine that Claire and Craig will have been lobbying on behalf of his constituents too, because they have done a fantastic job of that.
Finally, the industry suggests that catteries and kennels should have specific guidelines for business rating purposes. At present, there is no agreed standard, and all areas of cattery and kennel businesses, including communal corridors and fire escapes, are included in calculations. Other commercial properties are exempt from paying rates on those areas.
Obviously, a lot of this is very technical and would require changes at least to regulations and possibly to legislation. It seems to me that a sensible first step would be for representatives of the sector to meet DEFRA and discuss these issues. I therefore ask the Minister whether it would be possible to broker an initial meeting between her and her officials, the UK Alliance and me. That would go a long way to opening lines of communication and starting the discussion about how we can better ensure that the needs of this sector are met and that catteries and kennels across the country are treated fairly and consistently.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) for securing this debate. I could not agree with her more that kennels and catteries contribute an awful lot to our economy and society, but also to our lives. We were in this place only last Friday discussing some of the benefits. I apologise, because she spoke in that debate and I think she has rescue cats herself—does she not?
Jo Churchill
Yes. Some incredible names were mentioned that day, and I cannot bring to mind whether she had a Noodle, a Doodle, a Frazzle or whoever. The one that sticks in my mind is Andrew the pig—but I digress.
As I say, kennels and catteries contribute in many ways, on both national and local scale. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) mentioned the importance of looking to treat them as a group. Some 26% of UK adults own a dog and some 24% a cat. Their companion dogs or cats will be among the 9.6 million dogs and 10.7 million cats that reside in this country and, hopefully, are lavished with an enormous amount of love. Indeed, I will declare that I am a dog owner, and I probably over-indulge him.
Kennels and catteries provide important services to our cat and dog populations and their owners, and I know that my hon. Friend’s constituency is the base for several such establishments. That situation is replicated in just about every constituency across the House.
I turn to the benefits of kennels and catteries. Locally, kennels and catteries have a positive economic benefit, stimulating the local economy through the purchase of pet food and equipment and the employing of local vets for the health of their residents, as well as tradesmen to maintain their establishments. The ripples of that economic benefit will be felt discretely regionally and nationally through medium and large-scale suppliers and manufacturers. In that way, kennels and catteries contribute to continued economic success and increasing consumer spending across the sector.
There is, of course, a further significant economic benefit to kennels and catteries, one which my right hon. Friend has taken great care to raise with us this evening: the indirect economic benefit felt by others, such as the travel and tourism sector. In this case, the services provided by kennels and catteries allow us to travel or visit locations which would not otherwise be possible. I heard her comments about re-categorisation and so on. The challenge is that several Departments are involved in what she is asking me to consider.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The security of pets is a major concern these days. I strongly compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) for raising the issue. It is an issue that worries people and I have had meetings on it in my constituency. A strong and vibrant cattery and kennel sector is a very important part of keeping our pets secure.
Jo Churchill
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Indeed, the Department is looking to do something about pet theft in future legislation.
The Government are aware of the sector’s concerns relating to the covid-19 restrictions that were in place and understand the considerable difficulties faced not only by kennels and catteries, but by many businesses adversely affected by the fall in travel and tourism due to the pandemic. I place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn for her acknowledgement that the Government acted swiftly and put a great deal of effort into ensuring that businesses were supported.
The Government’s swift action to provide a range of covid-19 support measures to both businesses and charities was done at pace. We published information on how to access that support and worked with sector bodies at the time—that is the important thing I would like to stress—such as the Canine and Feline Sector Group. We worked with the group to enable grooming to start up. In the difficult days of the pandemic, it worked on regulations around safety handovers and so on, so that the industry could get up and running. That work led to the publication of advice to owners and pet businesses throughout the period that restrictions were in place.
We continue to engage with the sector to try to understand and address any residual issues. Government support included, but was not limited to, loans, small business grants available through local authorities, mortgage holidays and VAT deferral. Those, and other provisions, were maintained and extended as the situation developed. The Government also acted to protect the income of the self-employed through the self-employed income support scheme grant, and supported employees through the furlough scheme. Businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency, including catteries, will have felt the benefit of that support.
I understand that the owner of Rhoden Manor has gone on to establish the UK Alliance of Catteries and Kennels with the aim of strengthening their collective voice. I recognise that there has been a great deal of concern in the sector and we take that very seriously. We will keep a close watch on intake levels and trends. DEFRA remains committed to continued engagement with the sector and to understanding the long-term impacts of the pandemic, monitoring the animal welfare implications and offering subsequent and appropriate advice.
Local authorities were allocated £500 million in discretionary funding through the additional restrictions grant to support businesses that were significantly impacted, even though they were not required to close. That was in addition to the £1.1 billion allocated in November 2020. Local authorities had the discretion to support businesses in the way that they saw fit.
I recognise the importance of kennels and catteries and the varied roles that they play in our lives, from enabling our ability to travel to supporting key workers, allowing them to undertake their roles. The Government are also convinced that the kennels and catteries of this country provide many economic benefits. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn can be reassured by the fact that we are working with the Local Government Animal Welfare Group to improve the data that several hon. Members said was perhaps not as seamless as they would like it to be.
I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured that the Government have taken the appropriate steps throughout the covid restrictions to ensure that we supported kennels and catteries, so that they could, and can, continue to operate. I thank her for securing tonight’s debate. She spoke recently about the support that the Government have given to high streets, recognising the effort and investment that we have made.
To conclude, I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to tease out, as she said, the quite complex set of asks that she laid out this evening and to see exactly where the challenges are, because I would like my officials to check some of the details about the database, and so on. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North said, making it a simpler system to navigate is probably one of the key asks. On that note, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn again for securing the debate and thank our cattery and kennel owners for not only all they did in the pandemic, but all they do all the time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I was honoured to chair both Friday’s debate on animals and tonight’s as well. If it proves anything, we are a Parliament of animal lovers, that is for certain.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Green Gas Support Scheme Regulations 2021
(3 years ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I encourage Members to wear a mask when they are not speaking, in line with the current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please give one another and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room. Members should send their speaking notes by email to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Officials should communicate electronically with Ministers.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Hands)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Green Gas Support Scheme Regulations 2021.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. Since the draft statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 9 September 2021, a minor correction has been made to the explanatory note, to highlight the fact that the scheme ends in March 2041, not as previously stated in March 2040.
The UK, as we know, is the first major economy in the world to set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Between 1990 and 2019, our emissions decreased by 44%, the fastest reduction in the G7, and we continue to advance sustainability through the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the net zero strategy and, most relevant to this policy, the heat and buildings strategy, which was released last month.
The heating of our homes, businesses and industry is responsible for 21% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonisation of heat is recognised as one of the biggest challenges in meeting our climate targets, requiring virtually all heat and buildings to be decarbonised. Increasing the proportion of green gas in the grid is a practical, established and cost-effective way of reducing carbon emissions and contributing to the UK’s net zero target, lowering carbon emissions from both domestic and industrial gas boiler use.
The green gas support scheme is a Great Britain-wide tariff-based scheme supporting new biomethane plants that inject biomethane produced by anaerobic digestion into the gas grid. It is expected to contribute 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of carbon savings over the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, and 8.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent of carbon savings over the lifetime of the scheme. That is equivalent to taking approximately 3.6 million cars off the road for a year.
The green gas support scheme is expected to help to support high-quality jobs in the renewable energy sector at a time when economic recovery is important to us all. It is anticipated that when taking into account both direct and indirect jobs, the green gas support scheme could support up to 1,600 jobs per annum during the construction phase of the plants and up to 1,000 jobs once plants are operational.
Our analysis suggests that more than two thirds of existing biomethane plants are located in rural areas, with 80% of all British plants located in areas with a lower-than-average gross value added—in other words, in more economically deprived parts of the country. We expect plants supported by the scheme to follow a similar trend, therefore contributing to the Government’s levelling-up agenda.
The Government believe it is appropriate for gas consumers to pay towards decarbonising the gas grid and have taken the decision to fund the green gas support scheme through a levy. The levy will be the sole funding source for the GGSS, and will be applied to all licenced fossil-fuel gas suppliers. The Government acknowledge the impact of rising gas prices on consumer energy bills at present. We are implementing stringent budget control measures to ensure that costs of the levy are as low as possible and cannot rise unexpectedly. The cost to an annual gas bill will be relatively low, starting at about £2.50 per annum and peaking at about £4.70 in 2028 on an average gas bill, assuming a transition to a volumetric levy.
During peak years of production, biomethane plants incentivised by the green gas support scheme will produce enough green gas to heat about 200,000 homes, which would otherwise have been heated by natural gas. While launching with a per meter point levy that provides a high certainty of costs to suppliers and consumers, the Government recognise the benefits of a volumetric levy that aligns costs more closely to gas consumption. We have committed to transition to a volumetric levy as soon as possible, subject to overcoming feasibility issues, including the impact on energy intensive industries and other important UK industries.
In conclusion, the scheme established by this draft statutory instrument will support ongoing investment in the biomethane industry and enable the development of new production plants for the injection of biomethane into the gas grid. In supporting this investment in new anaerobic digestion capacity, we expect to support more jobs, growth and innovation in the biomethane industry, while delivering important carbon savings, which are a vital part of meeting our net zero targets.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The subject that we are
talking about this morning is, as the Minister mentioned, green gas and how we can best incentivise the processes by which it is produced, which is primarily anaerobic digestion. He mentioned that biogas plants and biomethane plants are predominantly situated in rural areas. Indeed, a fair amount of the biogas produced in this country essentially comes from farm AD plants. Those who follow “The Archers” will remember the considerable controversy about a biogas plant around the village. Essentially, it is an arrangement whereby waste—farm waste, food waste and a number of other processes—can contribute through a biodigestion process, which does not involve burning or emissions in the sense that incineration has previously, and can be converted into biogas, which can, under many circumstances, be injected into the system.
As part of my exciting life as shadow energy Minister, I visited a large anaerobic digestion plant near Poundbury that has for a number of years very successfully processed food waste particularly and crop waste, which I will come on to in a moment, into biogas, which is then injected into the system, initially around Poundbury but covering quite a lot of the grid on a good day. The system works really well and, as the Minister said, produces substantial carbon savings by the process of injecting biogas into the system, thereby replacing the gas that is going into it at the moment. I therefore thoroughly endorse the intention behind the green gas support scheme, designed to bring on further those anaerobic digestion plants, which can substantially replace elements of our gas distribution system by the process that I described.
I do not have many criticisms of how the scheme has been set up, save for two potentially important ones. The scheme is set to last, as the Minister said, until March 2041, and the individual support that it will produce will be for 15 years, so the producers will have a good line of support in green gas plants as they build them and production gets under way. However, as he also mentioned, that is being underpinned by what we might say is yet another levy. The Minister mentions that the cost of the levy will be perhaps £2.50 a year on gas bills. This is a gas bill levy for green gas production, which sounds a fairly neat connection, but in practice the vast majority of bill payers pay a dual fuel tariff for energy, so in that instance, a levy is a levy is a levy; it will go on that dual fuel bill in exactly the same way as the substantial levies that are already on electricity bills.
I understand that the Government are considering a migration of levies from electricity bills to gas, but this is not a migratory levy; it is a new levy. Some while ago, the Government told me that that would not happen—there would be no new levies. Indeed, I have had some fairly arcane discussions in Committees and elsewhere about what is a new levy and what is not. The principle that we should not continue to put levies on customer bills as a way of funding new schemes was reasonably well established in those discussions. However, here we have a new levy. By the way, this afternoon, as I am sure the Minister is absolutely aware, we will discuss a possible further substantial levy for new nuclear build. We have a situation in which levies on customer bills are pretty substantial. I appreciate the Minister stating that this is not what he might call a serious and heavy levy, but it nevertheless represents a not insubstantial increase on customer bills over the period.
The previous support scheme—the non-domestic renewable heat incentive—which at least to some extent supported anaerobic digestion production was not a levy; it was funded from general taxation. I would be grateful if the Minister briefly expanded on the decision to make this transfer from general taxation, as was the case for the renewable heat incentive, to the levy that we are discussing. On reflection, the Minister might consider that, certainly in the long term, this scheme might be best funded through general taxation, rather than continuing with the levy.
My second question for the Minister is rather more detailed and relates to the purpose of the levy, which is to produce biomethane for injection into the grid. The explanatory notes for the draft regulations state that support payments will only be made for biomethane injected into the grid. That sounds fairly straightforward, but we need to reflect on two things. First, biomethane does not necessarily go exclusively into the grid. That is a substantial part of its purpose, but it has a number of other destinations as well. Biomethane can and is being used to fuel gas engines for district heating schemes as a replacement for the gas going into the engine, so the replacement arrangement is exactly the same as if that green gas went into the grid, but it is going into a mini-grid, as far as district heating is concerned.
There are a number of instances whereby methane is being used on-plant for purposes related to industrial commercial activity. Near my constituency, there is a biomethane plant that is associated with a water company’s sewage treatment arrangements, which produce biomethane that is used in the plant to continue the water company’s activities. As the Minister will know, the gas grid by no means covers the whole country. There are a substantial number of properties that are off grid and there is certainly the beginning of an industry where biomethane can be supplied as a replacement for tanked or bottled gas going into those properties for heating purposes.
Important as those categories are for reducing carbon emissions, driving out traditional gas and replacing it with low-carbon gas in exactly the way the scheme intends, none of them would, in my understanding, qualify for support because of the suggestion in the guidance that only direct injection to the grid would qualify for support. Can the Minister reflect on that and let me know whether he is prepared to consider—not necessarily today but for the future—a review of those arrangements so that where biogas is being produced and is not necessarily going into the gas grid, it can nevertheless remain supported or be supported? I think we can all agree that the direction of the biomethane is essentially the same. It is a scheme that undertakes reduction of emissions through biogas production in substitution of gas.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
In support of that latter argument, I draw attention to British Sugar’s Cantley factory for sugar-beet processing in my constituency, which wants to put in an anaerobic digester. It is on the gas grid but it is a mile away from the main pipe. It is currently faced with the prospect of building a new pipe for a mile to connect the anaerobic digester to the grid, then take it back off the grid a hundred yards further down the pipe and bring it a mile back to the factory.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Member emphasises the point that I was making, which is that quite a lot of biomethane production cannot easily be categorised as simply going into the grid. He has given a good example near his constituency, which substantially underlines my point.
The other matter that I want to raise briefly is the definition of feedstock for anaerobic digestion plants. According to the guidance notes, biomethane producers will be required to produce
“at least 50% of their biomethane from waste or residue feedstock.”
I assume that that means primarily food waste, but also farm waste and other residues. However, as I am sure the Minister understands, it is a little difficult accurately to determine what is and is not waste in relation to those categories. For example, I assume that forest trimmings, which can be used in certain circumstances for biomethane production, would be regarded as waste, but chopped-up wood would not be regarded as waste. Food waste, as the Minister will know, can be categorised both as proper food waste and as food waste that actually has not been used for food production but could quite well be used for food production in different circumstances. Therefore I wonder whether the Minister is satisfied that the definitions that there are in the scheme adequately determine what is and is not waste in relation to the 50% requirement.
I support the 50% requirement, because we do not want to see crops that could go into other activities being used to feed biodigestion either because the supply of waste is not good enough or just because people want to put the crops into the biodigester as an easy way of producing bioenergy, at the expense of feedstock that could be used for other purposes. It is a question of ensuring that the scheme is as well defined as it can be. I wonder whether the Minister has any comments to make on that in order to ensure that we get off to the best start possible with the scheme.
Other than having those hopefully brief and not very taxing questions, the Opposition support the green gas support scheme and we support that scheme starting as soon as possible in order to ensure that biodigestion takes its proper place in the panoply of measures that can lead us towards net zero in a coherent way.
Greg Hands
First, I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, speaking on behalf of the official Opposition, for his support for the measures before us today. That is very welcome. The measures will make a real difference in greening the gas grid. He asked a number of important and pertinent questions, which I will seek to answer briefly in my response. I think he said that the digestion plant he visited was in or near Poundbury. I must say I am looking forward to making a similar visit in due course to see it in action.
The hon. Gentleman had three broad areas of questions: first, about the levy itself; secondly, about off-grid properties; and thirdly, about the definition for what would be permissible in this scheme. Let me deal with the first one—the point about another levy. He is right, of course. There are a number of other levies at present, but that is why we are launching a fairness and affordability call for evidence on levies, on options for energy levies and obligations to help rebalance prices and to support green choices, with a view to taking decisions in 2022. I will say that this particular levy has been very well telegraphed in advance. We consulted on this levy in October 2020 and we published the Government response in March 2021, so this levy and its introduction have been well telegraphed, both to consumers and to the market, in advance. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the average bill starts at an increase of about £2.50, rising, we think, to approximately £4.70 by 2028, by which time we think a volumetric approach to the levy will have taken effect in any case.
The hon. Gentleman asked some questions about off-grid properties, and I will make three points on those. The objective of the green gas support scheme is to green the gas grid—let us not get too far away from the purpose of our discussions. Of course, if payments were made for off-grid solutions, bill payers would be paying for renewable gas from which they or the gas suppliers would never directly benefit, so there would be an equity issue for those on whom the levy is being placed.
We announced last month, alongside the heat and buildings strategy, two further consultations setting out proposals to phase out the installation of high-carbon fossil fuel systems off the gas grid—those that are not current on the gas grid—during the 2020s. Both consultations close in January 2022, so I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at the consultation documents on how we might approach properties that are off the gas grid.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland ably made the point about the practicalities for those who are partially on or near the gas grid but do not actually benefit. There will be benefit, in those consultations, in looking at cases such as those that he mentioned from his constituency.
On the definition of feedstocks for anaerobic digestion plants, using waste feedstocks can of course contribute to carbon savings and a circular economy. In the light of the uncertainty around food waste availability, a higher threshold could have negative impacts on plant deployment and encourage unintended competition within the anaerobic digestion industry. Importantly, however, we will undertake a mid-scheme review in 2023 to review the waste feedstock threshold. All the decisions that we have today on how the levy will work, and what is applicable and what qualifies, will be subject to that mid-scheme review.
I thank the hon. Member for Southampton, Test and my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland for their contributions, and other Members for being here to debate this important issue. To meet net zero, virtually all heat in buildings will need to be decarbonised. Moving away from burning fossil fuels for heating presents enormous opportunities for jobs, growth and levelling up.
The scheme will help to meet commitments made in the 2019 spring statement and the 2020 Budget to increase the proportion of green gas in the grid. It will promote a circular economy by encouraging the use of domestic and industrial food waste to heat our homes and businesses, and it will contribute to achieving short-term carbon budgets in our broader target of net zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, the scheme will support high-quality jobs in the renewable energy sector, as well the development of the diversification of the rural economy, in line with the Government’s overall agenda.
Question put and agreed to.
Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill (First sitting)
(3 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. Please switch electronic devices off or to silent. I encourage Members to wear a mask when not speaking. In fact, we had an update from the House a moment ago, yet to be issued formally, indicating that Members should wear a mask when not speaking. I am waiting for official confirmation of that, but I would be very grateful if Members worked with me. Those who do not have a mask will find some in the corner to my left. Thank you very much for your compliance.
I remind everyone that they are asked by the House to have a 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. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members passed across their speaking notes or emailed them to hansardnotes@parliament.uk.
My selection and grouping for today’s meeting is available online and in the room. A single amendment has been tabled, which we will debate before turning to the existing content of the Bill.
Clause 1
Relevant Information
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 19, after “driving” insert
“(assessed in accordance with DVLA standards and associated sanctions)”.
This amendment would provide that a driver’s “risk to road safety while driving” is assessed in line with DVLA standards and not the individual assessment of the licensing authority.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. The thinking behind the amendment is that a driver’s risk to road safety while driving would be assessed in line with Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency standards, as opposed to the individual assessment of the licensing authority. At present, licensing authorities are not required to share information with other authorities, which prevents them from being able to make an informed decision about granting or renewing a driver’s licence. That creates the conditions for a driver who has been refused a licence, or who has had an existing licence suspended or revoked because of safety concerns, to apply for a licence in another area, where the new licensing authority is completely unaware of the previous refusal, suspension or revocation. That is not acceptable. It puts the safety of taxi and private hire vehicle users at risk, and it goes against the recommendations of the task and finish group on taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.
It is paramount that driving standards are tightened. At present, local authorities are using points on a licence to issue revocations; instead of using DVLA criteria, they are issuing individual revocations based on their own rules and the judgment of individual officers. That sets a precedent that allows for dismissals, potentially, based on reasons that are different from those of the DVLA—based on the individual licensing authority and therefore that driver. For instance, due to the nature of the job, a driver may be pressured into speeding by a difficult passenger and then will accrue points unfairly, which results in them ultimately losing their job.
It is therefore clear that DVLA regulation should be the sole framework by which drivers are assessed; it should not be left to the judgment of an individual licensing officer. This would create a consistent approach and help cut unnecessary bureaucracy and reduce time spent in the courts system. I am aware that point has previously been raised with the Transport. At present, there is a great deal of uncertainty among representative bodies, such as the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, about whether the Government will support the Bill. The Government have previously indicated that there are no plans to legislate, but instead strongly encourage all licensing authorities to adopt their new statutory standards.
The current approach focuses on improving licensing through the statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards, published last year, which local authorities are in the process of implementing or consulting on. However, bodies such as the LTDA believe that those standards do not go far enough. Furthermore, they do not deliver all of the recommendations made by the task and finish group. For example, they do not address the vital issue of cross-border hiring, which currently undermines the efficacy of licensing.
I therefore urge the Committee to consider the approach that I have put forward and adopt a more robust stance that would address passenger safety comprehensively and enhance existing licensing legislation through national minimum standards that are legally enforceable. The existing statutory standards are no longer fit for purpose: while they urge data sharing between local authorities and encourage the use of the existing NR3 database—the national register of taxi and private hire licence refusals and revocations database—they do not mandate it, which creates clear inconsistencies in the system.
In closing, I reiterate my earlier point that taxi or private hire vehicle drivers operating out of an area in which they are not licensed must be stopped. Furthermore, enforcement must be shifted to a national level, which would allow local authorities to issue enforcement within their jurisdiction. The Government and the Bill could go further than simply encouraging licensing authorities to adopt the statutory standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington on his success in promoting his private Member’s Bill. It brings our attention to an important issue: how the licensing authorities can best share information to ensure that the minority of individuals who would seek to cause harm can be prevented from obtaining a taxi or private hire vehicle driver’s licence.
As the Bill does not change the decision-making process of the licensing authorities, the amendment is an unnecessary clarification of what we mean by road safety. Clause 1 seeks to clarify which decisions by an authority to suspend, refuse or revoke a taxi or private hire vehicle driver’s licence should be recorded on a database. For those purposes, the broad description of road safety that is in use already would seem sufficient, as all decisions made in relation to road safety should be available for authorities to review when making their decisions.
Those authorities are of course still able to grant a new licence to a driver who has a record on the database. They are not bound by the previous decision, or by the fact that that is held on the database. The guidance that the Government will produce, should the Bill make it to the statute book, would clarify the terms in more detail for the licensing authorities, so that they are clear what decisions relating to road safety and other relevant information should be recorded on the database. For those reasons, the Government will resist the amendment.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell.
Clause 1 defines “Relevant information”. That definition is important because it is used throughout the Bill to trigger when there is a duty on a licensing authority to record instances of a suspension, refusal or revocation of a driver’s licence on the database, or to report concerns about drivers licensed in other areas. Those duties apply only when the licensing decision relies wholly or in part on the concerns related to relevant information.
Licensing authorities are required to carry out an assessment of whether a driver is fit and proper to hold a driver’s licence and to ensure that remains the case for the duration of the licence. Legislation already enables them to take a view of whether a driver is a risk to road safety. Licensing authorities are experienced at taking decisions on what poses a threat to road safety and know that they must justify those decisions. Existing checks and balances ensure that licensing authorities’ decisions can be contested, including the ability to challenge an authority’s assessment of any risk to road safety.
The Bill does not seek to change or influence the decision making of licensing authorities, and nor does it change the right of a driver to contest a decision; it is simply focused on ensuring passenger safety. The Bill includes provisions for the Secretary of State to issue guidance for licensing authorities, which I am sure could be used to provide further guidance on the matter.
Following my explanation and that of the Minister, I hope that the hon. Member for Ilford South will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Sam Tarry
The purpose of the amendment is to ensure consistency across the country. The GMB, the LTDA and other representatives of the various minicab and private hire drivers across the country are keen to see the Bill go through. I know from our discussions that they want to have that ability in order to be certain that they would not be penalised in one area that was in any way different from the DVLA. I am also conscious that the Bill has been brought before the House many times, in different guises, and I am keen that we get as much Government support for it as possible. The Bill can move forward on a cross-party basis, so that it gets through and makes the changes that need to happen—many are contained in the Bill. It would make a real difference. On that basis, I will not press the amendment.
Sir John Hayes
I am flattered.
I simply want to say how much I welcome the Bill, having commissioned the work on taxi licensing as a Minister, as members of the Committee will know. I particularly welcome it in the light of the work done by the hon. Member for Cambridge, who, in a model of cross-party co-operation, worked closely with my then Department to look at these matters, which relate directly to the Bill before us.
The Committee will know of the work done by Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq, who was commissioned to consider these matters in detail and who recommended a review of licensing in the interests of public wellbeing and safety. That came on the back of the awful events in Rotherham, Rochdale and elsewhere. I do not need to lecture members of the Committee on that, particularly the hon. Member for Rotherham, who has taken such a brave and noble stand in these matters, but I think this is a first step.
I will just say to the Minister, who is a good and honourable friend—one can be good and honourable at the same time, can one not?—that the recommendations in the important document that I have before me, which is the review conducted by Professor Abdel-Haq, are wide-ranging. This private Member’s Bill deals with some of them, but I urge the Minister to look at many of the other recommendations. I do not want to go beyond the scope of the Bill, Ms Bardell, but I hope you will forgive me for adding this, because many other things in the recommendations—there is a whole list of recommendations, but I will not tire the Committee by going through them—need to be addressed. Some will be legislative, and some may not be. Some can be achieved by giving improved guidance. I know the Secretary of State is mindful of that and has done a great deal of work on it, and no doubt the Minister will comment on it, but I just want to welcome the Bill in that context, with that history and with a very strong recommendation.
This is a first step in guaranteeing what is the essential element in licensing: public safety and wellbeing. With those few thoughts—probably at the wrong part of the Bill and at the wrong time of the Committee, but clearly with your generous indulgence, Ms Bardell—I will say no more, because I know that the Committee will want to move on.
Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
May I crave your indulgence for a moment, Ms Bardell, given that you very kindly invoked me? I just want to put on the record my personal commitment to this issue. The hon. Member for Rotherham and I have a long history on this issue. When Lord Pickles was the Secretary of State, I was part of intimate ministerial groups talking about the need to deal with taxi drivers whom other taxi drivers did not want in the industry. This measure is as much about protecting reputable, decent public servants, which is what taxi drivers are, from those who seek to use this vocation or trade as a smokescreen for other activities. Tragically, we saw that in Rotherham. I was very keen to see the Bill introduced when I was in office, and I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington for bringing it forward with Government support.
I also want to put on the record my local interest in this issue. Sian O’Callaghan was tragically murdered by a taxi driver in Swindon in 2011. With the help of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, her mother, Elaine Pickford, has campaigned relentlessly ever since to improve the quality of regulation in this area. I want to put on the record my personal thanks to her and her family for everything they have done with such dignity since the dreadful events of 10 years ago, when I was still a fresh-faced Member of Parliament. Therefore, for local and personal reasons, I am particularly pleased that this measure has been brought forward with the support of the Government.
The Chair
I thank the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings for their contributions, which are incredibly important and powerful. They have my apologies for mixing them up. They appear to have co-ordinated their wardrobes this morning, which led to my confusion. I give them my sincere apologies for that.
Peter Gibson
This Bill aims to do two things. First, it introduces a mandatory database of taxi and private hire vehicle driving licence suspensions, refusals and revocations for all licensing authorities in England. Secondly, it creates duties on licensing authorities in England to report safeguarding and road safety concerns about drivers licensed by other authorities, and for those authorities to have a duty to take account of those concerns. These are essential changes to empower our licensing authorities to continue in their tireless work to keep the travelling public safe by giving them the information they need to make informed licensing decisions.
I have already spoken about clause 1, so I will move on to talk about the other clauses relating to the database and the responsibilities of licensing authorities to it. I will speak first to clause 4, as it pertains to the database itself, and then I will discuss clauses 2 and 3, which relate to the duties on licensing authorities to use it.
Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to provide or designate a database to record the suspensions, refusals and revocations of taxis and private hire vehicles driving licences. This allows for a database, such as the NR3 database established by the Local Government Association and the National Anti Fraud Network, to be designated as the database that all authorities must use. This should help the Bill come into effect and provide its benefits much sooner, as this system is already being used voluntarily by many good local authorities.
Clause 4(3)(b) would ensure that there is a reasonable time limit for holding entries about a driver. The 11-year period specified in the Bill ensures that the information is available to licensing authorities to support their decision making, while still allowing, in line with other record keeping such as Disclosure and Barring Service checks, for that prior history to no longer be disclosed. The 11-year period broadly aligns with the filtering of less serious adult convictions within the regime in which the disclosure and barring regime operates. It is also worth remembering that all licensing authorities require drivers to be subject to an enhanced DBS check and most to a barred list check, with relevant convictions and non-conviction information disclosed as part of this process.
Clause 2 creates a duty on licensing authorities in England to record on the database information about certain suspensions, refusals and revocations. As explained earlier, authorities would have to record all suspensions, refusals and revocations of taxi and private hire driving licences where they have relied, at least partly, on relevant information, by which we mean safeguarding or road safety concerns. Clause 2 also ensures that those records are made promptly within five days of the decision being made and that authorities must keep their database entries up to date, including those as a result of appeals. That means that the information that authorities use to make their licensing decisions will be as current as possible, which is essential for effective decision making.
The database would also hold only basic information about a decision and the licence holder, to allow authorities to search effectively. To receive details of a decision, the authority would need to contact the relevant authority that had made the entry. That ensures that only those with a business need for the details of those licensing decisions can access them.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. On a point of clarification, will the fee associated with database entries be paid by the local authority or by the individual, and does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that it will be enough to cover all the administration costs, or does he think that the Government will need to, in effect, underwrite the database?
Peter Gibson
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. From the information that I have been provided, because the majority of local authorities are already part of the National Anti Fraud Network, which runs the database, the additional cost that will be incurred by local authorities that were not already adding to the database in doing so is marginal. I think it will be a couple of pounds per driver entry, so it is a nominal cost, which I am sure she will agree is a small price to pay.
The Chair
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and I congratulate him on introducing the Bill. I now call the hon. Member who promoted the Bill previously and has done a lot of work in this area—Daniel Zeichner.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell, and a pleasure to find myself in this Bill Committee some three and a half years late—a long wait for a cab, one might say. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Darlington, who has elegantly explained the issues and proposed solutions. I hope that in a cross-party way we can see the Bill through to fruition. I strongly echo the wise words of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, the long-term author of many of the proposals, but, as he says, there is much more to be done.
I will not repeat the points that I raised on Second Reading, but will make a few observations. I looked back to see the minor differences between the two Bills, and will seek an explanation as to why there have been changes, which might give some pointers to the Department’s thinking. I am not sure whether they came from the Minister or the hon. Member. There are minor changes in the short title, or is it the long title?—I can never remember which—of the Bill. There might be some thinking in the Department as to why that was done.
I have already mentioned the fees that have been introduced into the Bill this time, which seem a sensible addition. There is a subtle change in clause 5’s terminology from “out-of-area” to “licensed in other areas”. I am not sure whether that represents a change in the Department’s thinking. It is obviously a vexed issue with changing technologies. As we have all observed, much of the legislation was created at a time when things were genuinely local. In the modern world of apps it is very different, so the change in terminology might be telling us something that we should be aware of.
I particularly wanted to refer to the excellent Library briefing by Dr Roger Tyers, issued some months ago. I was interested in that briefing because there is reference to the short debate three and a half years ago on a Friday, when the Bill was talked out. Many of us who have witnessed Fridays in the Chamber will recognise that it is not the most uplifting way of discussing legislation. I was slightly frustrated that, as promoter of the Bill, I never had a chance to respond to some of the points made that afternoon, so, three and a half years later, I shall use the Library briefing to pick up the thread.
Very subtly in that Library briefing on page 11 there are references to some of the points made by the hon. Gentleman who talked it out, which were quite sensible. It was not just a question of filling the time, because important points were raised around proportionality and the definition of relevant information. One point made was about whether the measure was far too draconian, so that we were in danger of potentially punishing people in too dramatic a way for a relatively minor misdemeanour. It is important to put it on the record why that is not what the Bill tries to do. There are some answers to that in the Library briefing in a reference to the National Anti Fraud Network data-sharing agreement, which I doubt is background reading for most people, but I dug it out.
A long time ago, as a local councillor, I was on the licensing committee. People here in Committee have served on licensing committees and will know that the area is very complicated. There is guidance from the Department, but there is also local discretion. This is one of those issues that are sensitive, because there are different issues in different areas—sadly, as we know—and very good reasons why some authorities would want to have higher standards, so although there is a debate about national standards, it is not a simple debate. What really struck me in the data-sharing notice from the National Anti Fraud Network, which I think is worth quoting, was where it says:
“Every application must always be considered on its own merits. A licensing authority must not fetter its decision-making, or appear to have simply relied upon the previous decision of another authority. The purpose of the register is not to mean that an applicant who has been refused a licence on one occasion will always be refused.”
In other words, all that is happening here is that as much information as possible is being made available to those making decisions. It is not pre-empting the decision. That document goes on to make the very sensible point that
“it will always be relevant for an authority to consider a previous refusal or revocation, and the reasons for that decision.”
I will not labour the point, but I think the answers to the issues that were raised in the few minutes at the end of the debate to which I have referred can be answered, and I put it on the record that they have been answered. This raises a further, technical set of issues, which I suspect the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon is far better placed to have a view on than I am, in relation to the complex relationship between the police and local authorities, in terms of what they can and cannot tell local authorities. Certainly when I was researching this legislation some years ago, I was very struck by the expertise of some of the licensing officers, who were explaining the nuances of this. Of course, there was a time when, in local areas, people knew their patch: the police knew their patch and the council knew its patch. It is sometimes quite hard to write these things down, but they would know who were the people whom it would be absolutely right to give another chance and who were the people whom we would not ever want to take a risk on. Trying to codify that is hard but I believe that, in the complicated web of legislation that we have, we may be getting closer to something that works. In the end, the real aim here must be passenger safety; it has to be. This goes right back to the professor’s point that he remains worried that, in the current situation, people are still at risk.
As ever, none of this is easy. We are trying to balance protection of the public with being reasonable to drivers, who may sometimes make a mistake and deserve a second chance—I think we would all want that. But I think that this Bill does no more than stop the gaming of the system, and that it is absolutely to be commended.
Sarah Champion
I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Darlington for bringing forward the Bill. It is much needed and very sensible. Of course, I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge for all the work that he has done and thank the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). When she was the Minister for this subject area, she was going to bring forward some more comprehensive taxi legislation. I hope that the present Minister will consider the work that she has done and consider finding time to bring that forward.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon spoke about the long relationship that we have had on this topic, and I want to bring a bit of that to the debate, so that everybody, but particularly the Minister, knows why this legislation is so important. I learnt about taxi licensing because Rotherham Council got it horribly, horribly wrong. I am delighted to say now that because of how wrong we got it and because of Government intervention, we now have some of the highest standards in the country. That is important because taxis, by their very nature, tend to be transporting, in a real position of trust, some of the most vulnerable people in the country. It is taxis that are commissioned to take children to school, and to take children and adults with special needs to where they need to be. We put our most precious loved ones into the back of a cab, on the assumption that the person will take as much care with their transportation as we would. Sadly, as we discovered in Rotherham, that was not the case. Children were known for their vulnerabilities, picked up because of that and exploited—sometimes in the taxi by some of the taxi drivers. But sometimes they were being commissioned from place to place and taken by the taxi drivers to do it. And they were doing all this in plain sight, because taxis, by their very nature, are transporting vulnerable people around, so it was not discovered in time.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I am so grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and thank her for raising the SEND issue. We had a bad issue in Sandwell involving a SEND transport contract that was handed out, and safeguarding requirements not being met. Is she as hopeful as I am that the new database could be used in procurement by local authorities? That will be really important, as I am sure she agrees, in ensuring that our most vulnerable—particularly those with special educational needs, for example—are protected when they are being transported to where they need to go.
Sarah Champion
I wholeheartedly agree. I will highlight two—I will not call them omissions; that is not in the nature of this Bill Committee—additions that the Minister could consider in the future. Given the experience in this room, I hope they will be supported. The first, which the hon. Member for Darlington raised, is cross-border travel. I said that Rotherham now has some of the highest standards in the country. Unfortunately, because those standards are not replicated nationally—having CCTV in all taxis, for example—a taxi driver with lower standards could come from out of area to work in Rotherham. They may well be on the database and they may well have not committed any crime of note, but they would still be able to operate in Rotherham with lower standards of safety and protection for passengers. Will the Minister consider bringing in, at a later date, national minimum standards that apply to all taxi drivers, so that someone getting into a taxi, wherever they are, can have that same certainty?
The second addition—this is a rather a geeky point; my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings knows I am slightly obsessed with this—is around Disclosure and Barring Service checks. I met a woman whose abuser went to jail and then changed his name by deed poll, so his DBS check was clean, because the checks basically look at someone’s name and any associated records attached to that name. The Government are currently undertaking—I hope—an inquiry into the risks associated with change of name. It is known that registered sex offenders do that. There have been a number of high-profile cases that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon has been involved in. It happens. I am really concerned that close that particular loophole. I would appreciate anything the Minister could say to the Home Office and Justice, which are both looking into this, to make sure that the loophole is closed.
Sir John Hayes
Those issues were looked at in some detail, as the hon. Lady will know, by Professor Abdel-Haq in the report that I commissioned. I am grateful for her kind words, by the way. Cross-border travel is a thorny issue, but Professor Abdel-Haq’s recommendation 11 states:
“Government should legislate that all taxi and PHV—
private hire vehicles—
“journeys should start and/or end within the area for which the driver, vehicle and operator (PHV and taxi…are licensed.”
He goes on to say that appropriate measures need to be put in place to exempt specialist services, such as chauffeurs, disability transport services and others. However, the huge issue of cross-border journeys was looked at in some detail by that committee. Professor Abdel-Haq also looked at her second recommendation. I take the view of the hon. Member for Cambridge about local particularities, but I would go so far as to say that we cannot be too rigorous. There has to be a thorough and rigorous process that gives people the assurance that, wherever they get a taxi, those standards and checks will be in place. I strongly endorse the hon. Lady’s recommendations. This is precisely the kind of additional work that I recommended in my earlier intervention, and which I know the Minister will want to take forward.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
The Chair
Perhaps the hon. Member for Rotherham might like to respond to the previous intervention before she takes a further intervention.
Sarah Champion
I would be delighted to. I can only thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings for the work he has done in the past, and for the emphasis he puts on the cross-border issue now. He knows only too well the risk, but also the potentially quite simple solutions that we could put in place to give every passenger that certainty. I thank him again for raising that.
Dr Johnson
I listened carefully to the hon. Lady, and if I heard her correctly, she suggests that someone could evade DBS checks by changing their name by deed poll. If so, that has much wider application than taxi drivers; it would also apply to those working in healthcare professions and with children in schools. I would press the Minister to look at that urgently.
Sarah Champion
I can only say that I share the hon. Member’s concerns. It is something that keeps me awake at night, I must say. In the case of the survivor who I am speaking about, Bella, the perpetrator changed his name while in jail. It is a very simple process that can be done through an online form or on paper. The checks are so slight that they are incredibly easy to evade.
I am deeply grateful for all the work done by hon. Members in the room on the topic. I urge the Minister to refer to the points we have raised, particularly around the cross-border matter and the change of name. This is not a political issue; it is a safeguarding issue, and I hope the Minister takes what we say in that spirit.
Sam Tarry
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who has a great deal of expertise on this issue and has worked cross party in such a fantastic way to bring these measures forward, I do not want to talk too much about the points I made on Second Reading. However, it is important to note that there is so much consensus across the House on the need for the Bill. The hon. Member for Darlington has worked incredibly hard; he has spoken with stakeholders and taxi users and has reached out across the House in a commendable way. For Members on the Labour Front Bench, this is something that needs to happen as soon as possible, with the Government’s support.
We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham about the harrowing and tragically avoidable situations that the legislation could begin to address. As she explained, the taxi system has been used to abuse people; it needs to transition to being a shining light in terms of standards. I hope that Government support for this private Member’s Bill can make that a national priority.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich West made a good point about SEND transport. It is imperative that everyone, including older and disabled members of our communities, is fully confident in their taxi driver. Recently, we have seen a huge growth in taxi systems; we can pick up our phone and have a taxi at the front door in just a few minutes. As a London MP, I am perhaps more confident than others, given Transport for London’s regulatory framework, but the situation is not necessarily the same across the country. There is the well-known issue of some local authorities, which I will not necessarily name, issuing a vast number of licences. In fact, there were so many licences in some of those cities that the streets would surely be gridlocked with taxis. In reality, the situation in those towns and cities is perhaps more about bumping up the funds available to the local authority than safety and addressing the issues of cross-border working.
In my Second Reading speech, I mentioned how long it has taken for the measures to get to this point. One reason why I was prepared to withdraw my amendment is that I want the Government to move forward on this. Many of the recommendations of the task and finish group are partly addressed in the Bill. It could still go further, but something is obviously better than nothing. We have in the Bill some key measures, which the hon. Member for Darlington has worked hard to put there. It will move things forward, get on the statute book, put national standards in place and, importantly, introduce the database, which can be checked across the country. That is essential to ensuring we do not have a patchwork approach across the country. As in any other sector, standardising safety means setting national standards, and it is important that this legislation makes that happen. I hope we can move forward positively.
Trudy Harrison
First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington for the sheer amount of work and dedication he has invested in bringing this private Member’s Bill forward. I also thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House who have expertise in this legislation and in transport going back many years. I should mention the work done by the hon. Member for Cambridge on this important passenger safety issue.
Passenger safety in taxis and private hire vehicles is a priority for this Government, which is why we are keen to support the legislation. I reiterate that the vast majority of licensed taxi and private hire vehicle drivers are fit and proper persons, who are a credit to the sector and their communities. However, we must ensure that those who are not fit and proper people to hold a licence are not able to do so. It has been set out this morning why that is so important, and the implications of getting it wrong.
Last year, the Government issued the statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards, which outlined how licensing authorities can best safeguard many of the vulnerable citizens who use those services. One of the recommendations in those standards is the use of the national register of refusals and revocations, which is hosted by the National Anti Fraud Network. Some licensing authorities are using NR3, but not all. Clauses 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill would rectify that by mandating the use of a database that records not only refusals and revocations, but suspensions.
There has been reference to the cost of that database. We would hope that it could be in house; it should certainly be not for profit, and would be done at the minimum possible cost. It would give licensing authorities more information with which to make informed decisions on who we entrust with the responsibility of being a taxi or private hire vehicle driver. That can only be a good thing. The more information available to licensing authorities, the better their decision making will be.
The Bill rightly focuses on safeguarding and road safety issues. Refusals, revocations or suspensions relating at least partly to the safeguarding and safety criteria set out in clause 1 must be recorded on the database. The criteria are sufficiently broad to ensure that all manner of safeguarding, road safety and discrimination concerns can be highlighted to a licensing authority making its decision.
Clauses 5 and 6 also introduce duties on licensing authorities in England to report concerns about drivers licensed in other areas and to act on any concerns reported to them. The Government wholeheartedly support these provisions, which would ensure that, where authorities have concerns about a licensed driver relating to the criteria set out in the first clause, they can do something about it. As many on the Committee will no doubt know, a licensing authority can only revoke or suspend a taxi and private hire vehicle driver’s licence if it issued it. Under this duty, if a driver licensed in another area is behaving in an unsafe manner, or other concerns are raised, the authority responsible for issuing the licence must consider their suitability again.
The clauses would greatly improve not only the collaboration between our licensing authorities, but the effectiveness of their collaboration with other agencies such as the police, who may report a concern to the local licensing authority, which may then be under a duty to pass it on to the relevant licensing authority.
Dr Johnson
I am grateful to the Government for supporting the fantastic Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington. Women and girls in particular use taxis of an evening to get them home safely. They are used as a safety measure, so the work that my hon. Friend and the Minister are doing is extremely important. The Minister has talked about collaboration between different parts of England. This Bill applies only to England, because this is a devolved matter. Will she elaborate on what she is doing to ensure good collaboration between all four parts of the United Kingdom?
Trudy Harrison
This is indeed a devolved matter, but we very much hope that the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland learn from what we do here and are inspired by the work of Members from across the House. The priority is safety and accountability. The devolved Administration in Wales is already considering ways forward to protect the most vulnerable people. This Bill is an excellent step.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings has extensive experience in transport, and I absolutely agree with him on the importance of safety. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon referred to legislation, and there will be further legislation in due course. The Bill covers a defined aspect of the issue.
I welcome what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ilford South, said about not delaying this important change, and I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for the cross-party, collaborative way she has worked to tackle the challenges in her constituency. The work she has done will save many more women from further incidents.
Sir John Hayes
My hon. Friend is coming to her exciting peroration and I do not want to spoil that, but the issue of DBS checks is really important. There are more than 30 recommendations from Professor Abdel-Haq, all of which warrant close attention. Those that require legislation need to be taken forward. The recommendation on DBS checks says:
“All licensing authorities must require drivers to subscribe to the DBS update service and DBS checks should must be carried out at a minimum of every six months. Licensing authorities must use their existing power to mandate this ahead of inclusion as part of national standards.”
That point was emphasised and amplified by the hon. Member for Rotherham. It is critical. That could be done in addition to the excellent work that has been done by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington in bringing forward this Bill. Perhaps the Minister will—if it is not impolite to suggest a response to my query—go away and consider that.
Trudy Harrison
I will of course go away and consider that, and more importantly, we will work with colleagues in the Home Office. There has been some really important and concerning discussion about name changes in relation to DBS checks, and we are working on that issue with colleagues.
The Bill is an excellent step, and my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington has received support for it from across the House. I reiterate my thanks for the collaborative way in which we have got to this point. I look forward to following the Bill through its parliamentary stages.
Peter Gibson
This House is at its best when people work together, and this Committee has been a shining example of that co-operation and collaboration. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have been on this short Committee. This is a short but vital Bill, and I thank everyone for sharing their expertise.
The hon. Member for Rotherham has been a champion of reform in this area, and I pay tribute to her passionate work. The hon. Member for Cambridge, who I will designate the grandfather of the Bill, if I may, has been entirely co-operative throughout the process, and I thank him for his expertise and the care with which he has attended to the Committee’s proceedings. If the hon. Member for Cambridge is the grandfather of the Bill, then my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is its great-grandfather. I thank him for his help, assistance and guidance throughout.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon—my good friend—is the Bill’s great-uncle. As he rightly pointed out, Sian O’Callaghan tragically lost her life at the hands of a taxi driver. Sian’s family and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust have been incredibly supportive of the Bill. It would be a fitting tribute to Sian if the Bill were to become known as Sian’s law.
I also thank the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), for her guidance on and navigation of the maze that is a private Member’s Bill. She has been stalwart in her help and support. I also thank the Minister on her first appearance as Minister in Committee.
In conclusion, I record my thanks to those who work behind the scenes, including the officials at the Department for Transport, who have put in the legwork on the Bill, and our Clerk, Mr Mellows-Facer, who has been incredibly supportive over the past few months. I hope that all members of the Committee will see the Bill through today. I look forward to their joining me in the Chamber on 21 January for Third Reading.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 to 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
I endorse the words of the hon. Member for Darlington and congratulate him and all other Members who have played such an important part in getting the Bill to this point. I also congratulate the staff of the House and those outside who have been mentioned—they have played a significant part. This will be an important date for them. The hon. Gentleman is right that we are at our best when we work cross-party to get things done.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Westminster Hall
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Hospital Building Programme
(3 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also 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.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the hospital building programme.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I welcome the chance to discuss the Government’s £3.7 billion hospital building programme, and particularly welcome the opportunity to make the case to the Minister for my local hospital, Leighton, to be included as one of the final eight sites chosen by the Government.
Leighton Hospital was built in the 1970s, and officially opened by the Queen in 1972. I have looked back at the pictures of her visit, and it made me think about just how long Her Majesty has been serving our nation in this way—visiting, before I was even born, the hospital that serves my constituents today. At that time, Leighton Hospital represented a huge change in how healthcare was provided in the area, going on to pick up the role of several smaller hospitals spread across the patch. Its importance and role have only grown since then, serving a population that has increased significantly and now stands at more than 300,000 people.
Whether it is the hip and knee replacements it carries out, the babies it helps deliver, the thousands of cancer screening tests and treatments it undertakes, the cataracts it repairs, or the urgent GP and accident and emergency care it provides, Leighton is at the heart of our local health services. In an ordinary year, Leighton provides around a quarter of a million out-patient appointments, carries out more than 30,000 operations and more than 200,000 diagnostic imaging tests, and has more than 90,000 visits to its emergency department. Of course, none of that would be possible without its fantastic staff: Leighton employs more than 4,500 staff, and that fantastic team of cleaners, porters, cooks, receptionists, healthcare assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses, doctors, volunteers and many others is what turns a building into a hospital.
Those staff can be proud of their achievements in the battle against covid. Not only have they cared for covid patients, but they have also vaccinated 47,000 people under the leadership of their director of pharmacy, Karen Thomas. I had the absolute pleasure of volunteering alongside the staff during the first lockdown. I was quite uncomfortable with the media attention on me for doing this for only a short period of time, when those staff do it day in, day out without any fuss or attention.
As I have seen again and again during my time working in the NHS, its staff have an enormous amount of dedication, often going above and beyond, and are perhaps too accustomed to working in departments and environments that make doing a really good job more difficult than it should be. That is why, although we are talking about buildings today, it is important to highlight that—as others have said—we will only be able to make the most of new facilities if we are able to carry on with the success we have had so far in recruiting more staff.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a strong case for Leighton, and he will know that, as a former Member for his constituency, I was able to work with that hospital very closely. All four of my children were born at Leighton Hospital, which sits in my constituency, and I also spent a week working in that hospital and cannot praise its staff highly enough. I hope that this building programme will give those staff the environment they deserve in order to provide the healthcare we know they can deliver, which is world class.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Speaking as a neighbouring constituency MP whose family has also made great and beneficial use of Leighton over many years, I strongly support my hon. Friend’s campaign for additional resources and support for Leighton. I very much respect him for that effective campaign, which I know has strong support across our constituencies.
My hon. Friend has spoken about the number of people who seek services from Leighton at the present time. Does he agree that that number is not going to diminish: it is going to increase, due to the additional numbers of houses that are being built in our areas? I note, for example, Northwich, where there is a huge amount of house building on the former ICI site, Middlewich in my constituency and Sandbach. Altogether, in recent years, thousands of new houses have been built for people who will want to look for support from Leighton.
Dr Mullan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great things about the plans for the new site is that they take into account those future projected increases in population. I do not know what we will do if the resources are not there to do that.
Going back to staffing, we have more nurses and doctors and more staff overall working in the NHS than ever before, but it remains a huge undertaking for the Government to continue to work on recruitment and retention to staff new facilities. I know a lot of the media and campaigning by Opposition parties has focused on pay. While it is important, my experience is that fixing staff shortages would be the priority for most staff. The obstacles for further recruitment will not simply be solved by higher pay; the challenges are more complicated than that.
Of course, buildings and facilities matter, but we have to remember that the material used to build Leighton was expected to last only 30 years. It might seem odd to us now to create a major public facility with that sort of life span, but that is the reality.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is a neighbouring MP. A reference was made to Northwich in my constituency. This proposal certainly has cross-party support. I support the hon. Gentleman and all Cheshire MPs in arguing this case with the Minister in front of us for much-needed investment in a first-class hospital facility in our patch.
Dr Mullan
It is great to get cross-party support to demonstrate to the Minister how important it is to all our local communities. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.
As I was saying, the building was not designed to last this long or to serve the size of population that it serves. My view is clear that we can be more efficient and do more in the community, but an aging population will have an ever-increasing demand for healthcare. We can delay the need for the most specialist hospital care in a population, but we can almost never remove it and stop the demand increasing overall.
How has Leighton managed this challenge over recent years? Rightly, it has benefited from major investment, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) who is working closely with me on this campaign alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I remember his excellent work in helping to secure funding for brand new theatres and a brand new ITU.
My first campaign after becoming the candidate for Crewe and Nantwich was to reverse the decision to turn down a request for an emergency department extension, which was ultimately funded in 2019. More recently, Leighton received £15 million to build a brand-new emergency department. As the Government understand the necessity, Leighton has had funding to tackle the parts of the original building that are simply not fit for use in the short term. However, there comes a point where the costs of one-off investments, accumulated maintenance and the need to replace the original building structures become a cost that cannot be borne by the ordinary capital spending, and when a whole new building becomes the best option financially and for patient care. That is where Leighton is at.
The life span of the original building is coming to an end. I suggest to the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury that they view the funding committed to the hospital building programme as a unique opportunity to look at estates that are winding down towards the end of their life span and address that now.
Under the leadership of the chief executive officer, James Sumner, Leighton has done an enormous amount of work for many months to develop its plans for a new hospital. The team sought expert advice on the life span of the current estate and, importantly, the cost of maintaining it and to keep the existing original buildings in use. I know the Minister will scrutinise the figures and see for himself the financial sense in the case that has been made. Independent analysis demonstrates that the ongoing refurbishment of the present failing infrastructure over the next 15 years will cost substantially more than projected new build costs.
Importantly, the plans are ambitious in ensuring better healthcare is delivered in a better environment for patients and staff. As well as providing the mentioned much-needed bed capacity to meet the projected demand later in the decade, the new facilities will deliver single rooms to improve privacy, dignity and infection control. The new layout will incorporate the latest design advice for supporting patients with conditions such as dementia.
The site as a whole will be reorganised some of the long journeys from key locations, such as the emergency department, to other parts of the hospital that have grown as a result of sporadic development to date. They will future proof the hospital with the most up-to-date digital infrastructure which is becoming increasingly important for delivering the best possible care and doing so efficiently. A new site will enable Leighton to play its part in the race to net zero with more energy efficient buildings and solar power and even, potentially, a geothermal heat source, which is a technology I am campaigning for the Government to support to get off the ground across the country.
The team at Leighton have a track record of delivering improved and innovative care to back up their pledges. For example, the trust recently received an award for its same-day emergency care programme, led by surgeons David Corless and Ali Kazem. I am sure that, with improved facilities, they will continue to find new and better ways to care for their patients.
Edward Timpson
My hon. Friend has been extremely generous with his time. Will he also confirm that this project, if delivered, would save more than £400 million in backlog maintenance, as well as helping to free up a lot of the community care, which at the moment is under extreme pressure because of the lack of beds available at Leighton and in the surrounding area?
Dr Mullan
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is actually about saving money in the long term given the unavoidable costs at the existing site.
Of course, building the hospital will provide jobs and opportunities for local people, with apprentices at South Cheshire College and others well placed to take advantage in the parts of Crewe where employment and salaries are still not where we would want them to be. I know that the plans have the full support of my hon. Friends for Congleton and for Eddisbury. Leighton’s bid is also supported by both Cheshire West and Cheshire East, as our local authorities, and the Cheshire clinical commissioning group. There is also cross-party support with the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury).
The chair of our newly formed Crewe Town Board, Doug Kinsman, has been keen that the whole board support the proposal, and the rest of the board have seen how important Leighton is to Crewe, both economically and in improving the health and wellbeing of Crewe residents. Importantly, we have the support of those residents. So far, more than 1,000 people have signed our petition supporting the hospital in its efforts to make it into the final eight. The residents include Betty Church, whose daughter was born in the hospital the year it opened, 1972, and Steve Burnham, who explained that not only were three members of his family born there, but his mum worked there for 40 years.
I asked residents to tell me about their experiences and share why they were supporting the campaign. Janice Butler wrote:
“My husband, elderly mother-in-law and father-in-law have all received fantastic help and treatment here. The hospital serves a huge population now and help to improve and upgrade its facilities is desperately needed and has been for many years. Despite the huge pressures, we have experienced excellent help here.”
Susan Marsh wrote:
“I started work at Leighton in 1972 and worked there for 35 years. Since retiring I have been a patient there numerous times. It has changed in the care it delivers since my day, both numbers and treatments. With a new build it will be able to continue to grow along with the population in the area, which will be badly needed.”
I will finish with what a current staff member said about Leighton, both as somewhere to work and as somewhere their family received treatment. Sophie Morris has shared her perspective from what must have been a difficult time in her life, which makes her words even more powerful. She wrote:
“I have worked at Leighton A&E for 6 years now and over that time the demand on the hospital has increased massively. Our last few summers have been busier than most winters. Shortly after starting as a nurse in A&E, my husband became ill. We found out he had terminal throat cancer when I was 7 months pregnant. From beginning to end we had fantastic support and care from all over the hospital.
I think it says a lot about the place and the fabric that is the staff who work there, that I could carry on working in a place that holds so many raw memories. As a body of staff we work so hard to look after the people who come to us for help, now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us. Now we need some help so that we can provide the care that is demanded of us.”
I could not have put it better myself.
I know that the Minister will hear the case for investment in many other sites. He will need to consider all the applications carefully. I will work with residents to campaign for this much-needed investment, whatever the outcome of this opportunity, but I hope that I have left him in no doubt today that the case for Leighton to be included is a strong one and there is a whole community of people who want to see it succeed.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, as was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). This debate is enormously important. Hospitals are often the heart of our communities. The staff in our hospitals, whatever job they do, do a fantastic job, and it is right and proper that we pay tribute to them. But the environment that they work in is also vital to them.
To give a little history lesson from Hemel Hempstead and South West Hertfordshire, which is my part of the world, we had three hospitals—three acute hospitals—until just over 20 years ago when St Albans was closed as an acute hospital. The promise was made at the time that the emergency facility would be picked up by Hemel Hempstead and partly by Watford. That promise was made and then, sadly, Hemel Hempstead was closed—I am not going to get into party politics, but it was by the previous Administration—and we fought tooth and nail, as most constituency MPs would, to save it. Now we have partly elective surgery for non-emergency care at St Albans and I have a clinic—there is no other way I can describe it—at Hemel hospital. Three quarters, if not more, of my hospital is boarded up or vandalised on a site worth hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds.
I was thrilled—absolutely thrilled—when the Prime Minister announced at the general hospital in Watford, which is the only acute hospital we have left in our part of the world, that we were in the top six to get a brand-new hospital. That thrilled us not because we wanted suddenly to bring back our hospital—we understand the restrictions on doing so and what a modern hospital needs to provide for a community—but within hours of the Prime Minister announcing that we were in the top six and that there was the funding, unlike what it sounds as though the management did in my hon. Friend’s constituency, the management ruled out a new hospital on a greenfield site.
As for many of my colleagues, the population in my part of the world on the edge of London is booming. We have a thriving economy, and we have more jobs than we actually have people to fill them, even after the pandemic. The population is growing massively, and I have 20,000 homes coming to my own constituency in the next 15 years. The logic of not building a new hospital on an available greenfield site is confusing to everybody, especially to those who know that Watford hospital is a Victorian hospital next to the Watford Football Club ground in the middle of a Victorian town. All we have been offered is a refurbishment of Watford and a running down even more of the Hemel site.
What fascinates me is that the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust seems to be completely unaccountable to the politicians who are giving them the money to look after care in our constituencies. I know that the Health and Care Bill going through Parliament at the moment is going to address that going forwards, but it does not address the historical problem going backwards. The trust spent millions of pounds proving that we cannot have a new hospital on a greenfield site, rather than actually spending some of its consultancy money proving that we could have it on a greenfield site.
My constituents had been campaigning to save the Hemel hospital long before I was around, and there is cross-party support in our part of the world for saying, “Watford is not the right place, and it is not a new hospital. It is a refurbished hospital in completely the wrong place. Please see sense.” I fully understand that Watford constituents are worried they might lose their hospital, but they will not lose it because nothing is going to close until the new one opens. However, we have already lost ours, and the largest town in Hertfordshire has a clinic, with proposals for no intermediate care beds whatsoever and with pathology being taken away as we speak.
The point I want to make to the Minister is that, when we look at the bids that come in, we have to be careful that trusts have done what they were supposed to do, which is to look at the best possible options for the community they are supposed to serve, in the same way that we are serving them, rather than be blindfolded by the situation. In my case, the trust seems fixated with one site in the middle of a town and next to a football stadium, which by anybody’s logic would seem to be ludicrous.
I wish Watford every success—they may well stay up again this season. I am not a Watford fan, although most of my constituents are. I am sad to say I am a Spurs supporter, and that comes with a lot of problems, as we know. However, when Watford play at home, there is a massive knock-on effect on the hospital next door. Believe it or not, but the trust gives up some of its parking spaces to the football club, which is an historical agreement.
I can give an instance of when an ambulance was turned away from the route it would normally take into the hospital because Watford were playing at home. I am not blaming Watford and I am not blaming the police for this; it is just a logistical problem. The ambulance was turned away and sent on a different route as the road was closed because of the home game. I said to the police officer in charge, “If one of your officers had been injured, what would you have done? Would you have allowed that ambulance through?” He said, “Of course, we would have done.” The guy in the back of the ambulance that was trying to get to hospital had had a heart attack; fortunately he survived.
That is the sort of illogical thinking that is going on in some of the trusts, though clearly not in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich. In my trust, its unaccountability to do what is right for the people it serves seems to be blindfolded. I politely ask the Minister, as he knows I have been pushing on this for more years than I can remember, please do not trust the management of my trust to give the full information. We want a new hospital on a greenfield site. I have letters showing that there is £590 million available for that, but not for refurbishment.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on securing this important debate on the new hospitals building programme. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to 48 new hospitals and the funding that was included in the spending review.
My local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, serves 300,000 people across Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, and is in dire need of modernisation. QEH is one of the best-buy hospitals that have proved to be anything but. It is more than a decade beyond its planned life span and has real issues with planks of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—that are structurally deficient.
The Standing Committee on Structural Safety issued an alert regarding RAAC planks two years ago, having first warned in 1999 of problems with them. That warning came after the collapse of a school roof. As much as 80% of QEH’s decaying and ageing estate is RAAC-planked; it is the most propped hospital in the country, which is nothing to boast about, with more than 200 props supporting the cracking roof in more than 50 areas across the hospital. The trust’s risk register has a red rating, with a direct risk to life and safety of patients, visitors and staff, due to the potential catastrophic failure of the roof structure. The critical care unit had to close for two weeks earlier this year as a result, while mitigation measures were put in place.
Although the trust is managing that risk, and the £20 million provided by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Minister for some of the most immediate issues is very welcome, the funding is but a sticking-plaster for the problem. The Minister knows he has an invitation to come and look at the modular endoscopy unit that is being constructed to allow the decant and fixing of fail-safes. As well as the very real structural issues, the layout of the hospital does not meet modern care pathways. There are too few consulting rooms, there is poor co-location of services and there are wards less than half the size of national guidance. That impacts on both patient experience and infection control.
In short, the hospital needs to be replaced. There is a once in a generation opportunity to fix this and a compelling case for QEH to be one of the new eight schemes for which the Government are currently holding a competition. The Queen Elizabeth Trust has submitted an expression of interest for a single-phase new build that will meet current and future demand, with many thousands of homes planned in the area. The need is strong; QEH covers areas of deprivation, with poor health outcomes, and is in the Government’s priority areas for levelling up.
The plans put forward by the trust will eliminate RAAC from the hospital, but it is not just about replacing defective buildings. It is also an opportunity to transform and modernise local health care, integrating primary, community, mental health, acute, social care and third sectors in a health and wellbeing village. It will also promote sustainability, using modern methods of construction and net-zero principles, incorporating the digital-first approach.
The project is well advanced and highly deliverable, with a strategic outline case well developed. It is backed by 4,000 staff at the hospital, and more than 15,000 people have signed a petition in support. The borough and county councils are on board, the regional NHS and at least seven right hon. and hon. Members whose constituents are served by the Queen Elizabeth. An acute hospital is essential in the area and the plans would deliver major improvements in care, patient outcomes and staff experience. An alternative multi-phased plan has also been submitted, although that would not deliver the same benefits or value for money.
Now is the opportunity to deliver a new hospital and support the trust’s strategy to be rated “good”, then “outstanding”, and to be the best rural district general hospital in the country. The Department of Health and Social Care has already committed to the removal of RAAC from the estate, and its risk will only continue to worsen. By including QEH in the new hospital programme, the inevitable need for replacement will become a funded programme, rather than an unplanned demand repeatedly requiring emergency capital funding. The people of North West Norfolk and beyond deserve nothing less.
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on securing this important debate. I am glad to speak once again in this place about my campaign for a new Airedale hospital in my constituency. I have raised the subject in Westminster and met the Minister on several occasions.
To set the scene about why we need a new, rebuilt Airedale hospital, similarly to the case that has just been made, my hospital suffers immensely from aerated concrete. The hospital opened in the 1970s, construction having started in the 1960s. Although the hospital’s original life expectancy was 30 years, we are now in its 51st year. The 1960s design sadly leaves a huge legacy of structural failings. Some 83% of the hospital is constructed from aerated concrete, which is in the roof, floors and ceilings. In total there are 50,000 aerated concrete panels in the hospital—five times more than any other hospital affected by that issue.
Aerated concrete is not the only unfortunate hangover from 1960s hospital design. The Airedale is also the largest flat-roofed hospital of any NHS asset in the country and, given that my constituency has some of the wettest weather in the UK, that leads to severe leakage. Unfortunately, the Airedale has more recorded leaks than any other hospital in the UK. Since being elected I have made several visits to the hospital, including up to the roof, where I have seen these issues for myself. I have also been shown parts of the hospital that are closed to the public to mitigate the risks from the aerated concrete and the flat roof.
Aerated concrete panels, such as those found in Airedale hospital, are prone to fail when deflections are recorded between 50 mm and 90 mm. More and more panels are constantly getting to this risk deflection. To put it bluntly, if swift action is not taken then the possibility of a collapse within the structure of the Airedale will constantly rise. We only need look back to 2019, when a school roof unfortunately collapsed because it had been constructed from aerated concrete. Such a collapse would be unthinkable, which is why we need to take swift action.
The Airedale trust has informed me that if it were to experience a closure, even a temporary one, then 45,000 referrals to treatment, 60,000 diagnostic tests, including MRI scans and ultrasound therapy treatments, and 2,000 maternity deliveries would be affected. That cannot arise and I cannot stress how important it is that it is avoided. I firmly believe that that can only be done by delivering a new Airedale hospital.
The catchment area for Airedale hospital covers a huge rural area. I have the full support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) and my hon. Friends the Members for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), all of whose constituents use the Airedale hospital alongside mine. We also have to look at the wider area. The local authority has proposed plans for 3,000 new houses to be built in my area alone, which will add pressure on existing hospital services.
It is fantastic that the Government have announced that there will be a further eight new hospitals, on top of the 40 already announced. I was proud to see that in September the Airedale trust submitted its bid for one of those final places. It is an ambitious bid, detailed and affordable. The plans are convenient, in that they will not disrupt the current workings of the Airedale and are following a fully strategic outlined case.
A full appraisal recommended that the most cost-effective and future-proofed solution would be a new Airedale hospital on the grounds already owned by the trust. Indeed, the trust owns 43 acres of land and can build a new hospital while keeping existing operations until a transfer to the new build. The plans have a strong environmental case and outline the Airedale trust’s vision to be Europe’s first carbon-neutral and fully digitally enabled hospital, with the capability to generate renewable energy on site.
May I once again request a visit to Airedale hospital by my hon. Friend the Minister? I want to raise again the urgency of the case, as I did last week in the main Chamber to the Prime Minister. The Airedale needs and deserves a rebuild, and I will continue to do everything that I can to stand up for my constituents and press the case.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) for securing the debate.
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown health inequalities in this country into stark relief. Those living in the poorest constituencies of England and Wales have been twice as likely to die from the virus as those in more prosperous constituencies. Figures from the Office for National Statistics covering March to May 2020 show that those living in the poorest 10% of England, which includes my constituency of Hartlepool, died at a rate of 128.3 per 100,000, whereas in the wealthiest 10% the rate was 58.8 per 100,000.
Any death in any part of the country is a tragedy, but such grotesque levels of health inequality cannot be allowed to continue in the world’s fifth-richest country. That is why I fully support the bid by the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust for a new hospital by 2030 to replace the current North Tees hospital in Stockton—another hospital crumbling with concrete cancer that has outlived its life span, and facing huge remedial costs.
The replacement hospital must be built in an equitable location for all residents north of the Tees, and I have a site available in my constituency—one of the most deprived areas of the UK, where health inequalities have been most apparent. The number of people suffering from a range of health problems is consistently higher in Hartlepool than the England average. Those include cancer, depression, asthma, obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure. As a result, life expectancy in Hartlepool is significantly and regrettably below the national average. If the Government are serious about tackling health inequality in the UK, they must start in Hartlepool.
Despite the sheer scale of deprivation and health inequality in my constituency, healthcare services in Hartlepool have not been expanding over the past decade, but shrinking. My constituents are often required to travel to the currently crumbling North Tees hospital in Stockton for urgent or specialist treatment. For example, owing to the lack of a doctor-led maternity ward in Hartlepool, mothers-to-be in my constituency must travel 20 miles in labour to the nearest hospital if there are potential complications, which, sadly, commonly occur with the prevailing underlying health conditions in my community. During the birth of their baby, mothers have to undertake that terrible journey to a hospital that is crumbling. A child’s first experience of this world should not be health inequality.
I appreciate that the coronavirus pandemic has placed unprecedented pressures on healthcare services in this country and I welcome the record levels of investment that the Government are injecting into the NHS to tackle waiting lists and treatment backlogs, but I fear that will not be enough to reverse decades of neglect and indifference on the part of my predecessors. Only a new hospital can do that. Levelling up must mean more than simple investment in transport and general infrastructure. Levelling up life expectancy across the country should be a priority. Plans must be put in place now to abolish health inequality in the UK and to ensure that our ability to live a good and decent life is not determined by an arbitrary postcode lottery.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Sharma. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on securing the debate. He is absolutely right to say that our hospitals are the centre of our communities. That is absolutely the case in my constituency of Basingstoke. Of course, care is provided by our doctors, our nurses and all the staff involved in running the hospital, but it is also one of my largest local employers. I congratulate the Minister, who I am pleased to see still in his place, on all the work he is doing to ensure that the Government’s commitments to build 40 new hospitals by 2030, the other eight previously committed to and upgrades to more than 70 hospitals, are being progressed as fast as they can be.
My hospital is a similar age to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich. Like his, Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital was built to last 30 years, back in the 1970s. The backlog of maintenance reflects the fact that it should have been replaced many years ago. Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, an excellent trust that serves my community, was already well advanced with plans for a new hospital when the Government also identified that the current hospital needed replacing and included it in the renewal programme.
Basingstoke hospital has served our community extremely well since the 1970s, but the buildings are reaching the end of their useful life, for many of the reasons that Members have gone through. Those buildings were not built to last any longer. Furthermore, estimates show that the population that is served by the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will increase by around 23% between 2018 and 2050. Unlike many areas of the country, Basingstoke has continued to build houses not just for the last two decades but for the last four decades. We have grown extraordinarily as a town over that time, served by the same hospital. Our population is therefore rapidly ageing, with all the implications that brings for our health services. Our over-75s population in Hampshire will have increased by a shocking 35% between 2017 and 2024. I should not be surprised about that, given the level of house building.
So many of the people who moved to Basingstoke when it rapidly expanded in the 1960s and 1970s are reaching an age where they are much more reliant on the health services available. The Government need to make sure that they follow through not only on more recent commitments to building houses, particularly in the south-east, but on the commitments that date back many decades, when people were encouraged from London out to places such as Basingstoke. That is an ageing population, and the Government need to ensure that the right facilities are in place for that much bigger population.
I am fortunate in Basingstoke that all the organisations involved in planning for the new hospital are working together in exemplary fashion, through an organisation that has been formed called Hampshire Together, which is all about modernising our hospitals and health services. That organisation firmly welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcements in October that all NHS trusts that receive seed funding to develop a business case for a new hospital project as part of phase 2 of the health infrastructure plan 2 programme, including Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, will be fully funded to deliver those by 2030.
The trust was especially pleased to note that Hampshire Together had been earmarked for inclusion in first group of HIP2 projects due for completion. The trust’s plans are well-developed with a preferred site, which the Minister already knows a little about, at junction 7 on the M3, which has been identified by the ambulance services as the best location to save more lives, providing acute care for hundreds of thousands of people living in the rapidly expanding communities in north and mid Hampshire. The planning authorities of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Hampshire County Council are working actively and positively together, and Hampshire hospitals have been working to put together their business case and have forwarded their cases to the Department. They are very much looking forward to putting those cases out to public consultation as soon as possible.
Because our house building has been so rapid in Basingstoke throughout the 50 years that our hospital has been in existence, there is a need for a new hospital now. We would value a commitment from the Minister on the timelines and the next round of seed funding, so that we can continue to develop the business case and will be able to start building from 2025. I also renew my offer for the Minister to visit Basingstoke to see the site that we have already earmarked for the construction of the hospital. It is a greenfield site, so that residents’ enjoyment of the hospital facilities will not be disrupted during the building process.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Sharma. I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) on securing the debate. As a fellow Cheshire Member, our paths will no doubt cross as we get involved in the megalithic integrated care system that covers our area, and it is good to see healthy representation from Cheshire Members, which shows the interest and passion that we have for improved health services in our area. He mentioned that he volunteered to use his medical skills on the frontline during the pandemic, and we thank him for his efforts, just as we thank everyone who contributed to the fight against covid, be it in the NHS, in social care or in any of the other many sectors that played their part. We recognise and value the commitment that was made by so many people over such a long period of time.
As the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich set out, hospitals are more than the buildings themselves. It is the staff who make hospitals, and he brought that to the fore in his comments. He said that the site of Leighton Hospital has exceeded its original lifespan—I think it is as old as I am, which is a concern. Hopefully, I will not be up for a rebuild any time soon. It was a common theme of contributions to the debate that a lot of the buildings in Members’ constituencies have reached the end of their natural lifespans. It would be useful to hear from the Minister whether any assessment has been made of how many hospital buildings, and buildings across the wider NHS, have already exceeded their original lifespans. The hon. Gentleman made a compelling case for why a new hospital needs to be built in Crewe, and he mentioned that the local population has grown considerably.
Mike Amesbury
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. Of course, Leighton Hospital is part of the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which also includes Victoria Infirmary in Northwich. This would be a real opportunity to capture investment across the campuses, which serve a number of our constituents, and I would certainly welcome my hon. Friend’s support on that. As a Cheshire MP, it would certainly be very welcome indeed.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend probably needs to direct his pleas to the Minister more than me—at this stage, of course—but I would be delighted to visit the facility with him. I am sure that he will make a strong case for investment, as other Members have done. There is an issue with how the interplay works between some of the competing bids for what is obviously a very competitive process, which I will return to later. Like the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) has shown that there is cross-party support for the case for a new hospital that was made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, who also set out why this is good for patients. He talked about some of the issues around privacy, dignity and infection control, and he said that a new build gives us an opportunity to invest in modern digital infrastructure. Of course, he also mentioned important stuff to do with COP26 and the energy efficiency of a new build. Those were all well-made points.
We also heard from the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who made a persuasive and passionate case as to why the current plans need to be reconsidered. He made a very interesting point about the accountability of trusts. He is probably not aware that the Minister and I have been debating this issue in Committee for a number of weeks, and it is fair to say that we have differing views as to how accountable the current system is and whether it will actually change at all when the Health and Care Bill receives Royal Assent. There is an issue with how large trusts have their own priorities, which are not necessarily in tune with the rest of the wider population and healthcare system.
The hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) made a very strong case for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn; he highlighted the critical nature of the maintenance issues there, which are clearly having an effect on patient care now. The Minister will not be surprised to know that I will be referring to the maintenance backlog during my comments today. The hon. Member also set out very well how new builds can not only improve infection control, but enhance the patient experience. We should always remember that the patient journey is central to these things. A new hospital always has to have the interests of patients, and their perspective, at the heart of its plans.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) made a strong case for why a new hospital is needed in Airedale. Again, it is a building that is past its original lifespan; it has critical infrastructure issues. Describing it as the “leakiest hospital is the UK” is not something the hon. Member will want to repeat for much longer. It shows again that many of these issues have been building up for some time.
I was very interested in what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) said about health inequalities; it was an important point, and perhaps a broader one than some of the others that have been made. She is absolutely right that the pandemic has shone a light on the existing health inequalities in this country. I agree that if we are serious about levelling up, reducing health inequalities has to be central to any policy.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) made a compelling case about how investment is needed for her new hospital, and how the change and growth in local population has created additional demand. It is an important point that, because of the way that her town has built up, there is more demand from an increasingly ageing population.
All the Members have made very good cases today; if it was based on the commitment and passion of individual Members, the Minister’s job would be quite straightforward. However, I know there will be many other demands on the departmental budget. There is a serious point here. We need to have transparency on the criteria that will be applied when the decisions are made. It would be fair to say, if we look at levelling-up bids, there has been some consternation that the decisions are not always made on the merits of the case. It is important that the Department is crystal clear on why particular projects are getting the go-ahead, and why others may have to wait a little longer.
I am sure that the Minister would be disappointed if I did not make a reference to whether the Prime Minister’s claim to be building 48 new hospitals is in fact an accurate one. We take with a large pinch of salt the definitions from the Department’s playbook that the following count as a new hospital: they say this includes
“a new wing of an existing hospital (provided it contains a whole clinical service, such as maternity or children’s services).”
They also say this includes
“A major refurbishment and alteration of all but the building frame or main structure, delivering a significant extension to useful life which includes major or visible changes to the external structure.”
That may well be investment in buildings—which is of course welcome—but it stretches credibility to say that those are new hospitals. I will not repeat the whole debate again on whether those descriptions can be classed as new hospitals, except to say that the Minister will no doubt rely on his VAT notices to reach that figure of 48: we will rely on the good sense of the British public to judge whether a new hospital is indeed a new hospital. When we get to 2030, we will see how many new hospitals we actually have—although it is possible that both the Minister and I will have moved on by that point.
Let us return to the present day, move away from the headlines and the spin, and ask some specific questions about the programme. I will start with the cost issue. It is my understanding that the projects identified in phase 1 have been promised a total of £2.7 billion, although some reports suggest that a £400 million price cap is being applied to each scheme, even though some of the published plans for those schemes have exceeded that limit already. Could the Minister comment on whether there is in fact an upper cash limit on particular projects, and whether it is indeed £400 million?
Almost exactly a month ago, the Prime Minister made an announcement on round 2 of the health infrastructure plan, in which, incidentally, only three out of the 25 hospitals are in the whole of the north of England. I think that says something about the Government’s commitment to levelling up and bolsters the case made by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich to push forward for a new building in Crewe. Could the Minister advise what period and how much of the total programme the £3.7 billion mentioned in that announcement covers? Could the Minister also advise if the £4.2 billion, announced in the spending review last week in relation to new hospitals, is the same money as the Prime Minister announced on 2 October or is in addition to that? If it is additional, what period does that £4.2 billion cover? We want a little clarity on how much has actually been allocated and the period that it covers. I am sure the Minister realises that, even if we add up all those figures, it would not be the total cost of all those projects moving forward to 2030.
We have had three separate announcements over the last year. I make that point because the foreword to the health infrastructure plan talks about ending the “piecemeal and uncoordinated approach”. We have an investment plan spanning a decade, but the necessary investment has been announced for only the first half of that decade, at best, to come out in dribs and drabs. I suggest that the Minister might need to read the foreword to the plan again to see whether the ambitions set out there are being met.
NHS Providers has said that the actual cost of the planned building projects would be around £20 billion, most of which will need to be found in the next few years. Even building an average-sized new hospital costs around £500 million, which rather puts the spotlight on the supposed £400 million cost limit I referred to earlier. I wonder if the Minister could put a total cost—
Sir Mike Penning
I think we have to be slightly careful when referring to costs such as that £500 million. Built into that is inflation, because of the way the Green Book works, because of the risk. I had to deal with this on the roads programme as roads Minister: what happens is that a figure is set out, but it is not the same as the actual cost of the build project. That is probably where some of that cost anomaly comes from. The Treasury Green Book insists on inflation of that price when the build price is much lower; in my case, £500 million was £420 million in the Birmingham build. We have to be careful of trusts that do not want to do that; for example, my trust—the West Hertfordshire Hospitals trust—inflates the cost into £600 million because it does not want to do it.
Justin Madders
I will reflect on the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. That leads on to another point I wanted to raise with the Minister: we are aware that the economy is currently in something of a flux in a whole range of sectors, in terms of finding the right people and the right skills, and construction is not immune to that. Do the plans include any wiggle room to take account of the fact that the cost of labour and materials is unfortunately going up quite rapidly at the moment?
NHS Providers said that
“there are still significant questions on whether the NHS will be able to meet the government's manifesto pledge to upgrade 70 hospitals and build 40 new ones given the lack of clear, long term, funding commitments beyond 2024/25.”
It also said that it awaits
“confirmation of the money that will be available to providers to tackle the £9.2bn maintenance backlog that has built up.”
The Minister will know that that has shot up in recent years, leading to cancelled operations and a 23% increase in treatments being delayed or cancelled in the last year because of infrastructure failures, and yet we are hearing very little on what is being done about that. I think the hon. Member for Eddisbury mentioned something in the region of £400 million being identified as the maintenance backlog costs at Leighton Hospital alone. We have also heard from other Members on infrastructure issues causing difficulties in their own trusts.
These problems are not new; they are the result of a decade of underfunding on both capital and revenue, with the Health Foundation reporting that
“the UK is investing significantly less in health care capital as a share of GDP compared with most other similar European countries.”
Of course, we have also seen frequent revenue raids on capital in the last few years. If these plans are to be successful, those raids must stop. I hope the Minister will be able to guarantee that there will be no revenue raids on capital for this programme in the next decade. I would also be grateful if he could set out the Department’s plan to tackle the maintenance backlog.
A few moments ago, I mentioned the interplay between large infrastructure projects and other capital requirements at a system level, particularly around how we get capital investment into primary and community care. Taking my own patch, Ellesmere Port, which I know best, we have several GP premises in the town centre that are past their best—past their useful life, perhaps—they are not really suitable in these covid-conscious times. We are not short of more modern, available premises in the town centre, where there might even be greater potential for integration with other services
However, these projects take time and money, and some decision must be taken at a system level to prioritise them. I think that would be an important step forward for improving access in my community and dealing with some of the health inequalities we have talked about. I recognise that sometimes it is a fact of life that the bigger players—the acute trusts—will always be higher profile than individual practices for attracting funds and investment. In many ways, this is an echo of the debate that the Minister and I have had in recent weeks on the Health and Care Bill Committee. I mention it again because, particularly with capital investment, there is a danger that primary and community services will struggle to have their voices heard against some of the bigger players in an extremely large integrated care system.
I will end with a few comments from stakeholders regarding the Chancellor’s statement last week. The King’s Fund said that
“the real game changer would have been clear funding for a workforce plan. Chronic workforce shortages across the health and care system heap further pressure on overstretched staff who are exhausted from the pandemic. Yet despite pledges, promises and manifesto commitments, the government has failed to use this Spending Review to answer the question of how it will chart a path out of the staffing crisis by setting out the funding for a multi-year workforce strategy.”
The Health Foundation said that
“new money for technology and buildings, although vital, is of limited value without additional staff. A workforce plan backed by investment in training are critical and we await details of both so that the NHS’s recovery can be secured.”
The Nuffield Trust said:
“It is striking that there is a lack of strategic workforce investment alongside this boost in funding for facilities. Staffing is recognised as the number one issue for the sustainability of the health service. Recovery from the pandemic not only rests on investment but on hard-working staff as well.”
Finally, the NHS Confederation said that
“to ensure the extra money delivers for the public, a strong and supported NHS workforce is needed. This is why training and increasing the supply of doctors, nurses and other health and care professionals is so important at a time when public polling recognizes that staffing is the biggest problem facing the NHS.”
While we welcome the investment in new buildings, we hope that none end up being a white elephant, because the elephant in the room is that we could find ourselves in the remarkable position by 2030 that brand new hospitals, extensions, or refurbishments are delivered, but are not fully operational because of a failure over the preceding decade to tackle the workforce crisis. That is here and now, and it needs to be tackled in the short, medium and long term. That is the final plea I make to the Minister: these investments are welcome, but we must ensure that we have a plan so that these buildings are fully staffed when they are up and running.
Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Before I ask the Minister to contribute, I will just say that I will be joining that long queue very soon to lobby for Ealing Hospital’s future, but not this morning.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
I am very grateful to you, Mr Sharma; that was a deft and adept use of the Chair. It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I pay particular attention and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) for securing this debate. The case that he makes for Leighton Hospital has cross-party support, as we have seen, including from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and, indeed, from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). This has been a cross-party and very well-tempered debate, and as ever I am grateful to the shadow Minister for the tenor and tone of his comments. We have spent the past couple of months sitting opposite each other in a Bill Committee, which reported yesterday. Clearly, so shocked were we at the prospect of not continuing to sit opposite each other, here we are in Westminster Hall this morning.
I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for her kind words in highlighting the fact that I am still in this role. In the same vein, I should say that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston is still in his role, having served as shadow Minister even longer than I have served in my role. There is some value in that, because too often in this place we see a very rapid churn of Ministers and shadow Ministers. Issues such as those we are grappling with today need, by their very nature, a long-term view and a long-term understanding.
I join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, not only for introducing this debate but for his work on the frontline. He was typically humble about that work, but his contribution was significant and he should be proud of it. He quite rightly paid tribute to all of those in our health and care system, as we all should—and should continue to do—for the work that they have done; not only the work they have done throughout the pandemic, which has been incredibly challenging, but the work they do every day, year in and year out, on the frontline to help to keep our constituents safe.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of the topic that we are debating today. Buildings are hugely important. They give our clinicians, our frontline staff and our ancillary staff the context or the environment in which they can do their best. Therapeutics, research, new diagnostic kit, technology: all these things are hugely important because, as the shadow Minister alluded to, they allow the beating heart of our NHS—the workforce; the people—to do their job, and who, for want of a better way of putting it, make the magic happen in those environments. It is incumbent on us to give them that environment and these tools, so that they can do their best.
Various right hon. and hon. Members have highlighted the context in which we approach this debate. Many areas are undergoing significant development, growth in housing and increases in demand. There are demographic changes, with ageing populations in some areas needing increased hospital facilities.
Coupled with that, the context was set out again by many right hon. and hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), who spoke about the state of the estate, for want of a better way of putting it. There are hospitals that have, in a sense, served for far longer than they were designed to serve. They have been kept going, but that poses challenges, not just with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or RAAC, planks, which I will turn to in a moment, but operationally with the task of running them, given the day-to-day choices that clinicians and managers have to make to put fixes in place, so that they can continue to provide services.
The shadow Minister asked several questions. I will address one or two of them now, then come on to the others later. He talked about the workforce, whom I have just mentioned. I say to him that the number of doctors is up, the number of nurses is up, and the number of radiographers and radiologists is up since 2010. We have continued to grow our NHS workforce. Do we need to continue to do more to do that? Of course we do. That is why the Government are committed to, for example, the 50,000 more nurses that was a manifesto commitment, and we are on course to deliver that by the end of this Parliament.
We need to be conscious, and I know that the shadow Minister is, that as we talk, for example, about elective recovery and getting waiting lists and waiting times down, we need to be honest with our electors and the British public that that is a huge job that will take time. That is because the workforce who will deliver those things are the same workforce who have been through the pandemic, and they need time to recover, emotionally and physically, from what they have had to do over the past year and a half. Often, we hear some commentators saying, “Ah, yes, but some were in the ICU wards, or in A&E, and a lot of others wouldn’t have been on the frontline.” Well, the reality is that, for example, surgeons who may not have been operating on their usual lists will have gone back to the wards to assist their colleagues, and we know that a team is needed to perform surgery. The anaesthetists will certainly have been working flat out during the pandemic, as will the theatre nurses, so we need to ensure, as we deliver our recovery plan for the NHS, that we give the workforce the support they need to recover.
Let me turn to the specifics of the programme. My hon. Friends the Members for Crewe and Nantwich, for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), and the hon. Member for Weaver Vale all made, as one would expect, a passionate, well-informed and cogent case for investment in a new hospital at Leighton. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich will not be surprised when I say that the expressions of interest period has closed. The expressions of interest are all being considered carefully and a decision will be made next spring on the long list to whittle them down, with further work to determine the final eight. I therefore hope that he will allow me not to be drawn on the specifics of the merits or otherwise of his case while that process is under way, but as ever he makes a strong and powerful case on behalf of his constituents.
In the context of the next eight, the shadow Minister asked about criteria and how the process would take place. That is set out and published on the programme website, but the key considerations are these. Does a scheme or proposal have the potential significantly to transform and improve the quality and quantity of care available to a community? Is there a safety or other pressing need that has to be addressed in the system? Equally, we will be looking to achieve a degree of geographical spread to ensure equity and fairness—levelling up. With any of these schemes, as hon. Members would expect, we will look at whether the proposals are clear and can be delivered on budget, and whether there is the capacity and capability to deliver on them.
Mike Amesbury
One such scheme, for which I and my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for Halton (Derek Twigg) and the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) have been campaigning, is two campuses for Warrington and Halton trust. They seem to meet those criteria, so I look forward to an assessment and conclusion in the not too distant future.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who quite rightly never misses an opportunity to champion his constituents’ interests.
Hon. Members will be aware that the interest around the country is significant. A significant number of expressions of interest have been submitted, so whittling them down will be a competitive and challenging process, but we undertake to be as clear and transparent about that as we can be. I suspect that, when the final list is announced, if I do not come to the House with a statement, the shadow Minister may well UQ me, to give colleagues an opportunity to say they are very pleased or to ask why their hospital is not on the list.
Let me turn to points made by other hon. and right hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) will not be surprised that I will not be drawn on the specifics of the internal politics and the plans for his trust at this point. However, he quite rightly made the extremely important point that when trusts develop their plans and bring them forward, they need to carry the communities they serve with them and genuinely reflect on stakeholder input from elected Members and others, rather than—I am not saying that this is or is not the case with this trust—automatically having a preconceived idea of what the right answer is.
Sir Mike Penning
The Minister might not be willing to say that my trust has preconceived the decisions it was going to make; I will, because it made its mind up long before the latest announcement. However, we are in a slightly different position from other colleagues here. We are in HIP 1—part 1 of the health infrastructure plan—and we do not want that money to be wasted. We do not want a sticking plaster; we do not want a refurbishment in the middle of Watford. The community in my part of the world is absolutely solid on that, and if that meant that we slipped out of HIP 1 into HIP 2—I will put my neck on the block—I would be happy with that, as long as we get the right facility on a greenfield site, rather than the wrong facility as a refurbishment in the middle of Watford next to a football ground.
Edward Argar
I did not regret giving way to my right hon. Friend quite as much as I feared I might, although he may yet come back to me. As ever, he makes his point powerfully and clearly, and I suspect that, as well as my having heard it, his trust will also have heard it.
As the shadow Minister said, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) made broader points, in addition to points about her local hospital and trust, about health inequalities and the role that the right infrastructure and staff—the right people in the right place—can play in tackling that. I have to pay tribute to her. Within a day of her arriving in this place following her fantastic by-election victory, she had pinned me down so she could come and see me and talk about Hartlepool and health services there. Her constituents are extremely lucky to have her. She hit the ground running and has not stopped working since on behalf of her constituents.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and I, as she alluded to, have spoken a number of times about her trust. How can I not accept her kind offer of going to the site and seeing her in her constituency? I have known her for a long time, so it is a pleasure to say yes. I would like to go there and do that, then perhaps we can discuss the plans further. She and I have met on several occasions. She is a great champion for the new hospital in her area, so I am grateful for the invitation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley—I almost said “my hon. Friend the Member for Airedale”, given the frequency with which, he raises and champions in the House at every opportunity the need for a new hospital at Airedale—is right to highlight the challenges that his trust faces, as he has done on many occasions, particularly in the context not only of the needs of his population, the challenges of an old building that has long exceeded its intended lifetime, but also the RAAC plank issue. I know that his trust is keen to be one of the eight. I will only say to him, I am afraid, what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, which is that the bids will be considered very carefully. I know that he will continue making the case, as he has done in the past.
Edward Argar
I will give way briefly to my hon. Friend, then I will turn to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild).
Robbie Moore
Can the Minister clarify how the final eight will be decided and will structural risk profile be a key consideration?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend, quite wisely, presses his advantage. I can give him some reassurance on that, as I did to the shadow Minister when talking about the criteria, that safety and risk will not be the only criterion, but that will be a key factor in the consideration.
I turn now to the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk. The other day in the Chamber, I inadvertently paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) for the work being done by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk in one of my responses. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for North West Norfolk, who has quite rightly raised with me on several occasions the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn and the challenges posed by RAAC planks there. I know he is campaigning both in Parliament and locally on that issue. Courtesy of him, I have met his trust in the past and we have provided more than £20 million in this financial year for critical risk remediation. I know that, quite understandably, my hon. Friend is saying very clearly that that is welcome and will help, but it will not solve the problem. He will continue to press the case for a new hospital. He, too, has kindly invited me to his constituency, so I think I am due to go on tour around the country at some point, visiting various hospitals and colleagues.
Turning to some of the broader underlying themes that have emerged in the debate, I will seek to answer some of the questions posed by the shadow Minister. He gently tempted me on definitions. I am clear that the definitions we have—the three key elements he alluded to—not only pass the common-sense test and the understanding of what the reasonable person in the street would consider a new hospital. Equally, he teased me gently about VAT notice 708. I mentioned that at the Dispatch Box because—he says that we should be transparent and have a logical reason for how we define, do and choose things—our starting point was that there can be a VAT exemption for new builds, but not necessarily for refurbishment. I took that as a starting point for developing the common-sense definition. A lot of what he sees in the definitions is reflected in the same one used there, so there is consistency.
The shadow Minister talked about skills and inflation and whether we will have the people to build the hospitals. He is right to do that, because, as we have seen following the bounce back after the pandemic, builders and construction firms are very much in demand. There is pressure on materials as well, not just inflationary pressure, but on quantities. That is one of the reasons why, even before the impact of the pandemic, this is a phased programme. These hospitals will be built over a period of years up to 2030, allowing for market capacity.
Equally, one of the reasons why we have set out this long-term plan is so that we can make the market aware of what our plans are. If there is certainty in the market that the hospitals will be coming through, we will see firms investing, because they know there is potential for long-term business and work for them. That is one of the ways in which we have helped to handle that.
The shadow Minister asked about funding, and what would be available for what period. He will be aware of the initial £3.7 billion that has been allocated to this project, which takes us to 2024. Future funding will be subject to future spending reviews for that period. Between the 2024 period and 2030 there will be a general election at some point, and I suspect that may play a part in the spending review as well. We have the funding up front to get going with this programme, and off the top of my head, I think we already have eight hospitals in construction. The Cumberland Cancer Hospital has already been opened by my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary. Over this period, we will continue to start further construction of new hospitals.
The shadow Minister also alluded to geography and the distribution of the hospitals. Off the top of my head, 30 of the 40 are outside London and the south east, so we have sought to achieve geographical spread for the new hospitals and, equally, will seek to do that with the new eight. He also asked about the quantum needed for a new hospital, and he had a particular figure in mind. If he looks at the list of 40, many of them are very different hospitals, from the major acute district general hospital to a community hospital with in-patient beds; it is clearly a new hospital. The costs vary in the nature of what is built, its scale and size.
The shadow Minister also asked whether there would be a cap and whether trusts have complete freedom. No—as he would expect, there is a balance is to be struck between delivering what a trust wants for its plans and the need for financial prudence and recognition of the need to safeguard taxpayers’ money; it is not a limitless amount. Conversations are going on between the national team and local projects to ensure that their schemes are affordable and not hugely over budget. That is a pragmatic, ongoing process.
The shadow Minister also touched on some of the criteria for the scheme and how we are making the national scheme work. We include in this modular build modern methods of construction. We have a national set of standards for what we would expect from a new hospital, but a degree of local flexibility for the delivery of that. We recognise that each trust is slightly different, but we want to standardise where we can, because that keeps costs down and provides certainty in the market and speeds up construction. We have also built into our plans, since they were originally announced, even more ambitious green targets and energy efficiency targets for those trusts.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has made a valiant attempt to answer all my questions.
Justin Madders
No, but there is one that the Minister has overlooked, on the sum announced in the spending review last week. Was that additional money on top of what had been previously announced?
Edward Argar
I omitted to mention two things to the shadow Minister: the spending review and backlog maintenance—he always avails himself of the opportunity to gently raise that issue. We have seen a confirmation of the money already in place for the new hospital programme, but we have also seen further moneys announced for capital in the spending review—new money—for example, just over £5 billion for community diagnostic centres, surgical hubs and the IT infrastructure around that. We have therefore seen a reconfirmation of money, plus new money in the capital space.
I turn now to maintenance, which the shadow Minister rightly always highlights. He will know—he occasionally quotes it at me at the Dispatch Box—that backlog maintenance across the entire estate is around £9 billion-worth. That is pretty constant from the previous financial year; it has not particularly increased. It may have gone up by a tiny fraction, but it has remained broadly constant.
Edward Argar
Let me just finish this point before I take interventions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and then the hon. Member for Weaver Vale.
Our investment in new hospitals will also significantly reduce the backlog maintenance, because it will take out of the total a number of hospitals, some of which have been mentioned, that are being propped up day after day, with money being spent just to patch up and mend.
Mrs Miller
I thank the Minister for agreeing to come to our new preferred site in Basingstoke—we will be grateful for that—and for his comment about backlog maintenance. I think Basingstoke is in the top three in the country for backlog maintenance.
May I press the Minister on the timelines of the next round of seed funding to develop business cases and to be able to start building our new hospital in 2025? Clarity on some of these timelines is essential not only for our communities but for the people developing the plans, because they need to know what will happen next and have clarity on that.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I entirely understand her call for clarity. Each case is being looked at on an individual basis, in the allocation of the £3.7 billion. The senior responsible officer of the new hospitals programme, Natalie Forrest, is in regular discussion with each trust, but business cases, more funding to develop business cases, and movement from outline business cases to final business cases are done on a case-by-case basis by trusts. It is not the case that every one must submit them by a fixed time.
Edward Argar
Let me take the hon. Member for Weaver Vale first, because I promised him that I would give way. I also want to leave a few minutes at the end for my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich to wind up.
Mike Amesbury
On the point about maintenance, several hospital buildings built in the 1970s have used Grenfell-style aluminium composite material cladding and high pressure laminate, so I assume that is part of the assessment criteria. Some have roof systems that are in a critical state.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who raises a couple of points. Yes, roofs are a factor. In some cases—my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley talked about Airedale—there is a flat roof, which is vulnerable to heat and water, and aerated concrete planks, which is extremely challenging.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned cladding. I might be slightly out, but from memory I think that there are no hospitals with cladding in need of remediation. We put a programme in place following the Grenfell findings. Off the top of my head, I think every hospital trust has either had it removed or been assessed by the fire brigade as not having a risk. If I am wrong about that, I will of course write to him to correct the record.
Sir Mike Penning
On the point the Minister has just made, Natalie Forrest has taken on her new role. I notice that the Minister said she has been in communication with the trusts, but she has not been in communication with the MPs who have emailed her and asked her to respond to them, including me. My hospital action group and I met her predecessor and had very fruitful discussions, and Natalie Forrest would be very welcome to have a discussion with me.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Understandably, the approach we take with right hon. and hon. Members is that correspondence is replied to by Ministers. Occasionally it is a little belated, but that is the conduit for responses.
On meetings with senior officials, I am always happy to facilitate that. Normally, the approach is that I would attend as the Minister in order to reflect the respect that I have for right hon. and hon. Members—and I suspect that he may be about to ask me whether I will therefore do that.
Sir Mike Penning
The Minister is being very generous in giving way again. Yes, that would be great. However, I did meet Natalie Forrest’s predecessor without a Minister present, and I just want an email back to say, “I acknowledge you.” That might be quite nice.
Edward Argar
I suspect that the Department will have heard my right hon. Friend’s point.
Edward Argar
Very briefly, because I want to leave some time for my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich.
Mrs Miller
This is really important. What the Minister has just said is that no part of the process should be held up because certain projects might be ahead of others. Therefore, the public consultation that stands ready to go live in Basingstoke should not be delayed for any reason other than hopefully getting ministerial approval.
Edward Argar
I take the point, and I think I understand where my right hon. Friend is coming from on this. I said that business cases will be considered on their own merits, but of course there has to be phasing of different trusts at different times and different phases of this programme, because of the profiling of that funding. Only £3.7 billion has been committed so far, with more to come in further spending reviews, so if every trust came forward and said, “We are ready”—as my right hon. Friend knows, many will do so, although I suspect she would say that her trust is genuinely ready compared with some others—we could not commit to every one of those, because we have to look at the financial profiling that the Treasury has given us about when that money becomes available. That is the point. I hope she will forgive me if I did not understand what she was getting at in the first instance, but I hope that is of some help.
I will conclude, in order to leave my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich a little time to wind up. As a Government, we are proud that we have committed to arguably the largest and most ambitious new hospital building programme in decades, with initial moneys of £3.7 billion put in place to get that programme going. Eight of those new hospitals are in construction and one is completed, and we look forward to delivering on that commitment in full by 2030.
Dr Mullan
I thank the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for the time they have taken to listen to us all in Westminster Hall today. I particularly thank the Minister for his openness and frankness in discussing this issue. I am sure that, as Members, we all understand why he cannot commit today to the various programmes we have put forward.
I particularly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who have worked very closely with me on pushing forward this campaign for Leighton Hospital. I also thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for showing cross-party support for Leighton. The contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) reminded us all of what a unique role an MP plays in their constituency, having that individual voice on behalf of their constituents. My hon. Friends the Members for North West Norfolk (James Wild), for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) all spoke powerfully and passionately about their commitment to their local hospital and the investment they are seeking.
There were a couple of common themes that I want to pick out, the first of which was about house building and population growth, which touches on work I have been doing in my constituency to address the postcode lottery when it comes to the voice of the NHS in the planning system. Very often, schools’ education provision is supported by housing development, but it is not very often that our local hospitals are supported financially by developers. Those developers have a role to play, and I encourage the Minister to look at what more he could do centrally to spread best practice. I have been doing that locally, but we need that central drive to make sure that hospital developments, mental health and primary care get the money they deserve where there is new housing.
We are all facing a similar challenge when it comes to the shelf life, so to speak, of our hospital buildings. There is no shame in that—when things are built, they have a timeline—but it is very important that the Minister makes sure that for those of us who may end up disappointed, particularly in relation to the RAAC plank issue, the Government have a clear and strong story about how they are going to tackle that issue and what investment will be put in place, regardless of which hospitals make it into the final round of the hospital building programme. I will finish by inviting the Minister to Leighton Hospital, if he does not mind,
Edward Argar
What is one more visit on a tour? I am delighted to accept; it would be a pleasure.
Dr Mullan
I look forward to seeing him there with my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury and for Congleton. I thank the Minister for his time, and thank you, Mr Sharma, for chairing proceedings today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the hospital building programme.
Trophy Hunting Imports Ban: Endangered Species
(3 years ago)
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Mr Virendra Sharma (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. This is 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.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered banning trophy hunting imports and the protection of endangered species.
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma, as I do not believe I have had the pleasure before. I also welcome the Minister to her place. Before I properly begin this important debate, I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to a dear friend and colleague, Sir David Amess. Sir David was incredibly passionate about the problem of trophy hunting imports, and inspired colleagues across the House with his enthusiasm and leadership on the issue.
This debate takes place in the context of COP26, a conference on protecting the future of our planet and showing British leadership on global issues. Unfortunately, the Government’s lack of action on their commitment to ban trophy hunting demonstrates a failure to show global leadership in protecting our planet, which is not just about carbon emissions but about protecting and preserving biodiversity and endangered species.
I would like to make three key points. First, trophy hunting damages conservation efforts around the world; therefore, the Government’s commitment to ban trophy hunting is extremely important and welcome. Secondly, it is a policy with overwhelming public and parliamentary support; there is no reason to delay its implementation. Thirdly, this is not just a domestic issue. It is about Britain showing leadership in conservation on a global stage.
Action is needed urgently to show that, as well as convening world leaders in Glasgow this week to talk about protecting the planet for future generations to come, we are also giving those generations the chance to live alongside magnificent animals such as African lions, polar bears and many others that are being hunted to extinction. I will conclude by asking the Minister to assure the House that legislation is imminent and that this practice, which nobody doubts is wrong, will be banned immediately, demonstrating global leadership and significantly impacting on the practice of trophy hunting by UK citizens.
Taking each of those points in turn, the impact of trophy hunting is enormous. It threatens the already tiny populations of endangered species such African lions. Even putting aside the morality of killing animals for fun, it is not a sustainable industry. Zimbabwe was forced to impose a moratorium on hunting lions in 2013 because numbers were so low. During that moratorium, the survival rate of lions in the Hwange national park, the home of Cecil the lion, almost doubled. A similar moratorium in Zambia saw lion numbers double, showing the damaging effects of hunting on endangered populations.
It is not just about extinction. Trophy hunting is damaging evolution and rendering these magnificent animals less fit for their environments. Hunters seek to kill the biggest and most magnificent animals, which in turn means that only the smaller and weaker animals breed and reproduce. Humans are interfering with Darwin’s principle of the survival of the fittest because the fittest are not surviving. This puts these animals at serious risk of changes, such as climate change, or of predators. The gene pool of the African lion has shrunk by 15% in the last century. Heads and bodies of lions today are significantly smaller than they were just 30 years ago.
In the Addo elephant national park in South Africa, 98% of adult female elephants have been reported as tuskless—without the tusks they use to find food and water as well as to defend themselves. In the nearby Kruger national park, where hunting is prohibited, just 3% of elephants are tuskless. Many of those elephants will now have died, and as climate change accelerates, the same fate may befall many others.
It is a long-held argument of hunters and hunting lobby groups that shooting animals actually preserves animal populations through the fees that the hunters pay to kill these majestic animals. This is far from the truth. A report co-authored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and international hunting group CIC—the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation—has found that hunting companies contribute only 3% of their revenue to local communities.
The fees paid by hunters for killing an animal do not even cover the cost of keeping that single animal alive up to that point. To take the example of Cecil the lion, about which we have all heard—he was killed in 2015 in the Hwange reserve in Zimbabwe—the cost to the park authorities of protection to keep Cecil alive until he was 12 years old was about $1.5 million, but the dentist who killed him paid just $50,000.
Furthermore, it is not true that allowing trophy hunting deters poaching. A US congressional study has found that rhino poaching in the last decade has soared even as the South African Government have encouraged trophy hunting. Nature tourism is much more effective as a tool to support conservation. It not only generates much greater revenues than trophy hunting, but creates more and better-paid jobs for local people. Since Kenya stopped trophy hunting and prioritised nature tourism, tourism in Kenya is generating nearly $1 billion per year. Kenya has benefited financially from stopping hunting.
Trophy hunting is a reprehensible practice that goes against nature. By killing the biggest and best of the race, it is leaving entire species doomed to suffer the evolutionary consequences. It does not bring economic benefit to the area or support conservation in anything like the way that nature tourism does. Does the Minister agree with me that trophy hunting is abhorrent and that we should do everything we can to stop it?
Turning to my second point, I know this is only a 30-minute debate, but I hope the Minister will appreciate that a great many colleagues would have wished to participate if we had had longer. This is an issue of great cross-party significance. Polls consistently show that over 80% of the British public wish to ban trophy hunting imports, and a March 2021 poll noted that 85% were in favour of this happening as soon as possible.
It was heartening to see the commitment to bring forward a ban on trophy hunting imports in the Queen’s Speech earlier this year under the animals abroad Bill, but I and other parliamentarians are dismayed at the progress—or lack of progress—it is making. Every month that passes is another month during which British hunters are killing majestic animals such as lions, leopards and polar bears, and bringing their gruesome trophies back to the UK. Over 170 Members, on a cross-party basis, have signed the early-day motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) calling for action on trophy hunting imports as soon as possible. Many people such as me do not sign EDMs, and there would be many more signatures if we did.
Will the Minister explain why we are yet to see the animals abroad Bill, despite the fact that the consultation on trophy hunting imports closed in February 2020, nearly two years ago? Covid is no excuse: people do not need to be together to consider the consultation document. It is rumoured that the animals abroad Bill has been indefinitely. Will the Minister please explain exactly what the reservations are? After all, the Bill commands overwhelming public and parliamentary support, which leads to my third point.
As mentioned previously, this week our Government are hosting the COP26 conference in Glasgow, where world leaders and others have gathered to discuss how we can protect the planet for generations to come. That is not just about protecting the planet for humans; we have a responsibility not to eliminate magnificent and powerful species and to conserve the work with nature. We cannot make the laws of other countries, but we can in this Parliament reduce the number of British people taking part in trophy hunting. If we ban the import of trophies, we will have a significant impact on the number of British trophy hunters killing endangered species around the world.
Furthermore, our Government talk about the importance of being a global leader in the conservation and protection of endangered species, yet it remains legal in this country to import the body parts of animals killed for entertainment. Sadly, we are not a world leader in this sphere. France and Australia have already implemented bans on trophy hunting imports of endangered species and have seen no negative consequences on their conservation efforts as a result. The Netherlands has gone further, as we would like the UK to, and has banned virtually all imports of trophies from hunting abroad. Making a commitment such as the Netherlands has will enable us to push other countries for stronger commitments on animal welfare and conservation.
I want to see Ministers pushing other Governments to end trophy hunting imports too. It is a global problem. Will the Minister confirm whether the Prime Minister or any other Government Members at COP26 this week have raised the issue of banning trophy hunting imports with the United States Government? The US is by far the largest importer of hunting trophies in the world, but we will not be able to put pressure on it to stop until we ban the practice ourselves.
I urge the Government to act now to ban in full the import of trophies from the hunting of all animals abroad. That is necessary because it is a barbaric practice. I recognise and welcome the Government’s intention to ban it, but that needs to happen now. There is no reason not to legislate. Legislation has broad and widespread support, and the Government have had plenty of time to consider the consultation.
Finally, we are at a crucial juncture and we must show global leadership on conservation and biodiversity. We cannot convince other countries to end the hunting of endangered animals if it is legal here in the UK. If at the end of this debate the Minister has only one thing to say on this matter, I would like her to tell me when the legislation will come into force. If she cannot say when, why not?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I assume you are happy if I remove my mask while speaking.
Jo Churchill
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing this timely debate. I also associate myself with her comments about our colleague, Sir David. She is right: he was passionate about animal welfare, and he would have taken part in this debate.
My hon. Friend is also right to say how timely this debate is, because nature and land use is a core theme of the COP26 presidency. It is essential in adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change and in supporting lives and livelihoods. We seek to lead a global transition towards the sustainable use of land, ocean and natural resources to tackle biodiversity and climate issues together, which as she so eloquently put it affect both humans and animals. I commend her on her success over the past few years in bringing this issue to the fore and in maintaining the spotlight on this important agenda, which has rightly attracted considerable interest and attention.
I agree with my hon. Friend’s remarks at the start of her speech and I hope to talk to one or two of them directly in my response. She knows as well as I do that there are strong views on both sides of the debate. On one side, there are those who consider that well-managed trophy hunting can benefit conservation and support livelihoods. On the other, there are those who find the hunting of endangered species for trophies completely unacceptable.
We received 44,000 responses to our consultation and call for evidence. My hon. Friend is right that the consultation closed in February 2020 and I do not dispute that. As she mentioned, she and the British public want us to get on with delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to ban the import of hunting trophies from endangered species. The outcry that often accompanies the reports and photos of trophy hunting of threatened animals is clear. To see that, we need only think back to the huge response to the cruel killing of Cecil the lion in 2015 or to last weekend’s reports of trophy hunting of threatened species—this time the polar bear.
That strength of feeling came through loud and clear in our consultation and I look forward to hearing the comments of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in due course. The Committee is running an inquiry into the animals abroad Bill and is in the middle of its evidence gathering, before the Bill goes through the usual parliamentary process. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s push for urgency around this matter.
As I say, the strength of feeling came through loud and clear, so we will get on and deliver the change we promised in our manifesto. We will introduce a ban that is comprehensive, robust and effective and that protects many thousands of animals. We will set out our detailed plans and our rationale for action. On timeliness, the only comment I can give my hon. Friend is that we will set those things out soon, including our response to the consultation.
Arguably, this is just the tip of the iceberg because biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction—many within decades—which is more than ever before in our history. Across Government, we are committed to playing our role in protecting the environment, including animals, both at home and abroad.
Internationally, we are investing over £46 million to counter the illegal wildlife trade over the timespan of 2014 to 2022. That includes our well-respected illegal wildlife trade challenge fund, which is a competitive grant scheme established to tackle the illegal trade in wildlife and, in doing so, to contribute to poverty reduction in developing countries. My hon. Friend has a wealth of experience in overseas development and poverty, and her speech intertwined the arguments about the importance of us playing our part internationally to sustain communities. In Malawi, for example, our support from the challenge fund in developing law enforcement capabilities has helped increase protection for endangered species such as elephants and rhinos. The £100 million biodiverse landscapes fund will also tackle the direct drivers of species loss, protecting habitats and supporting local communities as well.
At home, in the Environment Bill, we will set a new and ambitious domestic framework for environmental governance. This Bill will ensure that we leave the environment in a better state than we found it in. It requires a new and historic legally binding target to be set to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030. We are driving forward our ambitious agenda of animal welfare and conservation reforms during the current parliamentary Session and beyond. Further legislation will be introduced as soon as parliamentary time allows—my hon. Friend knows as well as I do that it is not always in her gift or mine to say when that will be, and I am afraid I cannot give her more information than that—to strengthen and secure our position as a global leader in championing the welfare and protection of animals abroad.
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing attention to this topic. I know that she also regularly talks to Lord Goldsmith in the other place. I am sure she will be resolute in continuing to focus on making sure we adhere to that commitment.
Question put and agreed to.
Ethiopia, Sudan and Tigray: Humanitarian Situation
(3 years ago)
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Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. Given the recent outbreak in Parliament, I expect to see everybody wearing a face covering if they are not speaking, in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also 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 give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia, Sudan and Tigray.
I am delighted to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I am very pleased that Members have come to debate the humanitarian situation facing Sudan, Ethiopia and Tigray. The debate could not be better timed for the news that we have had today and in the last few days. I will open with a few reminders of the size of the humanitarian crisis facing people in that area.
In Sudan at this very moment there are 60,000 Tigrayan refugees, who have crossed the border from the fighting in Tigray, and there are still in Sudan, which is not a wealthy country, 1.1 million refugees from historical conflicts in Darfur and other places. As all Members will know, Sudan suffered a coup recently. Huge protests are going on in Khartoum and other cities, the elected Prime Minister is under house arrest and the military are patrolling the streets and trying to restore the previous regime’s methods. I wish the people of Sudan well in their demands for democracy, and I send a message of support to the demonstration that was held outside Downing Street last Saturday.
Ethiopia can now be described only as a country in a state of war. The Prime Minister has gone on national television to ask people to be mobilised to defend the capital, and the society as a whole, and is busy enlisting large numbers of often very young people—he is complaining that they are ill-trained—into the armed forces in order to continue the conflict. That was preceded by—indeed, it continues—many people from Tigray or other parts of Ethiopia who have made their homes in Addis Ababa being attacked, arrested and persecuted by the authorities. There is a whole popular mood against the people of Tigray, who are seen as separatists within the country of Ethiopia. I say that as somebody who is a friend and an admirer of the amazing history of Ethiopia—the one country in Africa that never became part of the European colonisation system.
In Tigray, 2.1 million people are displaced, 5 million are food-insecure, which is about 80% of the population, and at least 400,000 are literally starving, but because of the conflict, aid trucks, relief trucks and support simply cannot get through. Only 15 minutes ago, before I came to the debate, I was watching Michelle Bachelet of the United Nations. She is a wonderful woman and an old friend of mine; I have known her ever since the dark days of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, before she became the President of Chile. A report that I have just received states:
“Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that ‘all parties to the Tigray conflict have committed violations of international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law. Some of these may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.’”
She is a very intelligent and normally very cautious person. She does not throw those kinds of allegations out willy-nilly. They are very serious indeed.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful opening speech. He is talking about the Tigrayan situation, which I think we would all agree amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. He mentioned starvation and so forth, and I just want to highlight the issues facing young women and girls. There have been reports that many have been subject to rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual mutilation and torture. Does he agree that, while there is a potential breach of international law, our Government must also show some leadership in bringing an end to what is happening?
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—I was actually going to come on to that point next—and she is absolutely right. The abuse of women and girls by the forces in Tigray has been abominable and appalling. The crime of rape has been used as an act of war, and multiple rapes, sexual slavery and the abuse of women have been the order of the day. It is utterly disgraceful, and I hope that when the conflict is over, and all conflicts have to be over eventually, there will be the most thorough investigation of every one of those cases. We have seen rape as a weapon of war in so many places—in Congo and many other parts of Africa, as well as in many other wars around the world—and I hope there is the most thorough investigation and that prosecutions will follow as a result.
To return to the account I was quoting, Michelle Bachelet has said:
“The investigation recounts a report of a massacre of ‘more than 100 civilians’ in Axum, Tigray by Eritrean forces”—
note: the Eritrean forces—
“on 28 November 2020. The victims were ‘mostly young men’ but one witness told the joint investigation team that others were targeted too. ‘EDF soldiers took a 70-year-old man and his two sons out of their homes. They took them to the nearby water tanker, ordered them to lay on the ground and shot all three of them in the head,’”
and so it goes on about a series of other occasions. Again, note that the Eritrean defence forces have become involved in the conflict as well, which is more than unfortunate in the sense that it indicates the danger that the war is about to spread.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jeremy Corbyn
Yes, I will in a second. I do think that we have to recognise the seriousness of the situation we are in at the present time—that is why Michelle Bachelet has said what she has said—and I want to put that into historical context, once I have given way.
Mr Robertson
Is the right hon. Gentleman as confused as I am about the reports of the involvement of Eritrean forces? There are very strong reports that they are indeed involved and committing some of the worst atrocities, but at the same time there is also a denial that they are in that country.
Jeremy Corbyn
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. The reports of Eritrean forces being involved are very disturbing because that clearly internationalises the conflict. Verification is obviously difficult when the Ethiopian occupying forces and the conflict itself make it impossible for independent investigators to get there to understand exactly what is going on. One plea I am going to make at the end of my contribution is that international observers be allowed in, so that they can assess what is on.
If I may, I think we should put this in the context of the tragic history of Ethiopia. It has been through all kinds of things, right back to the Italian fascists’ invasion in the 1930s and their removal by British and other forces during the second world war. It has been a party to the cold war, and there has been a massive flow of armaments into Ethiopia from the Soviet Union, the United States, Europe and arms dealers all around the world. It is a country that has seen the most appalling conflict and the most appalling humanitarian disasters, such as the famine of the 1980s.
I pay tribute to the International Development Committee for its report on the humanitarian situation in Tigray. I am delighted that its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), is here, and I hope she is going to speak in this debate. If I may say so, I think the Select Committee puts the history of Ethiopia in summary form very well, and of course the enormous conflict that took place before Eritrea gained its independence and the further conflict that went on during the border dispute.
For goodness’ sake, there has been enough death, wars, conflict and loss of development opportunities without there now being a descent into a massive civil war across Ethiopia. It is always the most vulnerable and the young people who die as a result. The points in the Select Committee report about gender-based violence, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) intervened earlier, are so apt and well put. I hope they become centre stage in any UN human rights investigation into the causes and continuation of this conflict.
The most immediate response to this conflict is the two events of 2019, when the Government of Ethiopia were pursuing a more democratic and participatory course and getting a lot of international support for it. There was then, effectively, the break-up of the Government by a change in the ruling party and by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front—removing itself from the Government. The Government in Addis then delayed the election that was to be held in Tigray. The TPLF in Tigray then decided to hold its own election, which it did.
It was claimed that this was illegal under the terms of the Ethiopian constitution and the whole thing descended very rapidly into armed conflict. We then get the deaths, rape and occupation, and huge refugee flows as a result. That is the immediate tragic history that Ethiopia and Tigray have descended into. I hope that in our debate today we can, at least, find out what the British Government think about this and what action they are prepared to take.
The issues we face are four-fold. First, we need to somehow or other get an immediate ceasefire in this conflict so that the food aid, medicine, water and all the other things can get in and so that the thousands who have gone mainly to the Sudan—and some who apparently have also gone to South Sudan, although I am not sure of the numbers—can return home.
Secondly, we need to recognise the consequences for those countries of the massive refugee flows. At the start of my contribution, I gave figures for the numbers of people who are refugees in Sudan—60,000 in Tigray and 1.1 million from Darfur. The media in this country complain about a few hundred refugees coming in across the channel. I am talking about a poor country hosting more than 1 million refugees without the infrastructure or wherewithal to cope with them. That, sadly, is the story of so many poor countries around the world.
Thirdly, who is going to be the interlocutor to bring about a ceasefire? The UN obviously must and should have a role in this. The African Union must and should have a role in this, but it appears that the degree of mistrust, particularly by Tigrayan forces towards the African Union, which is housed in Addis anyway, is one of the problems in bringing about a meaningful ceasefire. I do think there has to be involvement with the African Union, perhaps brought about by the UN itself. It is extremely important that we send that message today.
Fourthly, the arms sales to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray are not huge on the global scale of things—I am not pretending there are massive arms sales—but nevertheless, in a conflict of this nature, rapid-fire machine guns and all those kind of armaments are the instruments of war. We are not necessarily talking about planes and drones and things, but more about those things. The UK sells quite little to Ethiopia. According to the figures I have from Campaign Against Arms Trade, UK arms exports approved to Ethiopia in the last three years amount to only £58,000, and most of that was related to armoured vehicles. Those questions were put. The three known military export applications are from Safariland Group, Harrington Generators and Boeing. I look forward to the Minister saying that there will be no further exports there. EU arms exports to Ethiopia over the last three years are more considerable, amounting to £36 million. I hope we put pressure on the European Union not to allow those arms sales to continue.
The urgent need, as I said, is for food aid to get through. Hundreds of thousands—nay, millions—are suffering from malnutrition or lack of food. There is a huge lack of medicines all across the country, as well as the war crimes investigations and all the rest going on. The situation is that well-armed and presumably well-fed and watered soldiers are able to kill each other in Tigray. Forces of the TPLF are active in Ethiopia and Ethiopian forces are active in the conflict against them. Arms are available for soldiers to kill civilians in a conflict that has to be resolved by a ceasefire and a coming together, so that people may decide their future in peace. All those soldiers are passing starving people—babies who are dying because of malnutrition; women who have suffered the most abominable abuse by those very same soldiers—and the war carries on with the arms that come from God-knows-where, from all around the world. It is the poorest people who suffer, in the worst possible situation.
I hope that we can send a message: we will give all the necessary aid and support that we can to get through this and, above all, we will take the political initiative and support Michelle Bachelet in her determination to bring about a ceasefire and some hope for the future. I am pleased that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the all-party parliamentary human rights group and the all-party group on prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity are meeting tomorrow afternoon at 2 o’clock to go through all the issues. I urge Members to attend that meeting, which I understand will be online. It will be helpful for us to be better informed.
My purpose in calling the debate was not necessarily to blame the British Government for the whole situation there, but to thank the International Development Committee for what it has done and to ask our Government to give what aid is necessary and, above all—I repeat this—to use our political clout, whatever we have and wherever we have it, to get a ceasefire, to stop the killing, to stop the refugee flows and to let the people of Tigray, the rest of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan decide their own future in peace. That is the best message that we can give.
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before I call Members, I have requested that the temperature be turned up, because I am conscious that it is very cold in here. I intend to call the Opposition spokespeople, including the shadow Minister, and the Minister from 3.28 pm, depending on the votes that we are expecting.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship again today, Ms Bardell.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) not only on securing the debate and his kind words to the Select Committee, but on the fact that he will not let this go. We need to keep raising the atrocities happening in the region, particularly in Tigray, again and again, because too often the news just moves on while the people stay and the desperation gets worse. I thank him personally for calling the debate.
A peaceful resolution of the conflict seems far off, with fighting intensifying and a state of emergency declared overnight. As my right hon. Friend said, the Select Committee has been monitoring with increasing concern the deteriorating situation in the region and the escalation of humanitarian needs as a direct consequence. Earlier this year the International Development Committee published a report on the situation in Tigray, which included moving evidence from agencies working in the region to address the increasingly complex humanitarian situation. We heard shocking reports of the impact of the conflict, including killings, the systematic use of sexual violence and the use of hunger as a weapon of war. In our report, my Committee urged the Government to use the combination of the UK’s diplomatic clout and development funding to seek a peaceful political resolution to the conflict, and to ensure that aid reaches communities in the region that are in such desperate need for it.
I was pleased to receive the Government’s constructive response to the report, which set out the FCDO’s commitment to working with regional partners in seeking an end to the conflict and focusing on getting humanitarian supplies to Tigray. It is with great sadness that I note that the scale of the challenge in Tigray seems greater than ever. Alongside a deteriorating military situation, the humanitarian crisis is becoming acute and the consequences of inaction increasingly catastrophic.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
A constituent of mine has been unable to contact her family since the beginning of the conflict. Their stories are terrifying and upsetting. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government should outline not only how they will provide aid to the people there, but how to communicate with relatives living in the country?
Sarah Champion
I completely agree. Many of us, if not all, have constituents with family members over there, and hearing their stories makes it so real and such a live issue for us all; one cannot fail to be moved. Trying to get reliable information is one of the big problems we have had all the way through this conflict.
The UN estimates that at least 5.2 million people need emergency food assistance, with almost half a million people in Tigray living in famine-like conditions. The UN reports indicate that just 1% of those in need of food are being reached, with only half of those receiving more than two food items a week. The UN says that an alarming number of children are suffering with severe acute malnutrition, with numbers increasing by the day, because just a fraction of the humanitarian aid needed in Tigray is reaching that region. Fuel shortages and limits on access to cash have forced a reduction of what remains of humanitarian assistance, with barely $800,000 of the $6.5 million needed per week getting through. Ongoing restrictions on entering the region and an escalation of fighting means that trucks simply cannot get in. Each day, Tigray alone needs around 100 trucks of fuel, food and other supplies, but since 18 October not a single truck has entered. The UN Humanitarian Air Service has been suspended. The situation in Amhara grows more alarming by the day due to the large-scale displacement of people, with reports that electricity and communication lines have been cut.
The international community and Ministers must press the Ethiopian Government and regional partners to ensure that humanitarian agencies have unimpeded access to Tigray despite the current state of emergency. The longer the delivery of aid is obstructed, the deeper and more complex this humanitarian emergency will be to solve. Communities will continue to be decimated by war and hunger will spread. This shows why the Foreign Office must have a robust approach to atrocity prevention. Embassy staff must be empowered to raise concerns about the likelihood of a situation deteriorating and trained appropriately so that they can recognise red flags and escalate concerns before a situation falls into complete disarray. That is why my Committee called on the FCDO to embed an atrocity prevention strategy in its updated country strategy for Ethiopia and neighbouring states.
Our report found:
“A failure to adequately resource the response to this crisis increases the risk of a ripple effect of instability throughout the region.”
The Government identified the east of Africa as a priority region for UK aid spending but cut aid to the region by almost 50%. Aid to Ethiopia has been slashed from £240 million to £107 million, and aid to Sudan and South Sudan is set to be halved. That is having a real impact. Failure to support communities in the region, combined with the lack of an inclusive political settlement, is compromising hard-won gains in security, stability and prosperity in Ethiopia. We are seeing the impact of that failure, with refugees fleeing to Sudan, itself in the grip of a military coup. The Government are right that the east of Africa should be a priority, but it is time they backed their words with action and engagement. We must step up, mobilise and work with partners in the region to meet the humanitarian needs of communities and prevent the further spread of instability. If we fail to act now, we will count the costs for years to come.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell, although it is very depressing to be addressing this subject again. I asked an urgent question on the issue awhile ago and took part in the debate led by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ethiopia, I thank the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for introducing this debate and for his continued interest. I have spoken with him and have attended debates with him. I know he approaches the debate as a friend of Ethiopia, as does the hon. Member for Rotherham.
The situation is very depressing. I am very pleased that the new Minister for Africa is with us today to reply to the debate. All too often we see the media and the world focus on other conflicts, understandably perhaps—in Syria, or the Balkans or other areas of the world. Conflicts in Africa tend not to be focused on. They tend not to be reported as much as those in other areas.
I remember feeling ashamed in 1994 of the fact that the world stood back and watched 800,000 people killed in Rwanda. I visited Rwanda shortly after. I do not want to be too graphic, but I walked through the bones of some of the people who had been slaughtered in that terrible conflict. The world stood and watched. We cannot do that again—we cannot just watch, as we see the crisis growing and the tragedies increasing. We have heard reports of forces moving through Ethiopia towards the capital, Addis Ababa, just recently. The report produced by the Joint Investigation Team highlights the most horrific crimes that are taking place. We have to focus on what is happening—we have to concentrate—so I am glad that this debate is being held today, with the Minister present, but it is not easy to know what to do.
As I said in my intervention, reports are conflicting. For the reasons that the right hon. Member for Islington North gave, it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on, who is to blame or how we stop it happening. There is, however, a growing humanitarian crisis, and it is also heading towards an economic crisis. The right hon. Gentleman touched on the problems that Ethiopia had in the mid-’80s. Since then, the country has made great strides and is far more resilient, but millions of people are still dependent on food aid every year. That situation is likely to get so much worse, the more the conflict grows.
I have the privilege of being the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Zambia and Angola. On my recent travels, I have spoken to companies who want to invest in Ethiopia. They have told me they will not and cannot do that when the conflict is raging—indeed, getting worse. That situation will make people in Ethiopia even poorer than they are now. We cannot simply stand by and watch that happen.
It is difficult to know what to do. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Ethiopia’s past. It has a troubled past, but also a very proud past, as I said in the debate led by the hon. Member for Rotherham. Sizeable Christian and Muslim populations have lived peacefully together for many years. There are more than 80 tribes and 80 languages in the country, which have not in themselves led to problems. The country has enjoyed a great deal of peace, and economic growth that is the envy of the western world. It has so much going for it; it is seen as a country with huge potential. There is an awful lot in favour of Ethiopia and the way it can develop as a country. However, as we have so often seen—the right hon. Member for Islington North expressed great exasperation and frustration at this—we see the descent into war, which cannot benefit anybody. Even the victors, if there are any victors in this conflict, will not win overall; they will lose, too. That message must get through to all the players in this conflict in Ethiopia.
I do not have any solutions, but I repeat the questions I have asked before. Could the United Nations be doing more? I am not an expert on this, but is it time for a peacekeeping force to be sent by the United Nations? I really do not know the answer to that question, but I put it to the Minister: is that what we should be looking at now, before the situation becomes unmanageable? Could the African Union be doing more to bring about peace and a ceasefire in this conflict? Could more pressure be put on the Eritrean Government to withdraw any forces they have in Tigray? As we have heard in previous debates, many of the worst atrocities are being laid at the feet of people coming in from Eritrea.
Can we somehow find a way to get aid to the people who so desperately need help? We often hear people say that we should not be giving aid to countries that are dictatorships—actually, we do not, but it is important to note that the people in greatest need in the world are those in war-torn countries. The secret is to get under the radar and try to help those people as best we can.
The right hon. Member for Islington North also mentioned the arms that are getting through to the sides in Ethiopia. There was a very brief BBC report last night, showing what I think were rebel groups, who seemed so well armed. Who on earth is providing arms at such a level to those people? That needs to be addressed.
This is a deeply worrying situation. I do not expect the Minister to have any easy answers or to come up with any solutions today. All I ask of her—I know she will do it—is to speak to our Prime Minister and the Cabinet to see whether there is more that we can do to try to bring about the ceasefire that the right hon. Member for Islington North correctly called for, before this situation becomes an absolute catastrophe.
Ethiopia is a great country and one I am very proud to be a friend of. I have visited it many times and I want to visit again as soon as possible. I do not want to see Ethiopia disintegrate into an absolute shambles. We do not need that. There are more than 100 million people in that country, and they need some help. They need us to do everything we can to help them. That is not easy, as I say, but I know the Minister will do everything in her power to raise this matter at the highest levels of Government in this country, and hopefully we can try to find a way through.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell, albeit on a very sobering topic, as has been outlined by the speakers we have heard so far. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing this opportunity to consider the issue again.
We considered the conflict back in September, and one of the messages of that debate was the risk of deterioration of the situation. In fact, one of the questions I asked was:
“What if the worst has yet to come?”—[Official Report, 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 95WH.]
The speeches we have heard and the evidence that has been presented, particularly the findings today from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, show that the situation has got considerably worse, and that must be of real concern to us. Bringing the issue back to the Floor of Westminster Hall keeps it alive and gives a new Minister an opportunity to respond and to think again, as the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) has just said, about what opportunities there might be for the UK to exercise some influence.
I spoke in the last debate about the particular challenges in Oromia. They have become more acute as a result of the developments in recent weeks and months. I have a constituent who is from that area and who is passionate about the right of the people there to have democratic self-determination and the kind of political autonomy that regions, countries and nations in our part of the world enjoy. However, we enjoy that peacefully and democratically. We resolve our differences in forums like this, not by taking up arms or through the horrific war crimes being reported. Even people who hold those genuine aspirations ought to live up to the standards that they are seeking.
That also speaks to the deep-seated and historical regional and tribal tensions across the whole of Ethiopia and the wider regional context. As the right hon. Member for Islington North said, Ethiopia was never a colony in the way that many African countries have been, but that does not mean that it has not been affected by the colonisation and map-drawing that went on in the continent all those years ago. That is why the issue of Eritrea keeps raising its head.
Not long ago, I was in the right hon. Member’s constituency for the photo exhibition by Eritrea Focus, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the political imprisonment of journalists and politicians in that country, the deterioration and ending of democracy in any meaningful form, the militarisation of the country, the influence that it still apparently seeks, and the destabilising effect that appears to be having in the conflict in Ethiopia. I should say that my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), who we will hear from, was also at that important event.
I would draw the Minister’s attention—I think I sent it to her predecessor, and I will certainly send it to her—to the report produced by the Oromia Support Group detailing the atrocities and extra-judicial killings of the people of that region, mostly by the national Government, by their assessment. However, it is very clear, from other reports and today’s debate, that all sides must take responsibility for the violence that has been experienced.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury said that he saw the BBC report; I heard it on Radio 4, because the BBC these days multitasks in that way. It was incredibly sobering, and very worrying to hear of the spiralling effect that now appears to be happening. Violence is begetting violence. There was a woman who had to flee because her son had been brutally murdered.
Wera Hobhouse
Is it not the case, time and again, that women are often the worst victims of violence in that form? Sexual violence against women is also something that we should point out when we talk about this terrible conflict.
Patrick Grady
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Hearing any story from mothers, like that one, is heartbreaking. She is right; women are affected—they are victims, if she wants to use that word. Women could also be a big part of the solution. If women’s voices were heard more frequently in these debates, in the peace forums and in the democratic institutions—such as exist—in those countries, perhaps we would not be seeing this level of violence. I think that is an incredibly important point.
As I said, violence is begetting violence; the attempts by the Ethiopian Government to root out the Oromo Liberation Army lead to further resentment of the central Government and less willingness to engage with processes. That leads to displacement across the region and into neighbouring countries, including Sudan, which is also a topic for this debate. It is increasingly clear, as others have said, that there needs to be an external brokering of peace. Whether that is the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union or some other body, the UK is a key player—either directly, as a member of some of those institutions, or through important relationships to them—and it must play its role.
I want to echo some of what the Select Committee Chair said about aid. The Library briefing shows—even before the aid cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP—the decrease in overall bilateral aid since 2015 to Ethiopia, but within that, the increasing amount of money being spent on humanitarian response. That is a very stark lesson in basic development theory: if we stop spending money on long-term development projects—on long-term peacebuilding, infrastructure, education and so on—then all of a sudden we find ourselves spending money on humanitarian relief, on trying to resolve the problems of conflict and war, and at the end of the day, the problem is not being resolved; it is spiralling.
The Government must look again at their budget. It is all good and well for the Chancellor to say in the Budget that we will get back to 0.7% before the end of this Parliament; but that will not undo the damage that is already being done. Every time the Government say that they will increase support to Ethiopia, that is great, welcome and necessary but it means that, by definition, somewhere else is suffering; somewhere else is experiencing a cut because the overall budget has declined. It was going to decline anyway because GDP had gone down as a result of the pandemic—we all understand that—but this is adding to that unnecessarily.
At a time when the Government are supposed to be showing global leadership, which we are all calling for in this debate, the stark facts are there for anyone to see who has picked up the Library report or reports by the International Development Committee. Sadly, I will not be able to make tomorrow’s APPG being organised by the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), which the right hon. Member for Islington North mentioned, but I am looking forward to reports from it. I strongly encourage the Minister to pay attention to that. When we had a briefing before the last Westminster Hall debate, some very useful points, with strong and clear recommendations, were made, and I suspect some of those will be heard.
This has been an important opportunity to consider these issues, especially given how rapidly the situation is changing. We appreciate that the opportunity for the UK Government is limited, but that does not mean that it does not exist. I very much hope that the new Minister will be willing to look at this afresh and I look forward to hearing what she has to say in response.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell, and to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate. It was only a couple of months ago that we last talked about this region and it is timely to talk about it again. Every day the news is getting worse, and the situation is extremely worrying. We need to give as much airtime as possible to what is happening in the region, because it is truly shocking.
I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow North that Ethiopia is a beautiful country. I have been to Addis Ababa and enjoyed great hospitality there. While it is already a beautiful country, it also has potential. We want it to have a better future—that is our hope for the people of Ethiopia, Tigray and Sudan.
I speak as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups on Ethiopia and Djibouti and on Sudan and South Sudan, and I am also chair of the APPG on the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity. I am delighted that there have been two advertisements for our meeting tomorrow, at which Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, will speak. What she will have to say will be very pertinent to the current situation.
The eyes of the world are not on Ethiopia, Tigray and Sudan, but they should be. It is an important time to put on the record what is happening right now, and to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing about it. I welcome her to her new role and look forward to hearing about the meetings she has been holding and what has resulted from them; what visits she has planned to the region and what she hopes to get out of them; and her plans for aid. We have been talking about aid cuts and the false economy they create. There are different decisions to be made about aid to the region.
As a country, we were so proud at the time of Live Aid to stand up together to support the people of Ethiopia in their time of crisis. We want to do the same again. We want to know what is happening in the region, with which we have a great bond. Like other Members, I have constituents with family members in the region. On Monday I spoke to a Tigrayan constituent who is very concerned about her family. She has not been able to hear any news for so long because of the blackout, which must be very worrying. As we stand here today, we know that many people in this country are concerned about their relatives in the region.
The UN Secretary-General has said of Tigray:
“A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding before our eyes.”
It could be argued that the previous Foreign Secretary took his eye off Afghanistan, but I hope to hear from the Minister today that that is not the case with Tigray. More than 5 million people in Tigray require immediate humanitarian assistance. At least 54 organisations are providing aid and services. I join other Members in paying tribute to the brave humanitarian workers on the ground right now, in very difficult circumstances, at great risk to themselves.
However, there are significant gaps in assistance, which disproportionately affect Ethiopian women and girls. I echo what we have heard in today’s debate: it is women and girls who are disproportionately the victims of war. Rape is being used as a weapon of war and we need to know more about that. They have virtually no access to livelihoods, often living in insecure environments.
We are also witnessing a refugee crisis because of the violence. In December 2020, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that 46,000 Ethiopian refugees had arrived in Sudan since the start of November and they were continuing to arrive in their hundreds. It is hard to imagine what that is like. If we could see it more clearly, if we knew more about the situation, I am sure there would be more demand for more action to be taken.
The numbers are now estimated to be more than 60,000, including Eritrean refugees. More worrying still, a famine is looming. According to the Tigray external affairs office, 150 people died of hunger in August. The UN believes that around 400,000 people are facing famine-like conditions. Millions are also on the brink of hunger in the Afar and Amhara regions, which share a border with Tigray. UNICEF recently alerted that more than 100,000 children in Tigray could suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition in the next 12 months, which will affect them for the rest of their lives. That constitutes a tenfold increase to the annual average.
Deaths are also occurring due to sickness that could previously have been treated or prevented. Prior to retreating, Eritrean forces had looted Tigrayan infrastructure extensively and destroyed clinics, equipment, medicines and medical records, putting years of development back instead of forward. In March, Médecins Sans Frontières reported that 70% of the 106 medical facilities that its teams had been allowed to visit had been looted and only 13% of them were functioning fully, undermining medical treatment for those in need. That is truly frightening and it is happening on our watch.
As mentioned earlier, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported that
“all parties to the conflict in Tigray have…committed violations of international human rights…and refugee law, some of which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Those crimes need to be investigated. We need to know we have the strong evidence to bring to justice those who are committing these crimes. We cannot let this go untried. The justice we need means that we need to get the evidence, so independent investigators need to be there on the ground.
Turning to Sudan, I am distressed at the graphic reports of the use of excessive and lethal force against protestors, the arbitrary detentions, their enforced disappearance and torture, and other forms of ill treatment. Those patterns of violations are consistent with Sudan’s long and extensively documented history of abuses against protestors, human rights defenders and perceived political opponents. Sudanese forces have regularly used excessive force, including beatings, tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition against protestors, including during the transitional period.
When the new country of South Sudan was formed, the world cheered. It was exciting to have a new country with a proud future looking forward to peace. That long conflict had been put to one side; the peace process had won out. I want to put on the record that it had been led by a lot of local women, who were successful in winning that peace. The joy at which South Sudan was welcomed was amazing to see, but it is so disheartening and worrying that the instability in the region is now threatening that peace.
I want to hear from the Minister that the UK is stepping up and leading on Sudan. The Government need unequivocally to call on the Sudanese military to immediately end the arbitrary detention of all detained political leaders, journalists and human rights activists, and refrain from torture and other forms of violence against protestors; to impose targeted sanctions on those responsible for the coup and for ongoing human rights violations; and to demonstrate global leadership at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council by calling for an independent UN fact-finding mission on Sudan.
As I have made clear time and again in this House, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister need to have their eyes firmly fixed on what is unfolding in Ethiopia and Tigray. In particular, I call on the Minister urgently to consider the imposition of sanctions on the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea, who bear ultimate responsibility for human rights violations committed with impunity by their respective armed forces. No one come out well form this conflict. Atrocities are definitely being committed by both sides—I want to be clear about that—and we need to make sure that their leaders are investigated and stand trial.
We need to lead international efforts, including at the UN Security Council, to ensure an immediate cessation of hostilities, the complete departure of Eritrean forces, and unimpeded access to Tigray for local and international aid agencies—those lorries must get through.
As was said earlier, we need an atrocity prevention strategy at the heart of our funding for those countries. We need to stop the aid cuts. What meetings has the Minister had with civil society groups working in the region, the African Union and leaders in Sudan, Tigray and Ethiopia? Finally, I urge the UN Human Rights Council to mandate a truly independent inquiry into alleged human rights violations in Tigray and to secure justice.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North again for securing this debate. I pledge to do all I can to keep what is happening in Ethiopia, Sudan and Tigray on the global agenda. Millions are suffering. We cannot forget them. We must act now.
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
I thank Members for being so succinct. I am conscious that the temperature has dropped further, so if Members or staff need to don further layers, they have my support. I call the first of our Front-Bench speakers, the Scottish National party spokesperson Brendan O’Hara.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
It is a genuine pleasure to see you in the Chair for today’s extremely important and particularly timely debate, Ms Bardell. I also thank the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate and for the manner in which he opened the proceedings this afternoon, on the day that the joint report of the United Nations Human Rights Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission joint report has been published. And as we have already heard from several Members, the debate falls on the first day of the anniversary of the start of the armed conflict in Tigray.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), this debate also gives us the opportunity to discuss last week’s military coup in Sudan and the consequences it will have not just for the unfortunate Sudanese victims but for the region as a whole, which seems to be descending further into conflict and violence.
As the right hon. Member for Islington North said, the joint report of the UN Human Rights Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission was published this morning. It points the finger of blame at all sides, saying unequivocally that all parties to the Tigray conflict have committed violations of international human rights, and of humanitarian and refugee law. Some of these may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It also says that most violations in the period covered by the report were committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, but recently there have been increased reports of violations by Tigrayan forces as well. No one emerges with clean hands. As always, it is innocent civilians who suffer at such times.
Over the past 12 months, the people of Tigray have had to endure unimaginable horrors as war has raged through their country. Tens of thousands of people have died, millions have been displaced, and reports of crops being destroyed, property looted, massacres and summary executions of civilians are all too common. Almost inevitably, as the hon. Member for Putney said, there have been reports of widespread humanitarian abuses, including the use of rape and sexual violence against women and girls as a weapon of war. In the words of Sir Mark Lowcock, the former UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, it is being used
“as a means to humiliate, terrorize, and traumatize an entire population today and into the next generation.”
Six months ago, the UN reckoned that around 22,500 women would require support as a consequence of conflict-related sexual violence. Therefore, we have to assume that today, sadly, many more Tigrayan women and girls are going to have to seek help. They join that depressingly long list of women and girls from just about every part of the world who have been raped and abused by men carrying guns.
What is worse, those men carrying guns act in the almost certain knowledge that they will never be held to account for their actions. At the very least, the women and girls who have suffered those awful crimes deserve justice and those perpetrators not being allowed to believe that they act with impunity. I urge the Government to work with the UN, the non-governmental organisations and other international partners to ensure that all countries have legislation to ensure effective prosecution of sexual violence as a stand-alone international crime.
Despite the Ethiopian Government’s attempted communications blackout, reports continue to filter through of appalling crimes being perpetrated against the civilian population. We have heard that about all sides—let us be clear that all sides are responsible—but in particular about Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. In May this year, the US-based Catholic News Service ran a piece on the testimony given by an Ethiopian Catholic priest, who said that killings, abduction and rape by Ethiopian soldiers and their Eritrean allies were commonplace. The priest, who for obvious reasons did not want to be identified, accused the Ethiopian troops and their allies of ethnic cleansing:
“They want to annihilate Tigray. By killing the men and boys, they are trying to destroy any future resistance. They want to make sure that nobody can question their actions in future…They are raping and destroying women to ensure that they cannot raise a community in future. They are using rape and food as weapons of war.”
His observations echo those of the Patriarch Mathias, head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who accused the Ethiopian army and its allies of the highest form of cruelty and brutality in Tigray.
War and conflict, however, do not exist in a vacuum. As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, on top of everything else people have suffered, they now face the prospect of famine. Ninety per cent. of the Tigrayan population are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including 400,000 people who face famine-like conditions already. Millions are on the brink of hunger, food stocks that ran out at the end of August are not being replaced, fewer than one in 10 of the trucks required to carry food and fuel to the people of Tigray has made it through, and 100,000 children in Tigray are suffering from life-threatening acute severe malnutrition and could die in the next 12 months.
The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) was absolutely right to draw a parallel between what is happening in Tigray and what happened in Rwanda in the ’90s. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. By any measure, this is a deep humanitarian crisis. As the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in September, it is a “stain on our conscience”.
Similar to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), I ask the Minister in her response to the debate to tell us what assessment has been made of the impact of the Government’s cut to the overseas aid budget on the situation in Tigray. Also, what initiatives have been taken by her Department to support the United Nations and other agencies to prevent the humanitarian crisis from deepening? What have been the most recent discussions between the FCDO and the Governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea to bring the conflict to an end? What is her Department doing to ensure that those who use or encourage rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war are brought to justice?
At the start, I said that the crisis took a turn for the worse last week when there was a coup in Sudan. The military dissolved the transitional Government and seized control, arresting and imprisoning Government members and putting Prime Minister Hamdok under house arrest, in chilling echoes of the oppressive regime of Omar al-Bashir. It is extremely worrying that members of the former Government have now found themselves in hospital. We have all seen or heard reports of excessive illegal force being used against civilian protestors, with at least three people killed last week. Exact numbers remain unknown, as a result of an internet blackout. Sudanese doctors have reported a series of other injuries from beatings, suffocation on tear gas and being run over. [Interruption.]
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Order. The sitting is suspended for 15 minutes if there is one Division in the House, or 25 minutes if two Divisions happen, as expected.
Brendan O'Hara
Thank you, Ms Bardell. It is a pleasure to be back. Picking up where I left off, as we have heard from the right hon. Member for Islington North, the types of human rights violations that we are currently seeing in Sudan are entirely consistent with that country’s long and documented history of abuses against protesters, human rights defenders and those perceived as political opponents of the regime. In addition to the questions I asked regarding Tigray, I would appreciate if, in replying to the debate, the Minister would tell me what contact, if any, has been made with the leaders of the military coup regarding the detention of the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet. What assessment has her Department made of the impact of the coup on the stability of the region as a whole? Has she or her Department had any contact with Sudan’s nearest neighbours about the potential impact they think this coup will have on them? Would she clarify the current position on UK arms exports to Sudan and if and how, in light of the coup, that will be reviewed? Likewise, on the levels of military support currently being provided by the UK to the Sudanese army, how does she see the coup affecting that?
To follow up the point from the hon. Member for Putney, what use is the Government planning to make of Magnitsky sanctions against military leaders in Sudan? If I could add to that Ethiopia and Eritrea as well, which are complicit in these appalling violations of human rights, both in Sudan and Tigray. Finally, I want to thank once again the right hon. Member for Islington North for securing this debate and the hon. Members for Rotherham, for Tewkesbury and for Putney for their contributions. It is vital that this debate is not allowed to slide off the agenda and lose public attention. People are depending on us to keep it in the spotlight. I am glad to be part of that this afternoon.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who have contributed to an excellent and timely debate on recent events in both Ethiopia and Sudan, and the first anniversary of hostilities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
These issues have, sadly, received far too little attention globally. I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who could not be here today, and other Members for all that they have done to raise awareness of these issues, challenging the UK Government on their response over many months. I cannot emphasise enough the moment of peril we face in the region, or the ordinary civilians who, as ever, bear the brunt of instability and conflict and, indeed, of the wider risk to peace, prosperity and stability in a crucial region of Africa.
We have a long and complex history and responsibility with both Sudan and Ethiopia and a strong interest from the British people in both countries. The human-made famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s is seared in the hearts of the British people, as stated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North. Sudanese and Ethiopian communities across the UK are right to be deeply frightened and concerned by recent events and what they may mean for their loved ones, as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who is Chair of the International Development Committee. The Labour party stands in solidarity with them for peace, democracy, human rights and the humanitarian principle, and urges the UK Government to do all they can to ensure that that is upheld, rather than cutting our aid, our influence and our international leadership at such a crucial time.
I begin with the situation in Ethiopia, in Tigray and beyond. I am deeply concerned about events in recent days that appear to suggest a further descent into conflict and instability, which can only harm the people of Ethiopia, regardless of their politics, ethnicity or regional origins. Reports of the conflict widening, a state of emergency and the risk of conflict reaching the capital, Addis Ababa—the home of the African Union—should be a wake-up call to the world.
I want to state, as I am sure the Minister will, our desire to see, first, a return to peaceful dialogue; secondly, full humanitarian access and an end to attacks and restrictions on humanitarian personnel and operations; thirdly, urgent, full and independent investigations into the atrocities that have been committed, and the full force of international justice brought to bear on the perpetrators, whoever they may be, including the use of targeted UK sanctions under the Magnitsky regime.
It is nothing short of a tragedy, and we need an immediate ceasefire. Ethiopia had been a global success story, moving towards a democratic society, lifting millions out of poverty and acting as a bastion of stability. Ethiopia had been one of the largest recipients of UK aid, which has grown steadily along with our partnership in trade and other areas.
It is approaching a year since the clashes broke out in Tigray between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the federal Government. Ethiopia now risks falling into a lethal civil war, undoing decades of peace and prosperity, especially for those in the regions of Tigray, Afar and Amhara. Tens of thousands of refugees have already spilled over the border into Sudan, whose own Government have now been hijacked by a military coup, or have been coerced back into Eritrea, the very country so many were running from, given the history of conflict between the two countries. I am also deeply alarmed by reports of disappearances and targeted attacks on Tigrayans outside of Tigray.
This comes on top of existing economic and health crises and a growing food crisis, with tens of thousands facing the risk of famine. Thousands of Tigray’s children face life-endangering acute malnutrition, a condition that will likely affect their development if they survive. 100,000 could die from the condition in the next year alone. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently stated that in one week in early October, only 52,000 people were reached with food, or 1% of the 5.2 million
“targeted population in Tigray, in which half of them received only one or two food items.”
Some 400,000 people in northern Ethiopia are now facing famine-like conditions, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney. In addition, thousands face the prospect of no banking services: no cash, and complete disruption to commercial activities. Little fuel has gone into Tigray since August; organisations cannot work without fuel as they cannot travel to more remote areas. Medicines have not been going into the region either.
I therefore welcome the Government’s announcement that they have increased aid to Ethiopia by another £29 million, but the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that it still faces a funding gap of some £270 million. Staggeringly, UK aid to Ethiopia has in fact decreased by 64.3% between 2018 and 2021 estimates, as stated in the FCDO budget reports.
Would the Minister say what financial assistance the UK has provided to Ethiopia since the onset of the crisis? Has that support been part of the regular official development assistance budget? Will the Government further increase their support, given the worsening situation? As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth has repeatedly asked Ministers, has total support for Ethiopia gone up or down?
We have also heard shocking reports of 10,000 rapes—an estimate that does not take into account the past several months—in a region where only around 9% of health facilities are functional; of those, only a third have the capacity for clinical management of rape. Amnesty International’s recent report on sexual violence in Tigray is damning. It highlights the sadistic brutality that is being inflicted on women by parties to the conflict, including members of the Ethiopian national defence force, the Eritrean defence force, the Amhara regional police special force, and Fano, an Amhara militia group. In the report, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, says:
“It’s clear that rape and sexual violence have been used as a weapon of war to inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on women and girls in Tigray. Hundreds have been subjected to brutal treatment aimed at degrading and dehumanizing them,”
Yet this is only the start of the crisis facing Tigray and other affected regions.
Ethiopia is also facing the fifth largest covid-19 outbreak in Africa. OCHA reports that only 3% of Tigrayans have been reached with essential sanitation and hygiene messages. Since Members last met to discuss this disaster, little has changed in terms of the human suffering other than that its extent has worsened. The UN recently stated that, from 18 to 28 October, no trucks with humanitarian supplies were able to reach Tigray, and from 1 July to 28 October, only 15% of the trucks needed were able to enter the region. Senior UN staff have been denied access, including the country heads of UNICEF and the head of OCHA. The UN recently announced that it has cancelled flights to the capital, Mekelle, and suspended aid delivery activities as a result of Government-led airstrikes in the area. UN aid chief Samantha Power has said:
“This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the Ethiopian Government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access.”
I ask the Minister what assessment she has made of humanitarian access for civilians caught up in this conflict, and what consideration is being made of the growing evidence of serious human rights abuses and crimes against humanity? How is evidence such as that brought to public attention by the BBC World Service and human rights organisations being used to ensure that those responsible do not escape justice? She will know that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has now released a joint report with the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission that investigated abuses between November 2020 and late June 2021. Given the continued gravity of this situation, we call on the UK urgently to support the establishment of an independent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council.
As we all know—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North raised this—the Sudanese transitional Government have been hijacked by a military coup, and I welcome the common view across the House and the international community condemning these events. For Labour, I repeat our complete condemnation of this coup, joining the Government, the UN and other international partners. This is nothing short of a betrayal of the hopes of the Sudanese people after decades of repression and the denial of human rights.
This comes at a critical time for the people for Sudan, after reports that heavy rainfall has led to hundreds of thousands of people being affected and that relief stocks, especially of WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—products, are depleting. The country currently has 9.8 million severely food-insecure people and 1.1 million refugees. In addition, we know of at least 60,000 refugees from Ethiopia who have fled a war zone to those famine-like conditions. Can the Minister comment on the condition of those refugees, and what humanitarian support and assistance is being provided?
Last Monday, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took power from the Sudanese transitional Government and declared a state of emergency. Thousands have taken to the streets to protest against this attack on democracy, and reports suggest that several people have been killed and hundreds injured in clashes with armed forces in the capital. Live ammunition has reportedly been used on civilian protesters. Can the Minister confirm whether contact has been made with the general since the urgent question last week, and what action is being taken?
While UK overseas development aid depends on the recipient country upholding its people’s rights—and this military Government have not done so—millions are in need. It is shocking that the UK Government have in effect cut Sudan’s aid by £580 million for 2022, based on estimates, so will the Minister now reconsider those cuts to vital humanitarian assistance for both Sudan and Ethiopia? What assessment has the Minister made of the risk to international judicial processes against former President Bashir for crimes committed in Darfur and elsewhere, as well as against those responsible for more recent massacres?
While the Government pivot to the Indo-Pacific, cut our development budget and weaken our alliances and influence, the situation in east Africa and the horn of Africa goes from bad to worse, with consequences reaching far beyond the regional environment. If we are to avoid catastrophe for the ordinary women, men and children of Ethiopia and Sudan and avoid a descent into even worse consequences across the region, the Government must end their retreat from the world stage, step up, and show some desperately needed moral and political leadership.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing this important debate, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
The situation in Ethiopia is truly dire. It is worsening and very fast moving. In recent days, we have seen a further expansion of the conflict to the town of Dessie and beyond, and states of emergency have been called, first, in the Amhara region and, yesterday, nationwide. The provisions of those measures are deeply concerning; increased military powers place restrictions on gatherings and call for civilians to bear arms. We updated our travel advice last week, and again last night. We are reviewing this continually; British nationals in Ethiopia should check the gov.uk website to make sure that they have the most current advice.
We should remember that this has been going on for a very long time. We are at the first anniversary of the start of this conflict. Right now, 7 million people in Tigray and the neighbouring regions need humanitarian assistance—the highest number of people in catastrophic food conditions since the 2011 famine in Somalia. The risk of widespread loss of life is high. Furthermore, humanitarian operations in Tigray are effectively suspended; no food or cash has been able to enter Tigray since 18 October. There have been no fuel deliveries since the beginning of August. There are currently 369 trucks trying to get aid, including medicines, into Tigray. On top of this, Government of Ethiopia airstrikes over the last three weeks are reported to have killed more than 20 civilians, including six children, and injured more than 70. This appalling ongoing situation is causing acute human suffering.
Before the violence had even started, Ethiopia was already suffering from the impacts of climate change and ecological issues—the issues we are discussing in Glasgow this week, and I just got back overnight. We should be focusing our attention right now on combatting these long-term climate impacts and on how we can use our £2.7 billion adaptation budget—about half of which will go into Africa—to help countries such as Ethiopia. Instead, we are seeing increased conflict, which is simply compounding human suffering. Today, children in Tigray are dying from malnourishment.
The response to the humanitarian crisis continues to be hampered, not only by the intolerable blockade, which in itself is intolerable. At the end of September seven key UN officials were expelled, and in October an airstrike took place while a UN humanitarian air service flight was in the air, putting humanitarian workers in grave risk. That should never have happened. Shockingly, 23 humanitarian workers have been killed in Tigray this year, including staff working on UK-funded programmes. The UN and NGOs are now withdrawing their staff from the region.
In seeking this debate, hon. Members are right also to consider the impact of what is happening in Sudan, which is facing significant internal challenges. I visited Sudan two weeks ago and I met representatives from many different parts of the Government, but also from civil society, including women activists, entrepreneurs and community leaders. I saw at first hand how the UK school feeding programme is enabling children, and especially girls, to attend school. That was before the coup. As I made it clear to the House on the day of the coup d’état in Sudan, the UK strongly condemns the arrest of civilian members of Sudan’s transitional Government by the military.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) asked what we were doing with international partners. With them we are absolutely continuing to maintain public, international pressure on the military to restore the democratic transition. I personally commended the African Union’s leadership in its decision at a joint AU-UN Security Council meeting on 28 October to suspend Sudan from all activities. Together with partners we are also seeking a special session of the UN Human Rights Council as soon as possible to discuss the situation and maintain pressure to return Sudan to the democratic transition. Its people demand it. Furthermore, as part of our engagement with Gulf countries we are looking to release a statement with partners shortly. Our position is very clear; we continue to call for the military to release all unlawfully detained civilians and fully restore the civilian-led Government. Violence against civilian protestors must stop.
The right hon. Member for Islington North suggested that 60,000 Ethiopians have fled from conflict in Ethiopia to Sudan. It is actually more than 80,000. Refugee camps are struggling to absorb so many people. I also want to make it clear that the crisis in Ethiopia is man-made. It has been caused by human actions and decisions. There is no military solution. We have consistently called on all the warring parties to end hostilities and seek a political dialogue and a peaceful solution. We have made these points repeatedly to the Ethiopian Government and the Tigrayan authorities. We have also called for Eritrean troops to withdraw. When I became the Minister for Africa, I prioritised meeting the Ethiopian ambassador as my first meeting with a London-based ambassador. During the meeting, I pressed the need for urgent humanitarian access and an end to hostilities. The British ambassador in Ethiopia saw the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister last week and reiterated that call.
The UK has been very active on the world stage. We led the call for the first Security Council discussion on the conflict in November last year, and we have kept a spotlight on this at the UN. There have been six closed meetings and two open meetings of the Council to date. The Government have also called for consistent action at the Human Rights Council. In October, the UK led a joint statement signed by 43 partners, calling on the Ethiopian Government to reverse their decision to expel seven senior UN officials.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) pressed the need for the Ethiopian situation to have focus at the highest levels, and I reassure him that that is happening. The Foreign Secretary joined her international counterparts, including Secretary of State Blinken, in conversation with AU special envoy Obasanjo on 12 October. I also discussed the situation with Kenyan counterparts, including President Kenyatta, yesterday at COP and with a number of African leaders during my two days in Glasgow. It is a principle of the African Union, which is based in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, that African solutions should be found to African problems. It is, of course, right that African partners are taking the lead on trying to find an end to the conflict, but I want to be utterly clear that the UK is working to fully support them in their efforts.
The right hon. Member for Islington North mentioned arms sales. I reassure him that there are no exports of arms from the UK on available records. The UK Government will not grant an export licence if to do so would be inconsistent with the consolidated EU and national export licensing criteria, which have respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. Arms for the conflict are sadly likely to come through formal arms sales and some smuggling routes. We are concerned about reports of arms arriving in Ethiopia and continue to push all international partners to call for an end to the conflict and support the peace effort.
The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), asked about atrocity prevention. The FCDO is committed to atrocity prevention in all contexts. FCDO staff can draw on the expertise of a new FCDO conflict centre, which was announced in the integrated review in March. We are in the process of fully establishing that centre. It will draw on expertise from across Government and beyond to develop and lead the strategic conflict agenda, harnessing the breadth of conflict and stability capabilities and working with partners to increase our impact. It will work on thematic issues, including preventing sexual violence in conflict, sanctions, women, peace and security, girls’ education, children in armed conflict, and freedom of religion or belief.
Vicky Ford
I will not take interventions until I clear a few more important lines.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) mentioned our commitment to long-term projects in Africa. This week, right at the outset of COP26, the UK demonstrated our long-term commitment to the continent. We have mobilised international support and finance from donor countries to protect the Congo basin. I remind the hon. Member that many parts of the Congo basin have long suffered from conflict. We are committing new funding to support African countries in rolling out critical projects to adapt to climate change, and in partnership with South Africa, the USA, the EU, Germany and France we announced the ambitious Just Energy Transaction, which is mobilising $8.5 billion to support decarbonisation efforts in South Africa—a big project for South Africa’s stability and the future of our planet.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) mentioned prioritising humanitarian aid. As a result of last week’s Budget, we were pleased to announce that we will be increasing our funding for our highest priorities, including using more bilateral investment. That means spending aid money directly on our priorities, including lifesaving humanitarian aid, and especially prioritising the UK’s world-class organisations and our own frontline work. That is absolutely a focus for the Foreign Secretary.
On 16 October, the Foreign Secretary and I announced a further £29 million of humanitarian aid for northern Ethiopia, taking our commitment to more than £76 million. The UK is the second-largest donor there, and our finances provided water, healthcare and nutrition to hundreds of thousands of people facing famine. It is truly heartbreaking to see the continuation of this terrible conflict, which is also pulling resources away from the long-term development areas that Ethiopia had started to make such impressive progress in.
Vicky Ford
I really want to get my important statements out. I will come back to the hon. Lady at the end.
As many hon. Members have mentioned, the conflict has been marked by intolerable levels of sexual violence. They are appalling, and we are appalled and outraged at them. The UK is delivering essential services to survivors of sexual violence and to those at risk of sexual violence in northern Ethiopia. Our programmes provide individuals with critical support and care, including support for emergency mental health services. However, without sustained humanitarian access, these vital programmes for those horrifically abused women and for women at risk of abuse cannot be delivered.
We have strongly supported the joint investigation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. Their report was published just a couple of hours ago; we are studying it carefully and will push for justice and accountability as the situation demands.
All sides must protect civilians and put humanitarian needs first. That means prioritising negotiations over military activities. I call again on all parties to allow humanitarian supplies to flow. Without that, we fear that many thousands of people will die. When the UK ambassador spoke to Deputy Prime Minister Demeke and Prime Minister Abiy in recent days, he made it clear that we must see an immediate improvement in humanitarian access and meaningful engagement in peace efforts. The expansion of hostilities by the TPLF and now the Oromo Liberation Army are displacing hundreds of thousands more people and further destabilising the country.
I call on all parties, in particular the TPLF, the Government of Ethiopia and the Oromo Liberation Army to stop fighting. The continued advance of TPLF and OLA forces must stop. They should not enter Addis Ababa.
Fleur Anderson
I want to ask the Minister about the Sudanese aid funding. The Department for International Development was a long-term investor in the Sudanese peacebuilding process. That funding was entirely cut. Will she look into that cut and commit to returning to funding peacebuilding in Sudan, given what has happened recently?
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Briefly, Minister, so that the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) has an opportunity to sum up.
Vicky Ford
The UK has not only been a significant funder in Sudan, but has provided the bridging loan to help Sudan clear its arrears with the African Development Bank as part of that restructuring. We are a leading donor to Sudan. In addition to humanitarian assistance, our support had been focusing on the Sudanese Government’s twin priorities of the economy and peace. Importantly, we were putting support into the family programme, which helped to support those on the lowest incomes.
We really need to stabilise the situation in Sudan. Right now we need to see a return to civilian Government and the stabilisation of the situation, and we need to see aid coming through. We have spoken to the UN food programme today to see whether it is getting food aid, because of the blockade in Port Sudan. That is the key priority.
To sum up, we are under no illusions about the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia. We will continue to provide aid to those who need it, and we call for that aid to be able to be delivered. We keep pushing the Government in Ethiopia, the TPLF and all—
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Adult Dependent Relative Visas
(3 years ago)
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Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before I begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings. Given the recent outbreak in Parliament, I expect to see everybody wearing one if they are not speaking. For those who do not have face coverings, I will ask the Doorkeepers whether they can source some spare masks. 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. I assure the right hon. Member moving the motion that he will have his full 30 minutes. For those watching outside, we are somewhat delayed because of two votes in the House.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered adult dependent relative visas.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I want to talk about an important topic that deserves more attention than it has had, and I want to urge the Minister to change the current hostile environment policy on adult dependent relative visas, which is undermining the national health service. The immigration system should treat overseas nationals working in the UK and their families abroad more fairly than it does at the moment. I want to focus particularly on the impact on people working in the NHS.
Nine years ago, in 2012, the Government changed the immigration rules to establish their hostile environment policy. Under one of the changes, elderly parents or grandparents of British citizens are permitted to join them in the UK only if they can demonstrate that they require a level of long-term personal care that their home country cannot provide. Before 2012, a dependent relative needed to show only that they were living alone
“in the most exceptional compassionate circumstances”.
Now, the rules state that doctors are prohibited from bringing their elderly relatives to the UK from overseas unless they meet a very strict set of conditions. The problematic rules are set out in paragraphs E-ECDR.2.4 and 2.5, and I will read them. Paragraph E-ECDR.2.4 states:
“The applicant or, if the applicant and their partner are the sponsor’s parents or grandparents, the applicant’s partner, must as a result of age, illness or disability require long-term personal care to perform everyday tasks.”
Paragraph E-ECDR.2.5 states:
“The applicant or, if the applicant and their partner are the sponsor’s parents or grandparents, the applicant’s partner, must be unable, even with the practical and financial help of the sponsor, to obtain the required level of care in the country where they are living, because (a) it is not available and there is no person in that country who can reasonably provide it; or (b) it is not affordable.”
In practice, those conditions are extremely hard to meet. Home Office data shows that in the four years from 2017 to 2020 inclusive, 908 visa applications were made under the adult dependant rule. Only 35 were approved at the first attempt. Over 96% of them were refused. Some were subsequently granted after the difficulty and expense of an appeal. In 2017, I understand the Home Office did not issue a single adult dependent relative visa. Before the rule changes, thousands were approved.
What is the justification for the change? Ministers have argued that the rules are to stop adult dependent relatives from entering the UK and burdening taxpayers. Other ways to avoid any burden on the NHS and local authorities do not appear to have been considered. The existing immigration health surcharge could be incorporated into adult dependent relative applications—Canada, Australia and New Zealand have that sort of model in their schemes for elderly migration—or applicants could be required to have private medical insurance. Instead, we have made it virtually impossible for elderly relatives to come.
Over the past two years, we have all been reminded just how important the national health service is. I know I speak for all of us when I say how grateful we are for the extraordinary efforts of doctors, nurses and other NHS staff to protect and care for all of us throughout the pandemic. They should be rewarded for their hard work and dedication. Instead, many are being punished with these hostile immigration policies.
One doctor, a British national based in Birmingham, told me about the impact on him. He came from India to train as a GP in 2004. The UK is now his home. He studied here, he is working here, he is bringing up his children here. Sadly, he lost his father to covid in India earlier this year. Now, his 70-year-old mother wants to join her son and his family in the UK, but she is not allowed to do so, because of these rules. He tells me that
“no matter how much I earn and pay in taxes, my inability to look after my mother makes me feel incomplete and unfulfilled.”
He also feels his children are being denied a proper relationship with their grandmother. He says that
“my children should not be penalised for a decision I took 17 years back to move to the UK.”
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising such an important issue. His account from the doctor echoes that of a constituent of mine, a British national of Indian birth. She faces the same very difficult personal dilemma of having to consider, on the one hand, her patients and her service to the local NHS and, on the other hand, her parents in India. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that when we discuss this difficult issue, we should bear in mind not only the potential impact on the NHS, but also the tragic personal stories and the trauma that it inflicts?
Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are putting these dedicated public servants in an impossible position. I received an email yesterday referring to
“yet another consultant who has left the NHS (to live in Oman so that his mother could be with the family again).”
Six thousand doctors left the NHS to go overseas in the five years from 2015 to 2020. We do not know the reasons why they all went, but a significant number went for this reason.
The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—a former Secretary of State, of course—pointed out to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions today that
“there are now severe shortages in nearly every specialty.”
The policy we are debating this afternoon is part of the problem. We should be bending over backwards to keep doctors here. Instead, we are forcing them to leave the country. Many doctors feel very strongly, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) has just reminded the House, that they are being denied a family life. The emotional toll increases the risk of burnout.
In August this year, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and the Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe carried out a survey of nearly 1,000 doctors in the UK, and 90% reported feelings of anxiety, stress and helplessness because of this issue. Is that really how the UK should treat doctors who have risked their lives to care for us throughout the pandemic?
The rules also have a severe impact on children in the families affected, not least through making it very difficult for them to have a relationship with grandparents. Equally, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants sampled a group of professionals in the UK. Of the 121 children affected, 20% came from families living in lower-income households, more likely single-earner households. It points out that having a grandparent who can help with childcare will enable parents to work in cases where childcare costs would rule that out.
The Government have said that the rules on adult dependent relatives are in place to protect the NHS. They are actually undermining it. Medical professionals have busy, stressful lives, even more so in the pandemic. Those with vulnerable relatives abroad often have to take leave, sometimes extended leave, and travel overseas often to arrange care for their elderly parents, at a time when the NHS needs them here, and we need them here more than ever. Some doctors have been forced to leave the UK altogether. In the survey I referenced a moment ago, eight in 10 respondents were looking at leaving due to these rules.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend, who has done terrifically well to secure this very urgent debate. Coming from Birmingham, I know both the associations he referred to. To train a junior doctor costs about £230,000 and to train a GP or consultant costs about £500,000. Every time we lose one of those consultants or GPs, or even a junior doctor, it is a huge cost to us. Should the Government not understand when they are looking at value for money that these people are well paid and able to support the parents they bring over, and will contribute towards the health insurance that they have already agreed? This would give them peace of mind. They are hugely stressed at the moment and most are still thinking of leaving at a time when we need their expertise.
Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Having invested so much in their training, we need to keep those experts here, not force them to leave the country. There are more than 96,000 non-UK graduates on the General Medical Council register. The evidence of the potential loss to the NHS if these restrictions stay in place is enormous. We simply cannot afford that loss. The investment made in their training is a very important point; I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it.
This is a real threat, not a theoretical worry. The Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe said that
“in many cases, highly trained and competent”
members of staff are leaving the UK to return to their home country or go somewhere else where the rules are more accommodating in order to care for their elderly family members.
Of course, these rules will apply to EU citizens arriving to live in the UK post Brexit. They will deter skilled doctors from European countries from working here, as they are forced to opt instead for countries with a less hostile and more accommodating policy. I remind the House that adult dependent relative entry clearance applications to the UK are among the most expensive type of visas that there are. The cost of a visa application for an adult who requires care from their relative here is £3,250. The Government say these rules are to avoid burdening the NHS; I wonder whether the Minister can put a figure on the cost of a more accommodating policy. What is the estimate that we are talking about? What will be the cost of losing all these highly trained staff who are forced to leave to fulfil their family responsibilities?
The British Medical Association represents and negotiates on behalf of all doctors and medical students in the UK. In January, together with other leading medical bodies, it wrote to the Home Secretary asking her to remove this restrictive adult dependant rule for doctors. Soon after its letter, I wrote to the then Immigration Minister asking him to meet to discuss the issue. He declined my request to meet and simply told me,
“those most in need of care remain the most likely to qualify.”
The problem is that enormous numbers are not able to come. According to the Home Office, just 70 adult dependent relative visas were issued in 2020. The Government need, at least, to review their application process to determine just why so few applicants succeed. I am certain the Minister will have received representations from the Health Secretary about this issue, and I hope they will undertake a review.
The BMA has consistently raised concerns about the potential impact on patient care and on the wider NHS if doctors have to move because of these rules. Ministers do not seem to take much notice of the urgent concerns of those working on the frontline of our health service, but it is time to start taking notice before serious harm is inflicted on the NHS. Doctors must not be kept waiting any longer. There is no justification for forcing committed, dedicated NHS doctors to choose between their work and their home in the UK, and their deeply felt duty to their elderly parents to support and care for them in difficulty and old age.
Will the Minister commit today to review this unfair policy? Why have so few applicants been successful in the past nine years? Why are Ministers weakening the NHS in order to prevent elderly relatives from joining their key worker families here in the UK?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) for securing this debate. I also thank the other Members who contributed. I recognise the strength of feeling on the topic, as the right hon. Gentleman so eloquently articulated. I will respond to his points as best I can in the time I have, but it will be helpful if I set out some background on adult dependent relative visas.
The family immigration rules were reformed in July 2012 to ease the burden on the taxpayer, promote integration and tackle abuse, thereby ensuring family migration to the UK is fair to migrants and the wider community. Costs associated with cases under the route for adult dependent relatives can be significant. The Department of Health and Social Care has estimated that a person living until the age of 85 costs the NHS on average about £150,000 in their lifetime, with more than 50% of that cost arising from the age of 65 onwards. It is important to note that this figure does not take account of any social care costs met by local authorities.
Under the rules, adult dependants must demonstrate that they require, as a result of age, illness or disability, a level of long-term personal care that could be provided only in the UK by their sponsor here, and without recourse to public funds. They must apply from overseas and not while in the UK as a visitor. The rules in place before July 2012 in essence provided an expectation of settlement in the UK for a parent or grandparent aged 65 or over where they were financially dependent on their UK sponsor, subject to the provision by the sponsor of a five-year undertaking that they could maintain and accommodate the adult dependent relative without access to public funds. They also enabled a parent or grandparent under the age of 65 and other adult dependent relatives of any age to apply to settle permanently in the UK in the most exceptional compassionate circumstances, as the right hon. Gentleman said. The old rules allowed an application to be made in the UK, including while here as a visitor, as well as overseas.
The current rules for adult dependent relatives seek to ensure that only those who need to be physically close to and cared for by a close relative in the UK are able to settle here. Those who do not have such care needs can be supported financially in the country in which they live by their relative in the UK. Those in most need of care remain those most likely to qualify, compared with those who have a preference to come to live in the UK with a relative here. The lawfulness of the rules was upheld by the Court of Appeal in May 2017.
Mr Mahmood
Does the Minister understand that this is not just a question of finances and money? This is an issue of relationships, of parents, children and grandchildren, and of building and understanding a family. We can support someone on their own abroad, but we cannot have that family linkage growing.
Rachel Maclean
Yes, I fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the Government’s duty is to formulate rules that are fair to the British taxpayer and the NHS, and that ensure a fair system. I will come on to the specific issues about the health service to which the right hon. Member for East Ham alluded, but it is vital that our immigration policies do not place an unfair burden on the taxpayer.
We want to ensure that people here legally are welcomed and celebrated—which we do in this country—as part of a fair and sustainable immigration system. All family migration to the UK, including that of adult dependent relatives, must be on a properly sustainable basis that is fair to both migrants and the wider community.
Our position on adult dependent relatives remains that we have rules in place to support those who are most in need, but we are clear that the rules cannot provide a route for every parent to join their adult child in the UK and to settle here. It is simply not sustainable for the economy or the health service for there to be a routine expectation of settlement in the UK for parents and grandparents aged 65 or over. Therefore, only those who require long-term care that cannot be delivered in the country in which they live should be eligible to settle here.
We fully understand that such cases provoke strong feelings, as Members have articulated, and they can result in difficult choices for individuals, but it is essential that the rules are fair and balanced for the taxpayer, given the significant NHS and social care cost that can arise when those adult dependent relatives settle in the UK. Failure to maintain that balance puts the legitimacy of the entire system at risk.
I now turn to the issue of the NHS. Of course, we are hugely grateful for the vital contributions of all NHS staff, in particular during the pandemic. The Government have no intention whatever of punishing that group. By contrast, we have introduced a range of unprecedented measures to ensure that the health and care sector is supported fully. However, it is only fair that I address the points that have been made.
The impact of medical professionals potentially leaving the NHS was an issue that was raised five years ago and considered as part of the Home Office review of the adult dependent relative rules published in December 2016. That report considered the number of NHS staff who support adult dependent relatives overseas. It is likely to be a small proportion of the total population of professionally qualified clinical staff.
Furthermore, there is no evidence to show that significant numbers of medical professionals have left or been deterred from applying to work in the UK since the revised rules were implemented. It was concluded that, while some who might sponsor someone to come to the UK might choose to leave as a result of the revised rules, including some in skilled employment, the impact remains proportionate to the policy aim.
The latest figures show a 19% increase in skilled worker visas in the year ending June 2021, and that the majority of that increase was due to the new health and care worker visa, which saw 45,722 grants, accounting for 44% of the total skilled worker visas granted. In fact, such was the demand of overseas doctors and nurses wanting to work in the UK, in 2018 the Government lifted the cap on doctors and nurses. The Health Secretary at the time said:
“Overseas staff have been a vital part of our NHS since its creation 70 years ago. Today’s news sends a clear message to nurses and doctors from around the world that the NHS welcomes and values their skills and dedication.”
As I said, there is no evidence that significant numbers of professionals have been deterred from applying to work in the UK since the new adult dependent relative rules were implemented, and nor is there evidence to show that professionals have left the UK.
The NHS has made significant savings since the rules were introduced. The 2016 report notes that once assumptions were taken into account, the figures suggested potential NHS savings of around £249 million over 10 years. This policy will be kept under review. We are of course sympathetic about the impacts on individuals and families, but the policy must apply fairly across our society. It would not be right to provide a more generous approach for healthcare professionals than for other groups.
Ben Lake
Just to elaborate and perhaps add to the considerations, there is of course an impact on the family, but there is also an impact on the community. In many rural areas, such as mine, if we lose a solitary GP, who has to go back, we will not have a GP practice for a very large area, so there is that wider impact too. We should bear in mind that even though it may be an individual example, it has quite a widespread impact.
Rachel Maclean
Of course, I recognise the impacts of the issues highlighted by the hon. Gentleman. On the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham, that we have not considered other ways to avoid the burden on the NHS and local authorities, making comparisons with other countries and their systems, I advise him that we did consider other ways. The Home Office published a review of the adult dependent relatives rules in December 2016. As I said, we continue to keep that under review. The report is published on gov.uk, so I encourage him to look at that.
As part of the review, specific considerations were given to alternative methods of achieving the main aim, which is reducing the burden on the taxpayer and NHS costs. Those alternatives were mandatory medical and care insurance, amendments to the immigration health surcharge and a bond scheme, requiring up-front payment, which would be offset against the cost of any later NHS care. Particular consideration was given to how far each of those would achieve the policy intention, be feasible to administer, and continue to allow an adult dependent relative, with significant long-term personal care needs that could not be met in their home country, to join their relative.
Those options were considered to place a potentially unreasonable administrative burden on the NHS, while also raising significant concerns over affordability and discrimination. For example, mandatory private healthcare insurance was considered likely to be prohibitively expensive, especially if it was to cover NHS emergency treatment and/or social care and residential care. It would also benefit only those applicants whose sponsor had substantial means. Those without a close relative with such means would be excluded from the UK, even if they required long-term personal care that could only be provided by their relative here. There is also no guarantee that insurance taken at the date of application would not be later cancelled or not renewed, including in circumstances outside that person’s control, such as a significant deterioration in their health or a change in the financial circumstances of their sponsor making the insurance unavailable or the premiums unaffordable.
Any alternative scheme requiring an up-front payment of many thousands of pounds would, by definition, exclude those cases unable to pay it, regardless of the level of their personal care needs. Similarly, in the light of the estimates I mentioned earlier—that a person aged 65 to 74 costs the NHS £2,287 per year—such a scheme for adult dependents would likely need to be set at significantly more than its current level. That is why it was concluded that the revised rules were set at the right level to provide immediate settled status in the UK and free access to the NHS to those relatives whose care needs could not be met in their home country, while protecting the NHS and the tax burden.
Stephen Timms
The Minister makes the point that there is no evidence of doctors leaving the UK for this reason. We do know that 6,000 doctors left to go overseas in the five years between 2015 to 2020. She is right that we do not know the reason why they all left, but it is clear that at least hundreds went for this reason, and possibly more of those 6,000. Is she not concerned about that loss of skilled, committed doctors from the health service, at a time when—as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), pointed out at lunchtime today—there is a shortage in nearly every speciality?
Rachel Maclean
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point. He is right to ask the question. As I said earlier, we do not have verified evidence of those numbers, and nor do we have specific evidence pointing to this specific reason. There may be a number of reasons why people choose to leave and work in another country. Moreover, I point to the evidence in front of us about the people who are choosing to take up those skilled visas to come to this country, so these rules are clearly not a deterrent. I refer to my earlier remarks about the policy intention behind introducing these changes to the rules, which is to make sure that only those people who genuinely need to come here are covered by these rules, and therefore would be able to come here under the system that we have.
In conclusion, I recognise that this is an emotive subject, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for East Ham for the way in which he has articulated it. Of course, I and the Government want to support the NHS. We keep our policies under review, as I have said, and we have given considerable care and consideration to the factors that he has mentioned.
Stephen Timms
The Minister is being very generous with her time. She has made much of the cost issue; I think she indicated that for somebody elderly arriving in the UK, we would expect health and care costs of something like £175,000, but a GP has had £500,000 invested in them. I wonder whether an assessment has been made somewhere of the value for taxpayers—the straightforward financial cost—of forcing somebody who is highly trained out of the country, versus the cost of care for their elderly relative.
Rachel Maclean
I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the costs have been considered in the round, including the costs he refers to and others. In fact, those figures I quoted at the beginning of the remarks did not include care costs, which I am sure he will agree are significantly higher than the other figures I have referred to, which are purely for treatment and costs.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Medical Cannabis under Prescription: Children with Epilepsy
(3 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings, given the recent outbreak of covid-19 in Parliament. I expect all Members to be wearing masks if they are not speaking; if there are Members without a mask, masks can be found to my right, on top of the cupboard. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also 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. This can be done either at the testing centre in the House or at home. Please also give Members adequate space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Members will be aware that we have been delayed as a result of two votes, so this debate is due to end at 5.56 pm.
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered medical cannabis under prescription for children with epilepsy.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell, and I am very grateful to open this debate on an issue that affects many of our constituents. I do not propose to speak for long, because I can see that quite a large number of colleagues are in the Chamber and would like to speak as well. If they have not already done so, I invite them to inform the Chair that they wish to speak.
I wish to mention my constituents Maya, who is nine years old, and Evelina, who is just four. Maya and Evelina suffer from rare forms of epilepsy and rely on medical cannabis to improve their quality of life. Their families are currently having to pay up to £2,000 a month for private prescriptions of medical cannabis, as they are unable to access that medicine on the NHS. Their families are also having to go to unbelievable lengths to raise money, something that has been made more difficult during the pandemic as there has been less opportunity to fundraise. Maya’s family have set up a Facebook page called “Mercy for Maya”, where her mum Samantha runs monthly fundraisers and raffles to help with the enormous monthly costs. My constituents should not have to do this for something that is legal on the NHS.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The picture that the hon. Member paints is one that I and many other hon. Members are familiar with, because we also have constituents going through the same ridiculous hoops to get a legally available medicine. Is he aware of any other medication in this country for which that has ever been the case—it has been legal and available, but people have had to raise the money for it themselves in this way?
Alberto Costa
I am not sure, but I doubt that our constituents would have to put their hands in their pockets to the tune of £2,000 a month to pay for any other medication that was extremely important for their severely ill children. My constituents, and indeed all Members’ constituents who have children in this situation, should not have to pay for this medication themselves.
Medical cannabis has had lots of benefits for Maya, including preventing her from having prolonged seizures, which has meant less time in hospital. Medical cannabis has also improved her alertness and engagement. She used to spend a lot of time asleep during the day, but she is now able to attend school, which she very much enjoys.
Both I and colleagues have lobbied the Government tirelessly to widen access to this life-changing and life-saving treatment. I am sure that I speak for many Members here today in expressing delight that medical cannabis was made legal in specialist cases in November 2018. This week marks three years since that law change.
I welcome the new Minister to her place and the good progress that the Government have made on widening access to medical cannabis. I am also grateful to her for agreeing to meet me, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for access to medical cannabis under prescription, along with my colleague the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), later this month. I look forward to discussing the issues in greater detail with her.
You may be interested to learn, Ms Bardell, that since the very welcome law change three years ago, which should have improved the lives of children who suffer with rare and intractable forms of epilepsy, only three prescriptions have been issued on the NHS—only three prescriptions. At this point, I would like to clarify that we are talking about whole-plant extract. This type of medical cannabis, containing CBD and THC—cannabidiol and tetrahydrocannabinol—together with many other active ingredients, has been life transforming for a small cohort of families and their children. It is vital that that point is understood, as there have been several hundred prescriptions for a fully licensed paediatric drug known as Epidiolex, but that is primarily CBD-only. There is an acknowledgement that that drug has a role to play, but it was not the subject of the appeals that were so eloquently and passionately made by the families concerned when they visited Parliament at the start of this week.
Access to medical cannabis was legalised after high-profile campaigning by me and other Members across the House, who are here today, and the hard work of the group End Our Pain. It and other campaigners, along with some of my colleagues, worked with the then six-year-old Alfie Dingley, who also suffers from rare, intractable epilepsy, to help him secure access to medical cannabis. In 2018, after intensive campaigning, Alfie was granted the first ever long-term licence for the type of medical cannabis that is life transforming. Medical cannabis subsequently became legalised in specialist cases on 1 November 2018. Since Alfie secured the prescription, his transformation has been significant. He has gone from suffering up to 150 life-threatening seizures a day to recently celebrating being 500 days seizure free. The change in health and quality of life for Alfie is nothing short of transformative, and that transformation has been evident in many others, too.
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who in 2018 was the Home Secretary who granted the licence for medical cannabis to Alfie Dingley. I know that my right hon. Friend cares deeply about this issue. Now that he is Secretary of State for Health, I urge him to consider the recommendations that I am mentioning today on what further action could be taken to help children like my constituents to access medical cannabis on the NHS. The law change has been a change in legislation, but not in practice. That has been reflected in the number of NHS prescriptions that have been issued. My constituents and many others were greatly reassured by the steps that this Government took to legalise these treatments in 2018, but they are understandably dismayed that actions have not followed words in this case.
There are a few reasons for this blockage on NHS prescriptions. At the same time that the law changed, a number of bodies issued guidance on how and when medical cannabis should be prescribed. Those bodies included the British Paediatric Neurology Association, the General Medical Council, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Royal College of Physicians, but let us be clear: nothing—absolutely nothing—in any of the guidance states that it is wrong or not allowed to prescribe this medicine, either privately or on the NHS.
However, I am advised by the families and advocates on this issue that the guidance paints a somewhat confusing picture. In my capacity as co-chair of the APPG, I have attended a number of meetings with senior NHS leaders. In those meetings, they tell me that if an NHS consultant wishes to prescribe medical cannabis, they are able to do so. The British Paediatric Neurology Association does not currently support the use of whole-plant medicinal cannabis, which includes the THC ingredient, and has published guidance stating that only neurologists should be allowed to prescribe cannabinoids containing CBD. That guidance has been criticised for being overly restrictive.
The high level of caution in the guidance issued is likely to have played its part in preventing the prescribing of those products and making NHS trusts unwilling to provide funding. Currently, there are only three paediatricians in Britain who prescribe the whole-plant oil to children with drug-resistant epilepsy, and one of them is to retire imminently, meaning that families are at risk of losing their prescriptions.
A few months ago we had a breakthrough, as NICE issued clarification of its guidance relating to the use of medical cannabis for drug-resistant paediatric epilepsy. It has now made it clear that clinicians can prescribe medicinal cannabis in appropriate cases. However, even since the clarification of the guidance, the hesitancy among the medical profession remains.
I am aware that this issue continues to receive a high degree of media, public and political attention, and I am concerned that some of those involved—perhaps some of the medical professional bodies such as the BPNA—may be experiencing a temptation to entrench and dig in. If that is the case, I make a plea to them and their medical professional colleagues to reject that temptation and instead to reach out to work with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Minister and her colleagues, the families and interested politicians to find a way forward to help these vulnerable families and their children.
I also strongly encourage the Government to ensure better education for paediatric neurologists on whole-plant extract medical cannabis and its benefits for children with drug-resistant epilepsy. I am aware that the previous Secretary of State for Health and Social Care tasked the NHS with undertaking a review of the blockage on NHS prescriptions. The review reported in August 2019 and made two main recommendations: first, that an expert panel be set up to advise on the prescription of medical cannabis in cases of paediatric epilepsy; and secondly, that a trial should be set up to inform the evidence base on safety and efficacy, and to act as a way of getting these families access to the medicine for free.
The families and campaigners have told me that those recommendations offered them great hope and a way forward. However, things have not worked out as the families hoped. Yes, the expert panel was set up; it is called RESCAS—the refractory epilepsy specialist clinical advisory service—and its members are indeed experts in paediatric epilepsy, but as far as the families can see they are not experts in the way that whole-plant extract has worked both here in the UK and overseas.
Imagine, then, the enormous disappointment when one of the very first cases considered was turned down for medical cannabis. The young boy in question is experiencing a life transformation similar in positive impact to that which Alfie is experiencing. The panel is not working. I know the Minister cares deeply about this matter. I hope she will agree that the make-up and terms of the panel are in need of urgent review so that it includes expertise not just in the condition itself, but in the medicine too.
The other main recommendation of the August 2019 review was the establishment of trials. I understand that the Government’s position is that there needs to be more research in the area before prescriptions can be available more freely. The proposed trial was to be observational, which meant the children could continue on the medicine and their condition be evaluated by medical professionals. It soon became clear last year that plans for the observational trial had been dropped and replaced with a randomised control trial. RCTs are not appropriate in this case, as I am sure hon. Members agree, as they require some of the cohort to be taken off the medicine and given a placebo.
That is simply not possible, and we have to ask ourselves why anyone would take their children off a medicine that was already working for them and improving their quality of life. RCTs can also be incredibly costly and take years to complete. That is time that my constituents and others do not have. I therefore suggest that the Government consider conducting an observational trial or an alternative study as a means of enabling the children to have continued access to medical cannabis at no cost. That would be possible for the Secretary of State, and the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), here today, to commission under the National Health Service Act 2006.
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
The cost of having medicinal cannabis for children is astronomical, at between £800 and £2,000, and that is for those who can afford it. The very children who need the medicine to improve the quality of their lives where it has been proven to be effective and who cannot afford it cannot be put on the scrapheap to further delay. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?
Alberto Costa
I think it is imperative that we work cross party and we encourage, cajole and push the Government to do the right thing. The right thing is what? While acknowledging that the Ministers have these powers, I understand that there are concerns about whether such action might lead to unintended consequences in the form of legal challenge relating to other drugs. I am a lawyer; I understand that. I used to work in government and defend the Government from judicial review. I understand.
However, I believe that any such concerns and risks could be mitigated. I also suggest in the meantime that the Government use the discretionary fund that they have at their disposal to cover the cost of the private prescriptions. There are a small number of children and families across the country in this desperate financial situation. The Government can intervene financially to reduce the burden every month, so that families such as my constituents Maya and Evelina do not have to rely on the uncertainty of fundraising. That is my favoured option, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to access that fund.
During the pandemic, Maya had to be rushed to A&E a few times due to her condition. Surely these children needing to go to hospital to have urgent medical treatment is more costly to the NHS than providing them with the prescription they need. Therefore, I suggest, only as an interim measure—I plead—that the Government consider covering the costs of the private prescriptions for the most vulnerable children in our country suffering from severe epilepsy who need this medication, until the Government find a solution with the bodies and particularly the medical profession.
In conclusion, I urge my colleagues in Government to consider the recommendations that I and other colleagues across the House have made and are making here today, as well as listening to the families affected. While I appreciate the good work that the Government have done on this issue, they can and should go further. I and many colleagues across the House will continue to champion this matter: better access to medicinal cannabis on the NHS for my constituents, all the constituents affected across our country and all the children suffering from this awful illness, so that they get the drugs necessary, free at the point of need on the NHS.
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before I call speakers, I want to acknowledge those who are with us in the Chamber today and those who are watching. I also acknowledge the importance of this subject. Because it is such an important subject and I want to call the Front Bench by 5.34 pm, with the Labour and Scottish National party spokespersons having five minutes each, I will impose an initial time limit of four minutes to ensure that every Member has the opportunity to represent this very important issue.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Ms Bardell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for securing this debate, for his articulate and forensic analysis, and for the coherent account we have heard from him.
It is three years since we were able to celebrate the change in the law that should have helped the children and families we have been hearing from this week. Sadly, after three long years, they are no further forward. As we have heard, since 2018, only three NHS prescriptions have been issued for the type of medical cannabis that was shown to be so life-transforming for the likes of the then six-year-old Alfie Dingley, whom the hon. Member spoke of earlier. It was Alfie and his mum who were at the forefront of this campaign. They and many others achieved the change in the law that they had all worked so hard for.
Heartbreakingly, while the law has changed, it has not been properly implemented and utilised for those crying out for help. Families have been left at breaking point emotionally and financially, having to find up to £2,000 a month to pay privately for this medicine. I cannot begin to imagine how on earth these loving parents cope with such massive monthly costs— £2,000 a month is the equivalent of an additional and very substantial mortgage. In fact, it would dwarf many people’s mortgage payments. Not even we MPs on over £80,000 a year could cope with that. How on earth can we expect those families to withstand such huge costs, simply trying to keep their children alive and free from the ravages of seizures by accessing a known and proven prescriptive solution?
That these families cannot secure NHS prescriptions for their children, when it has been proved beyond any doubt that cannabis is efficacious, is a monumental shame. The campaign group that the hon. Member mentioned, End Our Pain, rightly said that this saga has dragged on for far too long. Those families have petitioned, marched and campaigned with such dignity. They should not and must not be ignored.
The new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was pivotal in the change in law when he was Home Secretary. I urge him and his Department to give effect to that change and remove all barriers to getting medical cannabis to those patients. The campaigning families will do whatever it takes to help Government remove any barriers to doing the right thing and give them and their loved ones access to medical cannabis as they would any other therapeutic drug.
We lost our 16-year-old son to epilepsy over 15 years ago. I do not know whether medical cannabis would have helped him, had we even known about it then, but I will do everything I can to assist these families in their determination to get the medication that their children need. The memory of seeing our beloved Rory locked in status; to hear my wife scream for me to get an ambulance; to see the paramedics come upstairs to his bedroom; to hear the consultant in the hospital tell us that we better call a priest; and to hold my child as he died is something that I never want any of these families to suffer. I beg the Government to do the right thing and remove whatever barriers there may be and guarantee them access to this life-changing, life-saving treatment.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
May I say what a moving speech that was by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald)? That sort of personal experience is exactly what this issue is all about.
I came into politics to help. To my knowledge, I do not have a single constituent who benefits from a prescription for medical cannabis, but that does not make it any less important that I campaign on behalf of the all-party parliamentary group. I could not disagree with a single word in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), who succeeded me as co-chair when I stepped down.
In 2015, as the Home Office Minister responsible for drug policy in Government, and sat where the Minister is sitting now, I made a speech saying that the Government were minded to allow the prescribed medical use of cannabis. I did not say that for the sake of it; I said it because the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), gave me permission to do so. She went on to be Prime Minister, and one of the reasons why Alfie got his medication, and why the Caldwell family’s campaign was so successful in the Province, was that she picked the issue up and said, “We are going to do something about this.” In 2018, the then Home Secretary was able to change the law for that reason.
I say to all colleagues, and to anybody listening to the debate, that this issue is not about rolling a cannabis joint. It is about a group of children, some of whom have clicked over into adulthood now, who may well not have been here today were it not for some very brave consultants turning their backs on what the profession was telling them to do, and doing instead what was right for those children. Those consultants have come under enormous pressure not to sign the prescriptions.
When we drafted the legislation, we were very careful to ensure that it was not up to GPs alone to issue the prescriptions. We did not want to get into another opioid situation—I will not say that opioids are prescribed willy-nilly, because that would be unfair, but we know there is an opioid epidemic. We specifically said that the GP had to refer the child to a specialist, and that it would be for the specialist to decide. A few have been brave enough to do so.
Sadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire mentioned, and as the parents were telling us only yesterday when they were here lobbying colleagues, some of those consultants are retiring, and of those who want to prescribe medical cannabis, some are too frightened that they will be referred to the professional body. If they do prescribe it, their employers are refusing to honour the prescription. I thought we had an NHS that was free at the point of delivery when an NHS prescription is issued.
I have no notes—I have no need for them. I have discussed this issue so many times in this Chamber, as well as in the main Chamber, where I will be tomorrow. Politicians get it; Secretaries of State get it; the Minister gets it. But parts of the medical profession do not get that they are responsible for keeping these young children alive, and that they need to get off their butts and do so.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I thank the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for securing this incredibly important debate and for his extremely powerful contribution. I am also grateful for the other contributions that we have heard, especially that of my great friend, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald).
I pay tribute to those of my Liverpool, West Derby constituents who are living through the devastating consequences caused by the lack of access to medicinal cannabis. I pay tribute to the families, their friends and all those in our community who have campaigned relentless for those people. They should not have to fight that hard and they should not have to endure so much. It was a real privilege to meet some of the campaigners at the End Our Pain event. One of my constituents wanted to be there, but it is extremely difficult for her to be away from her child at the moment—their time together is so precious.
I was proud to sign End Our Pain’s letter to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State yesterday, which asked for immediate action to find a way to help the families with children with severe epilepsy, who continue to be denied NHS access to medical cannabis, as we have heard so powerfully so far. I know that the Minister was listening intently, and I can see the empathy in her eyes. I urge her, on behalf of my constituents, to take immediate steps and do whatever it takes to help these families. I ask that the Minister intervene to help adults who require access to medical cannabis under NHS prescriptions. I spoke to some families yesterday. There are siblings going through the same unimaginable pain. I am happy to discuss this at any time with the Minister.
The law was changed on 1 November 2018 to allow access to medical cannabis under prescription. This brought hope to many families. In my first meeting after becoming an MP in 2019, I spoke to families and they had an air of optimism. They thought there was change coming, but the reality three years on, as so eloquently put by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire, is that only three NHS prescriptions have been written for whole-extract cannabis oil. Families are having to raise £2,000 a month to buy this medicine privately.
We need to remember that we are in the middle of a pandemic, so funds that those families had raised previously had gone. The people I spoke to yesterday were talking about mortgaging or selling their house, doing whatever they can to raise the money. Tragically and heartbreakingly, there are families who believe that this medicine will help their child, but they will not put the child on it because of the limitations to starting the process and having to take the child off, as well as the financial issues. I cannot imagine what is going through their minds.
My constituent Lauren wrote to me last night. Although I cannot do full justice to everything she put in the email, I would like to impress on the Minister just some of what she is going through and what she is asking from the Government. She says:
“My time together with my son is precious, and I shouldn’t have to keep fighting. I want to make memories for whatever time we have left. In March NICE reiterated their guidelines about prescribing medical cannabis and these guidelines are certainly not being enacted. The Health Secretary must help now before it’s too late. Allow GPs to prescribe, and if that can’t be done instantly, then establish an emergency fund for the children already benefiting from private prescriptions.”
Lauren is a truly awe-inspiring mum and campaigner, like many I met yesterday. Her asks are simple and need to be listened to. Families are being pushed from pillar to post, and this injustice cannot continue. The interests of patients should be put first, and the system must start delivering the enormous benefits that this medicine can offer.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
It is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Bardell. I would not often say that I agree with every word said by a Conservative Member, but in the case of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), it is accurate. He gave an incredibly considered speech. It is great to hear the consensus that exists in this room.
We have today’s debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) has a more general debate tomorrow on the medical use of cannabis, rather than in cases of epilepsy, and the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) has introduced a private Member’s Bill on the issue. That shows the cross-party consensus, the momentum and the urgency of the issue. Everyone today is speaking about their constituents’ experiences. I pay tribute to all the families and campaigners who have come forward and are prepared to speak out. I met with some yesterday at the End Our Pain lobby. Plenty of my own constituents have lobbied on the issue, because they have been moved by the stories they have heard, and I have a particular case.
The name of the campaign, End Our Pain, says so much. It is the pain that the individual children, and the adults, are experiencing with their medical conditions. It is the psychological pain the families are going through as well, having to watch the physical pain that their children are suffering. All that pain can be, at the very least, mitigated, if some of the steps that we have heard about are properly taken.
I have spoken previously about my constituents John and Laura and their beautiful daughter Bláthnaid, who is affected by Aicadri syndrome, which is a very severe and rare form of epilepsy. There are only several thousand cases worldwide. It is very difficult for clinicians to know what might or might not work. It is incredibly distressing for both the parents and the children, who do not understand what is happening when they go through these seizures. Many of the conventional medicines that are tried have their own side effects that cause particular difficulties, or resistance builds up, which increases a different kind of suffering.
Sir Mike Penning
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that doctors are prescribing off-label drugs that work for adults, particularly steroids, to these children, but they are not willing to look at medical cannabis?
Patrick Grady
Yes, and a few years ago we had the Off-patent Drugs Bill, which sadly did not make as much progress as it could have done. That had the potential to give doctors more freedom, which is clearly one of the messages coming out of the debate. Of course there will be an element of risk, but there has to be a way of managing and mitigating it so that doctors can feel more confident about prescribing cannabis-derived treatments.
When my constituents see the positive effects that CBD can have, they wonder what effects a drug with THC might have. When they see the benefits to other children, even though every case and condition is unique, the potential must exist there, and when the alternative is to go private and pay incredible amounts of money, which is not without its own risk, the frustration becomes very real, so the Government have to speed up the trials and the opportunity for people to take part in them. They have to look at how the licensing can improve and how we can increase the confidence of doctors. Above all, they have to listen to the voices of parents and patients, and their carers and advocates in Parliament.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. The debate is a bit like groundhog day for many of us—Members will forgive the expression. We have made the arguments about the children in our constituencies, and about the pain that their families are going through, knowing that there is a drug that not only can but does help them. In my constituency, Murray Gray has been transformed from a wee boy who was constantly ill, in and out of hospital and missing school, and whose parents feared for his life almost daily, to a happy wee boy who pays football with his dad, and has been to my office and explained to me exactly what dinosaurs are—not that I am one of them.
Seeing that transformation makes me only more determined to give what support I can. For me, and I am sure for many others, the question remains: why did the Government make medicinal cannabis legal if they did not intend it to be for the benefit of these children? I am sure that they did. When the then Home Secretary made that move, I am sure that the motivation was to improve the lives of these children, so why are the Government not taking the last step to encourage the medical profession to make that happen?
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
I met the father of Jorja Emerson the other day. He was literally in tears because his lovely daughter has multiple fits daily. The frustration is that the last remaining consultant who could make the prescriptions has retired. There is a real danger that some of these children will no longer have access to a drug that the Government intend them to have access to. I hope that the Minister has heard my intervention.
Christine Jardine
The hon. Member makes a pertinent point. This is the nub of the issue: we need consultants to be encouraged and enabled to write national health service prescriptions for these children. We have pestered the Government and will go on pestering the Government. There will be no resting place for them on this issue until we have the assurance that these children will get the help that I am sure that the Government originally intended them to have, and that is still just outwith their reach.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) on securing the debate. It is great to see a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Care responding today, because for far too long we have been talking to the Home Office about these issues. I believe that the Minister is an ex-nurse, if there is such a thing; perhaps it is “Once a nurse, always a nurse.”
Yesterday in Portcullis House, family members came to tell us their heart-rending stories, yet again. As we politicians listened, the feeling of, “What can we do?” sank into us. We went over to No.10 Downing Street and delivered a letter—another letter—explaining the situation to the Prime Minister. During the course of the day I talked to a number of parents, and one of them asked me a question that I have been asked many times, but every single time it hits home: “What would you do if it was your child? What would you do if your child was suffering 30 seizures and more a day? Would you reach for the rulebook, or reach for the medicine— if you could afford it, because right now, in this country, if you cannot afford it, you are not getting it?”.
There have been only three NHS prescriptions, as was mentioned, despite the now Health Secretary promising to do everything he could to help. I am fascinated by that; three means that there is precedent. We have broken the dam. If there were none, it would be a different argument—but there have been three. Why not 30? Why not 300? Why are we still scrambling around for these things? Hannah Deacon, who has been mentioned often in this debate, and whose son Alfie is in receipt of one of those NHS prescriptions, has written to the Health Secretary three times asking him to help, as he promised to do when, as Home Secretary, he wrote to her. All three letters have gone unanswered. Some politicians are hiding behind medical professionals, and some in the medical profession are hiding behind politicians. The parents of these children have no place to hide. They have to manage the reality of the situation day in, day out. We need progress. We need to accept the validity of real world evidence. Asking kids to take part in trials with a placebo is abhorrent.
Many barriers would be broken if GPs were allowed to prescribe medical cannabis. At the moment, they cannot initiate prescriptions but can follow up. Cannabis is largely a GP medicine, given its efficacy in GP conditions such as pain and anxiety. It would be of enormous help to allow GPs to initiate prescriptions. A recent survey showed that about a quarter of GPs would be happy to prescribe it. This would require a simple change to the relevant misuse of drugs statutory instrument; it would not require parliamentary time.
I look forward to tackling this issue in much more detail tomorrow in the Chamber. I hope that we can investigate all the problems, and ultimately come up with solutions. We have talked round and round this subject for a long time. Three years and three months on from a promise by the UK Government to make medical cannabis available, we are still no further on. It is a crying shame that these people are still living in hope—living, I have to say, in desperation at the situation they find themselves in. They are looking to us politicians to do something about this. In my privileged position, I am sick to death of having to say to those people that we are no further forward.
Please, Minister, take on board what we have heard today. Politicians are asking the Minister, cross-party—a very rare thing—to look at the situation and do what she can, now and in the longer term. On what could be done now, if there was a fund that we could reach into to pay for these prescriptions, that would be a massive step forward, including for the parents and guardians of these children, who, day in and day out, are asking us to do something for them.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) on securing this important debate. We have worked together over many years on health issues, and he has done very important work alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) through the all-party parliamentary group on medical cannabis under prescription.
I start by saying to those who have spoken in the debate and those watching elsewhere that I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must be to be the parent of a child with serious epilepsy. The fear that they go through every day, and the difficulties that they experience, must be beyond terrifying. I also recognise the huge financial burdens that many parents face, and the anxiety of parents who want access to these prescriptions, but are still denied it.
As the hon. Member for South Leicestershire said, it has been three years since the then Home Secretary, now Health Secretary, changed the law on this very important issue. As we all know, that change came about after a number of very high-profile campaigns in utterly heartbreaking cases of children suffering from epilepsy, including Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley. I pay tribute to the families who campaigned relentlessly on these issues. It gave hope to people that things would change. Yet three years later, we do not seem to be very much further forward. As the hon. Member for South Leicestershire said, the law has changed, but the practice has not.
I will focus on three things that need to happen to put this right. The first, which many hon. Members have spoken about, is the desperate need for more research and evidence. One of the barriers to clinicians prescribing is that they feel they lack knowledge, or are not really sure about the evidence on both the benefits and the risks. That point has been made time and again over the last three years. It was made during the original review, back in 2018, particularly by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It was repeated by the Health and Social Care Committee in its review of why things had not changed, back in 2019. Six of its 11 recommendations were about providing more research and evidence. Indeed, that was called for by the then chief scientific adviser, now chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and in the NHS England review commissioned by the last Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock).
I hope that the Minister will say where we have got to on that issue, and particularly on the point about more research and evidence from clinical trials being needed. However, that last point absolutely cannot mean taking children off these products if they are on them; that would be completely wrong. How will she make progress on all those issues?
Secondly, what other steps are being taken to improve access? I will focus briefly on three of the 10 recommendations made by NHS England. One was that the national medical director and chief pharmaceutical officer for England should write to doctors and pharmacists, reminding them of the guidance on prescribing, how they can access a cannabis education package produced by Health Education England, and how to get the message out about what can happen at present. NHS England also recommended much clearer information for patients, and that a specialist clinical network be established, so that everybody is aware of the real evidence. Could the Minister comment on what further action the Government have taken on that?
Finally, a really difficult but important point: as we move forward with the research and evidence, and as we try to improve understanding among all professionals—GPs as well as specialists, because we can have a partnership approach—what will we do to support those parents who are paying such huge amounts of money? Have the Government considered what support might be made available to them?
Changing the law is essential, but getting that to work in practice—changing hearts and minds, as well as the law—is the only way we will make progress. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken. I hope that the parents out there listening know that they have champions in this place, and that we will carry on doing our best to make sure we get the best results for their children.
Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I say gently and kindly to her that I would expect her to finish by 5.44 pm, so that I may call the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) to sum up for two minutes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
I would like to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) on securing the debate. He lobbies on this issue almost daily, representing constituents such as Maya and Evelina so well. I fully appreciate the strength of feeling and the impact that this issue has on some of the most vulnerable children in their daily struggle with drug-resistant epilepsy. That is why, three years ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who was then Home Secretary, changed the law to recognise the need to allow unlicensed cannabis-based products to be prescribed by specialist doctors. The Government are supportive and have used many levers, which has been quite challenging at times.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) hit the nail on the head when he said that this is now more a clinical issue than a political one. In many cases, doctors are unwilling to prescribe medicinal cannabis; we heard from a number of Members that we may be down to just one clinician left who is willing to do that. The main reason is that these products are still unlicensed. The way that medicine works in this country is that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will license a product after significant research, not just into the efficacy—we have heard from many Members that there is a strong feeling that these medicines work—but into the adverse events and potential side effects. In prescribing these medications, the clinicians will take responsibility both for the drugs working and for any impact of those drugs.
Sir Mike Penning
This is the argument that always comes up in the briefings for Ministers. If it is not safe, how are prescriptions being given for free on the NHS? If it is safe, give it to the rest of them. It cannot be right that time and again Ministers use the argument about safety, when prescriptions are given free on the NHS.
Maria Caulfield
These are clinical decisions. No one is saying that these products are not safe, but there is not the evidence base to get the licence. The MHRA does this for every single medicine, not just medicinal cannabis.
I want to set out how we can get to a place where we can get these drugs licensed and clinicians will feel confident in prescribing them. We recognise that, for many children, these drugs improve their quality of life—individuals have reported improvements—but without that research evidence base, the MHRA will not give a licence. The MHRA is an independent body—it is not controlled by the Government—and the clinicians will take advice and guidance from it. We may agree or disagree with how the MHRA licenses a medicine, but that is the process for all drugs. It is not just the MHRA—no country in the world has licensed this product. The Food and Drug Administration has not; the European Medicines Agency has not; the MHRA has not. The solution is in pushing the clinical research needed for a licence to be granted, which would open up prescribing for clinicians around the country.
Andy McDonald
Do the Minister and the MHRA not recognise that there is an abundance of practical evidence from the families who have scrimped and saved and raised money through charitable activities to fund the administration of the drug, and that it works? Surely that is persuasive. These families have not got time to wait for the research that the Minister is talking about, and I am yet to hear anybody tell me what harm would be done if that drug were to be given to those who need it and want it.
Maria Caulfield
There are concerns, particularly around the THC element, that there could be some effect on the developing brain and on heart conditions. Research is needed not just on the effect of the drugs, but on their safety.
I want to point out that the Government have made funds available for good-quality research. That does not have to be done by the manufacturers; it can be done by charities, clinicians or researchers. A range of people can come forward to carry out clinical research. The MHRA—
Maria Caulfield
I will not; I have only a couple of minutes left.
The MHRA is well equipped to provide advice to any applicants wishing to conduct clinical trials.
Maria Caulfield
I have literally got two minutes left.
Currently, 13 trials are ongoing across the United Kingdom. In the previous 12 months, six of the other trials of cannabis-based products were completed, so some research is coming through the pipeline to help with that evidence base. I want to touch on one—the randomised clinical control trial mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire.
It is true that one study has three arms, one of which is a placebo. Having worked in clinical research myself, I reassure my hon. Friend that there are strict ethical guidelines for any clinical research. If someone is allocated to the placebo arm but it is clear when monitoring the research that one arm is doing significantly better than another, the trial has to be unblinded. Anyone on a placebo arm is automatically put on the arm that is doing best. I worked on clinical research for breast cancer, when we were trying to get Herceptin licensed, and for some patients that was the quickest way to get the drug. If there is clear evidence that one arm is working far better than others, patients can be moved on to that arm. It is a way of fast-tracking the drug for licensing.
I reassure Members that I absolutely understand the issue. The Government have changed the law to allow use of medical cannabis, but unless we give clinicians the confidence that the drugs, first, work—a feeling that they do seems to be the consensus in the Chamber—and, secondly, have a safety profile, they will not prescribe them. We can debate it forever in the House, but the clinicians have to be convinced. The way to do that is to get the product licensed, and the way to do that is to get good-quality research that the MHRA can look at to feel confident in licensing that drug.
The Government’s view is that there is funding for such research. My commitment to Members present today is that I will work with other colleagues to see whether we can speed up applications for research, encouraging them to come forward. For many Members, that is not the answer that they wanted to hear; they want me to stand up and say, “The drugs will be available tomorrow and we have people to prescribe them.”
Ronnie Cowan
We have to re-categorise cannabis from schedule 2 to schedule 4. That will open the gateway to medical research. Right now, it is hard for a lot of medical researchers to gain access to the product in the first place.
Maria Caulfield
The licensing process is independent of Government, but we have levers to speed that up to ensure that the research coming through the pipeline—I have outlined some studies already in progress—will help the evidence base. We have been here before with other drugs in other sectors and we have manged to get there. We have another debate on Thursday, at which I am sure Members will press me further, but my commitment is that we will use every lever possible to get the research and the licensing process through, so that doctors across the country feel confident to prescribe this medicine, which makes such a difference to young people’s lives.
Alberto Costa
I thank all Members for contributing this evening. I thank the Minister for her response. Clearly, it is not the response that I was hoping for, but I know that she genuinely wants to find a solution.
I have offered a temporary solution. Doctors are prescribing this medication, but they are prescribing it privately. Many private prescriptions are being given by the medical profession to kids such as Evelina and Maya. My request once again to the Minister in my summing up is about her having a discretionary fund. Why do I know that? Because her predecessor told me so in answer to one of the debates that we had. The Minister has that discretionary fund and the executive authority to permit private prescriptions—which the parents of Evelina and Maya, and all the other parents across the country, have to pay for—to come from that pot, as a temporary solution until the Government, the regulatory bodies, the medicinal bodies and the medical profession sort out the issue.
I will be coming back to the Minister, I am afraid, once again requesting access to that fund.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered medical cannabis under prescription for children with epilepsy.
Written Statements
UK Community Renewal Fund
(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)
I will shortly announce 477 projects supporting people and communities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland which are set to receive a share of over £200 million, helping support local areas to pilot imaginative new approaches and programmes that unleash their potential, instil pride, and prepare them to take full advantage of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund when it launches in 2022. The UK Community Renewal Fund is part of the Government’s plan to level up our regions and create a more united country.
This is levelling up in action—investing in projects across the whole of the UK that will make a real difference to people’s lives. Supporting those on low incomes to become budding entrepreneurs, investing in local businesses and councils at the forefront of our decarbonisation drive, and funding new education and training facilities that will help people go far but stay local. Through this fund we are also empowering local leaders to shape the places they live, guaranteeing that these investments have a lasting impact.
Below is a selection of UK Community Renewal Fund projects that will be funded:
Over £1 million to upskill people in retrofit and modern construction skills in Devon to support the decarbonisation drive in the property sector, helping people get construction jobs and ensuring businesses have the skills they need.
£201,064 to support unemployed and disadvantaged residents in Carmarthenshire into self-employment or to start their own business, by investing in digital, employability and entrepreneurial skills. The programme will also fund a bootcamp for female entrepreneurs, developing a networking group for women in business.
£67,626 to deliver deaf awareness training and basic British Sign Language to customer facing staff at a range of organisations throughout Rhondda Cynon Taf. The money will also be used to set up local community groups for the elderly who are hard of hearing, tackling loneliness and isolation.
£72,501 to support neurodiverse people with conditions such as Tourette’s, OCD, ADHD/ADD and Dyslexia in Antrim and Newtownabbey to secure employment and prepare for the world of work.
£612,000 shared between Inverclyde and Aberdeen City for a pilot to support 16–24-year olds from deprived areas to upskill and secure jobs.
Delivering on the commitment to level up all of the UK underpins the choices made in the Budget and spending review. The historic levels of investment confirmed through SR21 will improve living standards for people and places across the UK, helping ensure that people’s opportunities in life are not determined by where they live. Investing in people will boost employment, wages and prospects. The Budget and spending review launches the UK Shared Prosperity Fund worth over £2.6 billion, to help people access new opportunities in places of need. Funding will rise to £1.5 billion a year by 2024-25.
[HCWS369]
London Capital & Finance Compensation Scheme: Contingencies Fund Advance
(3 years ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
On 19 April 2021 the Government announced the detail of a compensation scheme for London Capital & Finance plc (LCF) bondholders (HCWS922). The scheme provides 80% of LCF bondholders’ principal investment up to a maximum of £68,000 and will be open to all bondholders who hold bonds that have not already been compensated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Now that the necessary legislation has passed through Parliament, final preparations are being made so that the scheme can begin making payments in November. The Government have appointed FSCS to run the scheme on its behalf using part 15A of the Financial Services and Markets Act. The Government and FSCS are committed to providing all eligible bondholders with their compensation within six months.
I would like to emphasise that bondholders do not need to do anything at this stage and should wait for FSCS to contact them about their compensation payment. Further detail on exactly how the scheme will operate, including the scheme rules and frequently asked questions, are available online at www.gov.uk/LCF-compensation-scheme
The Compensation (London Capital & Finance plc and Fraud Compensation Fund) Act received Royal Assent on 20 October 2021 but provision for this was not included in the main estimate for HM Treasury at the start of the financial year. In accordance with normal procedures, HM Treasury will therefore be using a contingencies fund advance to enable bondholders’ access to their compensation payments, ahead of the provision being provided in the Treasury’s supplementary estimate.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £120,000,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a supplementary estimate for HM Treasury. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £120,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the contingencies fund.
[HCWS370]
Fishing Licence Numbers: UK and the Crown Dependencies
(3 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Victoria Prentis)
This statement sets out, for clarity, the numbers of fishing licences issued by the UK and the Crown dependencies since the trade and co-operation agreement (TCA) was signed. The information is correct as of 9 am on 3 November 2021. UK Applications received Licences issued Licences pending further information from the Commission/Member State 183[1] 1793 38 [1] Licensed vessel was withdrawn at the EU’s request. Applications received 1,673 Vessels licensed 1,673 Member State Applications received Licences issued Applications pending Belgium 65 65 0 Denmark 121 121 0 France 736 736 0 Germany 49 49 0 Republic of Ireland 358 358 0 Lithuania 2 2 0 Netherlands 192 192 0 Poland 2 2 0 Portugal 49 49 0 Spain 90 90 0 Sweden 9 9 0 Applications received 109 Vessels licensed 102 Member State Applications received Licences issued Applications pending Belgium 21 17 4 France 88 85 3 Applications received 50 Vessels licensed 19 Member State Applications received Licenses issued Applications pending France 50 19 31 Total live applications Permanent licences issued Temporary licences granted. Valid until 31/1/22. Further information from the commission/member state required for them to be made permanent Lapsed on 30/10 due to lack of evidence 217 113 49 55
The position does change as applications can be made or withdrawn at any time. Requests to withdraw licences by the European Commission can also be made at any time and therefore the number of active licences will be slightly different.
UK waters
Under the Fisheries Act 2020, all foreign vessels fishing in UK waters are required to have a licence. Article 2(1) of annex 38 to the TCA sets out the level of access which applies during the adjustment period, until 30 June 2026. This includes both the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and particular zones in the territorial sea (6 to 12 nautical miles from the shore in ICES divisions 4c and 7d-g). Access to the territorial sea is limited to “qualifying” vessels: those that fished in those zones in at least four of the years between 2012 and 2016, or their direct replacements. The TCA also places some limitations on access in terms of which stocks can be targeted, where and by which member states.
In the UK 6 to 12 nautical mile zone, our approach has been to license vessels once sufficient evidence has been provided that they have fished in UK waters on at least one day in four of the years between 2012 and 2016.
The number of licences that have been issued to EU vessels to fish in UK waters is as follows.
Overall total:
UK 12-200nm zone
The majority of these licences were granted on 31 December 2020 with 1,285 EU vessels licensed.
By member state
UK 6-12nm zone
Vessels over 12m
By member state
Vessels under 12m
By member state
Crown dependency waters
The TCA provides for different arrangements for the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, all of which are responsible for issuing their own licences. Article 502(1) of the TCA provides that:
“Each party shall grant vessels of the other party access to fish in its waters reflecting the actual extent and nature of fishing activity that it can be demonstrated was carried out during the period beginning on 1 February 2017 and ending on 31 January 2020 by qualifying vessels of the other party in the waters and under any treaty arrangements that existed on 31 January 2020.”
A “qualifying vessel” is one which fished in the relevant CD waters on more than 10 days in one of the periods defined by the TCA.
Both Jersey and Guernsey have extended transitional arrangements to enable EU vessels to continue to fish in their waters, while evidence of relevant fishing activity during the reference period is collected and they move to a full licensing regime.
Licensing figures for the Crown Dependencies are as follows:
Jersey
Jersey has also received 11 applications for replacement vessels, which are pending the finalisation of a methodology for such vessels.
Guernsey
Guernsey’s transitional arrangement which allows access for 167 French vessels will continue until 31 January 2022.
Full licences will be issued to eligible vessels on 1 December 2021. 58 applications have been received.
Isle of Man
No applications received.
Additionally, a further 37 applications for direct replacement vessels have been received from France. Processing of these will be carried out once a methodology has been finalised for such vessels.
[HCWS372]
Adult Social Care: Winter Plan
(3 years ago)
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The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)
On 3 November 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care will be publishing the “Adult Social Care: Winter Plan 2021 to 2022.” This plan has been developed in conjunction with the NHS and social care sector stakeholders, drawing on the recommendations of Sir David Pearson’s review of last year’s adult social care winter plan; advice from SAGE and UKHSA; and extensively on lessons learned so far in the pandemic.
The adult social care winter plan 2021-22 will set out the actions that national Government will be taking to support the sector, along with the steps that local authorities, the NHS, and care providers should take to prevent and control covid-19 outbreaks. The plan focuses not just on covid-19, but also on other viruses such as flu and norovirus, to ensure that those who receive social care are protected this winter.
Thanks to the huge success of the UK’s vaccine rollout, we are in a favourable position as we approach this winter, and I am determined to ensure that those in all social care settings remain protected while maintaining their quality of life. The UK Government have already set out a comprehensive package of measures to support the adult social care sector throughout the winter. These are:
£388 million in further funding to support infection prevention control, testing and vaccination uptake in adult social care settings. This is in addition to a further £478 million to continue enhanced hospital discharge support until March 2022.
A new £162.5 million workforce recruitment and retention fund to bolster the dedicated care workforce. This funding will support local authorities, working with providers, to recruit staff and retain the existing workforce—through a range of measures which could include local recruitment activity, the creation of staff banks, additional overtime hours and payments to incentivise joiners and recognise loyalty—to ensure the right number of staff with the skills to deliver high quality care to meet increasing demands.
Free flu vaccination for eligible frontline social care workers and carers and ensuring pharmacists can vaccinate staff and recipients of care in care homes.
Covid-19 booster vaccinations to those in JCVI cohorts 1-9 that received their second dose more than six months ago. Older adult care home residents and staff will receive covid-19 boosters within their home.
Continuing the designated settings scheme, in order to provide appropriate care for in a covid-secure environment for those likely to be infectious with covid-19 who are discharged from hospital. The designated settings indemnity support has also been extended to cover the winter period until 31 March 2022, in order to maintain the current level of support for these vital settings.
Continuing to provide free PPE for covid-19 needs to the adult social care sector until the end of March 2022, with sufficient stock to cope throughout winter. Regular asymptomatic covid-19 testing will be maintained, with the availability of more intense testing regimes for higher risk settings.
We are also publishing the evaluation from the workforce capacity fund. The fund which saw £120 million support provided to the sector in January 2021, helped the sector to deal with the challenges of covid-19 last winter, delivered 7.3 million additional hours with over 39,000 new recruits. It was deemed, by the overwhelming majority of LAs, as either “somewhat” or “very” effective in supporting them to strengthen workforce capacity last winter.
The Department of Health and Social Care has worked closely with the NHS to ensure the adult social care winter plan is co-ordinated and integrated with their planning. NHS England and NHS Improvement’s winter planning guidance is already available at: NHS England » 2021/22 priorities and operational planning guidance: October 2021 – March 2022. The adult social care plan and NHSEI’s planning guidance enable the providers of care across both sectors to prepare for winter.
[HCWS371]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
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. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Budget Statement
(3 years ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
That the Grand Committee takes note of the economy in the light of the Budget Statement.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the Budget and spending review that the Chancellor set out last week delivers a stronger economy for the British people. It shows what this Government are about: investment in a more innovative, high-skilled economy, better public services, backing business, help for working families with the cost of living, and levelling up. It does not draw a line under Covid but it begins the work of preparing for an invigorated economy beyond Covid.
There are reasons for optimism. The Office for Budget Responsibility says it now expects our recovery to be quicker. It forecasts the economy to return to its pre-Covid level at around the turn of the year, several months earlier than it thought last March. In July last year, at the height of the pandemic, unemployment was expected to peak at 12%. The OBR now expects unemployment to peak at 5.2%. That is some 2 million fewer people unemployed than originally feared. Wages are rising. Compared to February 2020, they have grown in real terms by almost 3.5%. In the depths of the worst economic crisis on record, the Government set out a Plan for Jobs. The OBR forecasts confirm that the plan is working.
The Chancellor said last week that he made four fiscal judgments in the Budget and spending review: first, that the Government will meet our fiscal rules with a margin to protect ourselves against economic risks; secondly, that we will continue to support working families; thirdly, that as well as helping people at home, our improving fiscal position means we will meet our obligations to the world’s poorest, with forecasts showing that we are scheduled to return to spending 0.7% of our national income on overseas aid in 2024-25; and, fourthly, that there will be a real-terms rise in overall spending for every department, with an increase in total departmental spending over this Parliament of £150 billion.
At the start of this Parliament, resource spending on healthcare was £133 billion. Last week’s spending review confirms that by the end of this Parliament it will increase by £44 billion to over £177 billion a year. The extra revenue we are forecasting to raise from the health and social care levy is going direct to the NHS and social care, as promised.
As well as funding to deliver the Prime Minister’s reforms to social care, we are providing local government with new grant funding over the next three years of £4.8 billion. We are investing more in housing and home ownership, with a multiyear housing settlement totalling nearly £24 billion.
Last week’s Budget funds our ambition to recruit 20,000 new police officers. It provides an extra £2.2 billion for courts, prisons and probation services. It commits £3.8 billion to the largest prison-building programme in a generation.
We are delivering on our commitment to schools, with an additional £4.7 billion by 2024-25 for the core schools budget in England, over and above the 2019 spending review settlement for schools in 2022-23. Taken together, this is broadly equivalent to a cash increase of over £1,500 per pupil by 2024-25 compared to 2019-20.
As we level up public services, we are also levelling up communities—restoring the pride people feel in the places in which they live. To do that, we are providing £560 million for youth services, over £200 million to build or transform up to 8,000 community football and multiuse sport pitches across the UK, and the funding to turn more than 100 areas of derelict land into new green spaces. The first round of bids from the levelling-up fund have now been allocated. There is £1.7 billion to invest in the infrastructure of everyday life in over 100 local areas, with £170 million in Scotland, £120 million in Wales and £50 million in Northern Ireland.
Levelling up is also about protecting our culture and heritage. This is why we are investing £850 million to protect museums, galleries, libraries and local culture, and why over 100 regional museums and libraries will be renovated, restored and revived.
This is a Budget and spending review for the whole United Kingdom. Through the Barnett formula, last week’s decisions increase Scottish Government funding in each year by an average of £4.6 billion, Welsh Government funding by £2.5 billion, and funding for the Northern Ireland Executive by £1.6 billion. This delivers, in real terms, the largest block grants for the devolved Administrations since the devolution settlements of 1998.
The whole of the United Kingdom will benefit from the UK shared prosperity fund. Over time, we will ramp up funding so that total domestic UK funding will match EU receipts, averaging around £1.5 billion a year.
As we come out of the worst economic shock we have ever seen, the Government must choose whether to retrench or to invest. This Government choose to invest. Infrastructure connects our country and drives productivity. That is why our national infrastructure strategy is investing over £130 billion in economic infrastructure such as roads, railways, broadband and mobile. To connect our towns and cities, we are investing £21 billion in roads and £46 billion in railways. The Prime Minister promised an infrastructure revolution, and this Budget delivers one.
Investment in our infrastructure is just the first step. We will invest more in innovation. The Chancellor last week confirmed that we will maintain our target to increase R&D investment to £22 billion. Combined with tax reliefs, total public investment in R&D is increasing from 0.7% of GDP in 2018 to 1.1% by the end of the Parliament. Our net-zero strategy, meanwhile, is also an innovation strategy, investing £30 billion to create the new, green industries of the future. Innovation comes from the imagination, drive and risk-taking of business.
The Chancellor last week announced that we will consult on further changes to the regulatory charge cap for pension schemes, unlocking investment that will improve member outcomes, while protecting savers. He increased the British Business Bank’s regional financing programmes by over £1.6 billion, expanding their coverage and helping innovative businesses get access to the finance they need across the whole United Kingdom.
If we want greater private sector innovation, we need to make our research and development tax reliefs fit for purpose. The reliefs need to reflect how businesses conduct research in the modern world. The Chancellor last week expanded the scope of the reliefs to include cloud computing and data costs.
Last year, companies claimed UK tax relief on £48 billion of R&D spending. Yet UK business investment was around half that, at just £26 billion. This is unfair on British taxpayers. It puts us out of step with places such as Australia, Canada and the USA, which have all focused their R&D tax reliefs on domestic activity. From April 2023, we are going to do the same and incentivise greater investment here at home.
As well as investing in infrastructure and innovation, there is one further part of our plan for growth that is crucial: providing a world-class education to all our citizens. Higher skills lead to higher regional productivity, and higher productivity leads to higher wages. The Budget and spending review invest in the most wide-ranging skills agenda this country has seen in decades. We are increasing skills spending over the Parliament by £3.8billion—a cash increase of 42%.
We are expanding T-levels, building institutes of technology, rolling out the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee, upgrading our FE college estate, quadrupling the number of places on our skills bootcamps and increasing funding for apprenticeships. The Government have also announced a new UK-wide numeracy programme, Multiply. Worth £560 million, Multiply will improve functional maths skills to help change people’s lives across the whole United Kingdom.
The Prime Minister said last month:
“We are not going back to the same … broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration”.
Achieving greater productivity is not just a job for government. It is a collaborative effort, with the Government providing the infrastructure, employers moving away from relying on low-paid staff from abroad and employees embracing the opportunity to upskill. This Budget commits the Government to delivering on their part of the bargain.
We want this country to be the most exciting and dynamic place in the world for business. For that reason, the Chancellor announced a series of other changes to our tax system, including reforming our tonnage tax regime to make it simpler and more competitive and reducing air passenger duty for domestic flights from April 2023 to support the union. From April 2023, there will be a new ultra-long-haul band in air passenger duty, covering flights of over 5,500 miles, with an economy rate of £91. Less than 5% of passengers will pay more, but those who fly furthest will pay the most.
Our approach to corporate taxation strikes a responsible balance between funding public services and encouraging the investment that we need for a stronger economy. For that reason, the Chancellor announced that the £1 million annual investment allowance will not end in December as planned but be extended to March 2023. He also announced that we will retain the bank surcharge within corporation tax of 3%, meaning that the overall corporation tax rate on banks will, in 2023, increase from 27% to 28%.
Business rates are receiving a significant overhaul. The system will be fairer and timelier with more frequent revaluations occurring every three years. We are introducing support to encourage businesses to adopt green technologies such as solar panels and a new business rates improvement relief. The Chancellor announced that next year’s planned increase in the multiplier will be cancelled—a tax cut for business worth around £4.6 billion over the next five years. To help businesses hardest hit by the pandemic, he announced, for one year, a new 50% business rates discount for eligible businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors up to a £110,000 per business cap—support worth almost £1.7 billion.
The Budget takes a number of other important steps. It includes the most radical simplification of alcohol duties for over 140 years. This includes a further freeze to all alcohol duty rates for the coming year. The cancellation of the planned rise in fuel duty means a saving over the next five years of nearly £8 billion. It announced that public sector workers will see fair and affordable pay rises across the whole spending review period, as we return to the normal, independent pay-setting process. It takes action to help the lowest paid by accepting the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission to increase the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, meaning that a full-time worker will receive a pay rise worth approximately £1,000 a year. Finally, to make sure that work pays, it cuts the universal credit taper rate by 8%, from 63% to 55%. Because the Budget also increases the work allowance by £500 per year, this is an effective tax cut worth over £2 billion next year. Nearly 2 million families will keep, on average, an extra £1,000 a year.
To conclude, this Budget and spending review begins the work of preparing for a new economy post Covid. It helps with the cost of living; it levels up to a higher-wage, higher-skill, higher-productivity economy; and it builds a stronger economy for the British people. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I owe the Committee an early apology. I resigned from the Front Bench after more than 10 years in that role, from the time that we formed the Opposition, way back in 2010. I had therefore expected to play the normal, critical Back-Bench role in this Committee meeting today and found myself suddenly precipitated into a Front-Bench role. I am not sure that I will be entirely secure in this position after 10 years of absence, but I know that my noble friends will back me up and fill in any gaps that I inadvertently leave.
The Chancellor was enormously upbeat when he presented his Budget a short while ago. The problem is that the realities that face many low-income and middle-income families are far from optimistic. As a nation, we are enjoined to be optimistic in circumstances where certain facts have to be grasped because, until they are adequately tackled, we have no basis on which to expect good results.
The Minister made no reference to the Resolution Foundation—Ministers do not and he therefore follows a good tradition—but the Resolution Foundation regards the position of public finances very differently from the Chancellor. We think that placing the highest burden on people who have the lowest income is gratuitously and outstandingly unfair. It is the Conservative Party being loyal to its principles, of course, but that does not make them any more attractive. How on earth people are expected to cope with the cuts to credit that are envisaged in the Budget I do not know. What I know is that, whereas the Chancellor talks of prosperity, certain categories of people are destined to pay a heavy price indeed.
That tends to be the case when we look across areas of government policy. I will take one area in which the Government have waxed lyrical recently—extra funding for schools. They did not preface it with any apology at all for the absolute devastation that has been forced on further education over a decade of Conservative rule; that is to be brushed under the carpet. Our side welcomes the sinner coming to repentance with the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and development of lifelong learning, which have an important dimension of enhancement for people. But at this stage I warn the Chancellor, in case he has not recognised, as he has not for a number of other issues in his Budget, that this costs a great deal of money. We will be watching the Government and making sure that, during their time in power, they match those requirements.
With this buoyant optimism that exists all around, have the Government recognised their political optimism? “Well, we do not face the electorate for a number of years and there are certain areas where we can see the potential for favourable development.” That says nothing about the burdens on our population at present, in the high costs of food and fuel and the anxieties that people have about whether they will survive this winter, keeping warm, against the outstanding energy costs that they are obliged to meet. There was not much mention of that in the Chancellor’s speech or in the Minister’s speech this afternoon. He covered a fair amount of ground and I congratulate him on that, but he at no stage repaired the obvious damage of omission that could be seen in the Budget Statement and which the country has to live with, for the time being.
The Government pride themselves on certain increases in expenditure—certainly, schools are one. We welcome that. We also note that it only just brings schools’ expenditure per pupil up to the level in 2010, when the Government first came to power. We also recognise that schools are having to recover in a more dramatic way from the pandemic. They are going to find it very difficult, even with the limited increased resources supplied by the Government, to ensure that our students do not face irreparable loss of years of learning, which are difficult to make up.
This is a Budget which enabled the Minister to select and emphasise his favoured bits, but the country has to face the Budget as a whole. What is actually clear is how much this Budget bears heavily down on the less well off in our society, while we are seeing tax breaks for the particularly well off. It is a Conservative Budget all right, and none the better for that.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, first, I want to congratulate the House authorities on making this room as comfortable as it could be, but this debate really should have been in the Chamber and not the Moses Room.
On the face of it, the Minister and his colleagues are responsible for the highest tax since the 1950s and, as we heard from the Minister, there is a promise of record capital spending. I am not going to dwell on the Government’s philosophical U-turn to embrace tax and spend, but I am going to question the purpose and effectiveness of this Government’s approach, and I will focus largely on growth.
The Chancellor’s latest fiscal rules are predicated on the need to generate growth in the national wealth, and this begs two questions. Does this Budget leave people with the money and the confidence to create consumer-led growth, and does it ensure that businesses have confidence in government plans to invest in productivity-led growth?
First, where is the economy headed? The Minister will point to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility projection of GDP growth for next year of more than 6%, but that hides an underlying rate of little more than 1%. The 1.3% annual growth projected for the end of the spending review period is effectively no growth at all. When you take into account underlying issues such as our ageing population, it is stagnation, not growth. Set alongside this, the OBR has warned that the cost of living could rise at its fastest rate for 30 years. Its latest forecast predicts that inflation is set to jump from 3.1% to an average of 4% in 2022; others point even higher, some north of 5%. Rising inflation will no doubt bring rising interest rates and rising housing costs—and let us not forget the already banked rise in tax and national insurance.
On the personal income question, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, quoted the Resolution Foundation; I have used the IFS, but the results are very similar. The IFS said that millions of people are set to be worse off next year amid spiralling costs and tax rises. Supporting the IFS, the OBR pointed out that, once rising prices and rising taxes are taken into account, average household incomes are set to fall next year and will not recover before 2023. Take-home pay in those average households will fall by 1%—or about £180 a year.
For lower-paid workers, the Chancellor has made much of the cut in the universal credit taper rate and the rise in the national living wage. Those are good things, but their story—their outcome—is not so good for those people. According to the IFS, as the cost of living is set to increase faster than benefit payments, low-income households will also feel “real pain”, and
“millions will be worse off in the short term.”
Let us not forget that 75% of the 4.4 million households on universal credit will be worse off as a result of the decision to take away the £20 per week uplift. Can the Minister please explain how deliberately making 3.3 million homes poorer equates with levelling up? Even if there are enough HGV drivers to put stock on the nation’s shelves, it seems unlikely that this country will enjoy consumer-led growth.
The second point of analysis is whether this Budget drives growth through investment by business. For a business to invest, it needs a strong sense of what the government plan is and confidence that the Government will stick to it. Again, I take my lead from external experts, in this case Make UK, the trade organisation that represents the vast majority of businesses that make things in this country—in other words, that help to drive prosperity. Its view is very clear and damning. At the end of a long blog, it says that
“there still remains an absence of a medium to long-term economic plan which goes beyond simply chasing the next week’s headlines”.
How can business invest in the long term when the Government are not explaining the detailed view of the future?
Meanwhile, SMEs have been kept in a state of confusion around the important issue of business rates. The Lib Dems have always advocated wholesale business rates reform, but what has been announced is another temporary fudge of a system that prolongs the uncertainty that small businesses face. If those businesses are facing uncertainty, how can they be committed to investment? Additionally, businesses that have taken on more debt during the Covid crisis will start to see rising interest rates. Perhaps the Minister could tell your Lordships what the Treasury’s projections are for every 1% increase in interest rates in terms of insolvency of small businesses.
Businesses tell us that they want a detailed plan, particularly around climate change. Yet again, the messages from BEIS and the Treasury are very mixed. There are lots of warm words, but actions such as cutting the cost of internal flights send the wrong messages. Does the Minister now realise that that has backfired and it was the wrong decision? Climate change needs big thinking. The Liberal Democrats have plans to spend £150 billion on a green recovery over the next three years—that is the sort of thing we need.
As the Minister set out, R&D is an important part of the Government’s aspirations, yet, in reality, R&D spending has been cut back by the pushback of two years. That makes achieving the 2.4% GDP target all the harder, particularly in respect of getting money from the private sector. Tax reliefs will not be enough, so can the Minister tell us what else the Government are going to do to get that money?
In conclusion, this was a time for important questions to be answered. What does the digital and green future look like and how is it funded? What does the levelling-up and rebalancing of our economy mean and how can we deliver it? What will the skills revolution actually be like and how will it be delivered? Yet, in spite of taxes being raised to the highest level in my lifetime, these questions remain unanswered. Instead, what we have seen and what people tell me they have seen is a disjointed collection of press releases. It is a shame that the Government did not use this opportunity to address the real issues facing the country.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle (Valedictory Speech)
My Lords, these past six years during which I have served as Bishop of Newcastle and as a Member of your Lordships’ House have, in a good way, been the most extraordinary years of my life. After a lifetime of living in the south, these six years in the north-east have helped me to see things from a different and much richer perspective.
The usual way to assess a Budget, the one we see in the newspapers, is to identify the winners and losers. I want strongly to resist this approach. When, aeons ago, I studied for my degree in economics, I learned that the way we spend our money shows what we value, what really matters to us. The question that matters is not what will I or we get out of this, but what kind of values does this Budget embrace—what is the moral framework undergirding it?
In Newcastle diocese I am well known—indeed, probably notorious—for citing the words of Archbishop William Temple, and references to him have not been unknown in speeches I have made in your Lordships’ House. I was therefore delighted to hear that Edward Heath shared my enthusiasm. He wrote that the impact of William Temple on his generation was immense and that the reason was not far to seek: William Temple was foremost among the leaders of the nation, temporal or spiritual, in posing challenging, radical questions about the nature of our society and its economic basis. Archbishop Temple did not often offer solutions, believing that the bishops lacked the technical expertise to do that, but he insisted that the answers to his questions had to be founded on a moral code. Archbishop Temple’s key priorities, were, first, that every child should find itself a member of a family housed with decency and dignity; secondly, that every child should have an opportunity of an education until years of maturity, which should make possible the full development of their aptitudes; and thirdly, that every citizen should be secure in possession of such income as would enable them to maintain a home and bring up children.
What would Temple make of the Budget we are debating today and what questions would he ask? Much of the Chancellor’s scope for making spending commitments depends on the forecast for economic growth, which is now expected to be 6.5% this year. Thinking of Temple’s priorities, and as chair of the North of Tyne Combined Authority Inclusive Economy Board, I believe the key question here is who will benefit from this growth. Experience suggests that the poorest are often left behind.
In terms of Temple’s priorities, there is much to welcome in this Budget, in particular the rise in the national living wage to £9.50 an hour, and it was so good to see Iain Duncan Smith’s satisfaction that the 8% cut in the universal credit taper rate at last gives us the universal credit system he designed. I also welcome the £1.7 billion levelling-up fund to be invested across the United Kingdom, which will begin to create greater interregional equity. I note that the levelling-up funding has so far focused on hard infrastructure, when we know that social infrastructure is needed as well if our communities are to flourish. I urge the Government to move further along the path of devolving funding to the regions and to trust regional and local government to make the best decisions for the areas and people they serve and know best.
One of my concerns about the Budget is that the poorest people in the world will continue to be impacted by the cut in foreign aid spending, which it seems will not be restored until at least 2024, and I remain deeply anxious for people who are on universal credit but not in work. This is a real concern in the north-east, with our relatively high level of unemployment. I understand, but nevertheless deeply regret, the Chancellor’s decision to remove the £20 a week uplift. This is a decision which hurts the most vulnerable, including many families with children.
This brings me to the question that concerns me most: are we doing the very best we can for our children and young people and the future flourishing of our country? The IFS analysis suggests that since 2010, health spending has increased by 40% while education spending will have increased by only 3%. As health spending disproportionately benefits people of my generation and older, this leads to an extraordinary and unacceptable situation of intergenerational injustice, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. As a country we spend 5% of our GDP on education but 10% and rising on health. We should ask ourselves whether this is right. Increasing education spending will mean taking money away from something else, so there are no easy answers, but in the Temple tradition, I will not let that stop me asking to what extent we are prepared to invest in the future for our nation and our children, and what we are prepared to give up in order to achieve that.
In my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House, I said:
“The north-east is not a problem to be solved by the rest of the country but an asset to be valued.”—[Official Report, 25/5/16; col. 419.]
I have fallen deeply in love with the north-east, and most especially her people, who are warm, hospitable, proud and resilient. Human flourishing in all its forms, including economic flourishing, depends above all on our most precious resource—our people. The challenge to us as a nation is to invest in our people, particularly our young people, to equip them to thrive in the world they will live in.
I began my maiden speech by speaking of the wonderful kindness and warmth of welcome I received from your Lordships, the staff and all who work in this place. I conclude by saying that this early experience has been borne out in every way during my time here. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and will hold your work deeply in my prayers.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, it is an extreme pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I have always believed that the Bishops make a very valuable contribution to this House, which was exemplified in the wonderful speech we heard a few moments ago. She said that she would have a different perspective since she came here from the north-east; I hope she will carry back the message that there are many people here working hard for the ideals she articulated and expressed so well. I am sure she will be missed by not just her colleagues but all of us.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that this debate should have happened in the Chamber. I regret that. Be that as it may, Alistair Darling once observed that nobody could ever foresee the sort of situations that Chancellors of the Exchequer might have to deal with. That applies in spades to the present Chancellor, who could never have envisaged that he would have to deal first with an epidemic, then with its economic consequences—a very deep recession—and now a potential inflationary crisis.
There was some good news to be welcomed in the Chancellor’s speech. We had faster than expected growth, which validated the Bank of England’s forecast—slightly to my surprise. I will concentrate on the fiscal position. The good news there was that borrowing, which had been at 15% of GDP, or £320 billion, came down this year to 7.8% and will be 3.3% next year. These figures, if not normal, are at least getting into the territory of somewhere near normal. Similarly, the stock of debt figures did not max out at 100%, as some had been predicting, but at about 86%. However, I was puzzled—I would appreciate it if my noble friend Lord Agnew could comment on this—as to why the Chancellor quoted figures minus the Bank of England. Why should the stock of debt be quoted minus the Bank of England, when the Government choose to maintain all the time that they are not being financed by the Bank of England?
The Chancellor was helped not just by the £36 billion that he imposed in extra tax increases but by the £35 billion increase in revenues caused by the growth of the economy. He chose to split this between spending and, as was right, strengthening the fiscal position. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, whom we welcome back to his position on the Front Bench today, called this a very Conservative Budget. That was not what everybody thought; that was not the universal reception in the press. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, hinted at that; I think one newspaper dubbed it “more Brown than Lawson”.
There seemed to be two Chancellors of the Exchequer speaking in the Budget speech: one who was enjoying trotting out all the spending and describing 800,000 playing fields being financed, and another at the very end of the peroration who was a bit doubtful about all this and expressed a degree of regret about it. At the end of his speech, he said that it was very important to recognise that government has limits. He said it should have limits. The point was very well made. Government expenditure last year reached 53% of GDP—an astonishing figure, well beyond what Roy Jenkins thought was compatible with a civilised and free society. That was 53% of GDP at a time when the tax revenues were only 36% or 37% of GDP, a gap of 17 percentage points. This year, the size of the state, if one wants to call it that, has been reduced back to 42% because of the growth in the economy, so the proportion taken up by public expenditure does not need to be permanent.
As the state grows, so does the tax burden. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred to this being the highest tax burden since the 1950s. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made it crystal clear that he was not entirely comfortable with the level of tax and wanted to see the tax burden going down by the end of the Parliament. I share that sentiment, but I think we have to recognise—there has been little recognition of this in some of the speeches we have heard—that we have been through a seismic series of events, which led to a massive fiscal hole. While Conservative MPs cheered the furlough and the bounce-back loans, one wondered where they thought the money would come from and how this would be financed, yet they expressed horror when the Chancellor had to impose taxes amounting to some £36 billion. I kept reading in newspaper accounts of the Budget that the Chancellor’s tax increases were the largest imposed since those of someone called Norman Lamont, so I had some sympathy for him and the situation he found himself in.
We have also to recognise that certain forces are driving up expenditure, whether we like it or not. These are primarily the demands of an ageing population, and of a health service dealing with the demands of an ageing population. The IFS has projected that, in a few years, the NHS could take 44% of programme expenditure. That has led, not for nothing, to people dubbing Britain as the NHS with a state attached to it.
It has to be noted that, while the Chancellor is taking these measures and announcing some big increases in expenditure, the survey period shows that taxes are going up as a proportion of GDP more than expenditure is. Also, our taxes are still below those of other European countries, by quite a long way. I think that only Ireland has tax levels below ours. Taxes and spending are high, perhaps too high as a percentage of GDP, but in the aftermath of a pandemic they can be justified over the short term.
I welcome the fiscal rules that the Government have announced. I hope that the Chancellor will send a copy to his neighbour in No. 10 Downing Street—it is important that he, as First Lord of the Treasury, observes them as well. I think that the Government face two challenges. The first is, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, the rate of growth, which in the later years of the survey period will be below 2%. You cannot finance 3.8% growth in public expenditure on growth of 1.3% or 1.6%. The second is inflation. Many people are predicting that the 4% average inflation forecast by the Bank of England could be an underestimate, both because energy prices might go up and because supply chain interruptions might last into next year. All that will prove a big challenge to the Government. I applaud the fiscal consolidation in the Budget. The Chancellor has risen to one set of problems, but I fear that it is rather like getting to the top of the mountain and discovering that there is another mountain just beyond, which he has yet to climb.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, I should like briefly to focus on four key areas of the economy, all of which are connected: wage inflation, labour shortages, productivity and, finally, education. By way of quick introduction, since I am relatively new to this place, I should say that I am drawing chiefly on my own experience in the private sector—30 years as an entrepreneur and employer and the last seven years as an adviser and investor in start-ups. It is a particular pleasure to follow the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, and, in her heartfelt valedictory speech, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, whose comments I found myself endorsing.
The Government’s aim to build back better and create a higher-wage economy sounds good in theory but, as many employers will tell you, wage inflation without genuine increases in productivity is something of a fool’s paradise and certainly not sustainable in the long term. Wage increases ultimately need to be earned rather than given, and that applies to the private and public sectors. There really is no magic money tree, to quote one of our former Prime Ministers. The CBI director-general, Tony Danker, put it very well last week:
“Ambition on wages without action on investment and productivity is ultimately just a pathway for higher prices”.
Taking the Treasury’s own forecast alongside those of the OBR, higher wages, as we have heard, will contribute to inflation rising to 4.4% next year, although in the statement the OBR admits to the risk that it might exceed 5%, while some independent economists are now talking about 6% or 7%. Given that GDP is expected to grow by 6% next year, still with very high levels of borrowing, there is a real danger of interest rate rises coming along just at the time when many will be facing an economic squeeze.
Added to that, we have serious supply shortages, not least in the labour market itself. Businesses across the country are struggling to recruit and retain staff, not just in care homes, hospitality and retail, or HGV drivers, but in many areas of skilled labour, including middle and senior management. One leading executive search consultant in the tech sector told me only yesterday that they had never seen such an imbalance between job vacancies and the pool of available talent. This tight labour market has been made worse by the absence of a comprehensive immigration policy post Brexit. Such shortages of both skilled and unskilled labour are resulting in employers having to pay higher wages to both attract and retain staff.
To boost living standards in real terms we need sustained growth and productivity, something that we have not seen in more than 10 years. Since 2010 the UK’s productivity, as measured by GDP output per hour, has grown by just 4%, according to the OECD. That seems extraordinarily low when you consider the huge advances in technology and communication over that period. Let us put it in context: France had an 8% gain in productivity in the same period, Germany almost 10% and the US more than 10%. This spells trouble for global Britain’s place in the world marketplace, and indeed for building back better.
Why we are lagging behind is a complicated question. I shall focus on the key area of education, to follow up the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. Yes, innovation and productive investment are crucial too, but there is no escaping the fact that if you do not educate and train your workforce sufficiently then productivity will suffer. It is here that, to me, the Budget Statement makes particularly disturbing reading. The Chancellor states, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned, that per-pupil funding will return to 2010 levels in real terms by 2024-25. This follows more than a decade of austerity during which schools have suffered an 8% fall in real spending per pupil, so we are talking about 15 years to return to where we were in 2009. Yes, the Chancellor announced £1.8 billion extra for education recovery post pandemic, in addition to the £1.4 billion announced in June, but the total education recovery spend falls well short of the £15 billion that Boris Johnson’s own catch-up tsar, Kevan Collins, said was necessary before resigning from his post.
Perhaps the most striking contrast lies in the different paths for health and education spending. Since 2010, health spending has increased by more than 40%, while education overall will have seen a feeble rise of just 2%. I appreciate the huge health demands brought by an ageing population, the pandemic and the historic underfunding of the NHS, but this is not a balanced approach.
Education is not a short-term fix for productivity, but the longer we fail to invest in and develop the education and training of our workforce for the future, the longer it will take to achieve these badly needed productivity gains that ultimately underpin a higher wage economy. Without real economic growth, we run the risk of fuelling inflation and interest rates, inflicting further damage on living standards.
To give the Government credit where due, they have made some welcome announcements, notably the 7.5% real-term annual increase for business, energy and industry, with the aim of encouraging innovation and boosting investment in R&D. However, the economy faces a period of labour shortages, restricted immigration, very modest growth from 2023 onwards and rising inflation. I suggest that this is not a good environment for business. Add to that stagnant spending on education and the long-term prospects for productivity do not look bright. We need a spending strategy for education, productivity and sustainable real economic growth. Finally, I suggest that levelling up makes little sense without catching up.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, a Budget provides insight into the Government’s overall economic strategy and into how the Government think the economy works. Many commentators have suggested that this Budget represented a fundamental change in economic policy by the Conservative Party: the age of austerity was banished, replaced by the era of big-state, tax-and-spend Conservatism. The Chancellor himself has seemed to many to be confused, on the one hand declaring triumphantly that
“The Conservatives are the real party of public services”,
while at the same time as he raised the tax burden to a record level he argued both that “government should have limits” and
“My goal is to reduce taxes”.
Then there are the repeated references to the need to reduce the public debt, even as government borrowing rises to record peacetime levels.
It is not hard to identify the source of the Chancellor’s dilemma. It is the pandemic. On his own Budget he confessed:
“I do not like it, but I cannot apologise for it: it is the result of the unprecedented crisis we faced and the extraordinary action we took in response.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 286.]
The Chancellor was forced into measures that he did not want to take because the pandemic laid bare the economic and social consequences of the Conservative austerity years. The decade-long destruction of the nation’s social capital in care, education, local authority services and the National Health Service has been cruelly exposed. Something had to be done.
Yet Mr Sunak’s big spending will not restore the real per capita spending on social care to the level of 2010. His big spending on “family hubs” will not make good the Conservative destruction of Sure Start. His big spending will barely restore resources per student in state schools, as we have just heard, to the level of 2010. His big spending on the NHS will not approach anywhere near the rate of growth of spending on the health service under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
To add to the destruction of social capital, there is, as the OBR details, the loss of output as a consequence of the Chancellor’s beloved Brexit—4% scarring of GDP year after year. That means an annual loss of around £30 billion in tax receipts year after year.
Forced to do what he adamantly insists he did not want to do, it is no good looking there for the clues to his longer-term economic thinking. Unfortunately, the Chancellor did not make his economic case any clearer by his terminology, with his characterisation of government borrowing as “immoral” and his pursuit of an economy fit for a “new age of optimism”. This is not the language of economics and economic policy. It is the language of the hedge fund lunchroom after a good lunch.
None the less, I believe that there is a clear economic perspective to be detected in the Budget speech and the Charter for Budget Responsibility. The charter includes falling public sector net debt, a target to balance the current budget, a cap on public sector net investment and a cap on welfare spending. The persistent reference to net debt is a distinguishing feature of the speech. The Chancellor quoted approvingly the Prime Minister’s argument that
“higher borrowing today is just higher interest rates and even higher taxes tomorrow”—
a statement that even a passing acquaintance with our economic history would demonstrate to be palpably false. For the Chancellor, government borrowing is not part of the overall design of macroeconomic management; it is a burden, a limit on the passage to the smaller state that is his ultimate goal.
Yet the experience of the pandemic suggests something quite different: borrowing has not been a burden. Government spending, necessarily increased to deal with the economic shock of the pandemic, was paid for by higher borrowing, ultimately financed by the Bank of England. The Bank of England’s share of government debt has risen sharply, from 23% at the end of 2019 to 34% today. When he sums up, will the Minister explain in what way this increased holding of gilts by the Bank is a burden? Will he explain how it will lead to
“higher interest rates and even higher taxes”?
The pandemic is but one example. Another is the approach to net zero. The Treasury’s new document Net Zero Review, published in October, argues that, if the Government borrowed to fund some of the transition to net zero, the burden of expenditure would fall on future generations. What would be the greater burden on future generations—that the Government borrowed to fund net zero or that the Government did nothing and net zero was not achieved? I believe that the answer is obvious.
The problem is not government borrowing, as Mr Sunak thinks. It is the use to which money is put in the context of overarching economic goals. The composition of the funding of government expenditure, whether by taxation or borrowing, should be part of overall economic management of current levels of demand, as in the pandemic; the attainment of medium-term growth objectives, as in the transition to net zero; the investment in social capital, as in health and education; and policy on the distribution of income. Mr Sunak has a plan: it is to cut taxes and cut borrowing. The result, as the OBR makes clear, is that, once output has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the rate of growth falls to around 1.5% a year, which is totally inadequate to meet the needs of demography and climate change.
In the Financial Times, Martin Wolf argued that
“low growth … makes all policy options painful: with slow growth in revenues and strong pressure for higher spending on health, social care and pensions, either taxes must rise as a share of national income or the rest of public spending is mercilessly squeezed.”
The Chancellor, Wolf goes on, failed
“to show how the growth strategy, taxation and the ambitious climate goals fit together.”
The Chancellor provided a forceful rejection of Wolf s argument, asking,
“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? Government should have limits.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 286.]
That is a moral clarion call for the new austerity.
The Chancellor concluded by laying out his economic vision with this statement:
“Borrowing down, debt down: proving once again it is the Conservatives, and only the Conservatives, who can be trusted with taxpayers’ money.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 276.]
The problem is that this Government cannot be trusted with the economy.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Lamont and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that this debate should have been held in the Chamber. Indeed, 10 years ago, when the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and I were on our respective Front Benches, it never happened and never would have, not least because we would never have accepted a time-limited debate on something as important as the Budget.
I have a problem with this Budget: it does not feel at all Conservative. Low taxes, pro-enterprise measures and small government have all gone AWOL. I therefore struggle to be upbeat about it. The Budget is of course shaped by the choices that the Government made in responding to the Covid pandemic. The Government never published a proper cost-benefit analysis of their response to the pandemic, so there was no public debate about the right balance of measures that could have been taken.
One bright bit of news emerged last week in the shape of a leaked Cabinet Office document on the current Covid plan B, which fortunately has not been implemented. It shows that the Treasury is on the case in analysing the economic benefit, and it calculates that the cost would be up to £18 billion with very weak health benefits. It is a pity that the more careful analysis for which the Treasury is renowned was not more prominent in the last year and a half.
The economic impact of the Government’s Covid choices are now very visible. The lockdown tanked the economy and required extraordinary levels of support for individuals and businesses. That has left us with debt estimates of nearly 90% of GDP, albeit lower than previously forecast but still at levels that none of us expected to see in our lifetimes, especially under a Conservative Government. The OBR has estimated the long-term effects of scarring from Covid as a permanent loss of 2% of GDP.
The non-Covid outcomes also have to be paid for, with serious backlogs in health and education. The Government are pouring astonishing amounts into the NHS. The Department of Health and Social Care’s budget starts at around £140 billion and rises to nearly £190 billion. There is not a single word in the Red Book about efficiency or value for money in the NHS; the commentary is almost all about spending, which is how the NHS likes to frame the conversation. That cannot be the right approach to public expenditure, and I hope the Minister will assure me that the Treasury will not wait until the next spending review to tackle the black hole of NHS spending.
To pay for all this, we need serious growth in the economy. I am particularly concerned about the prospects of growth beyond the current bounce-back from Covid. As we have heard, the OBR forecasts that growth in the years beyond 2022 will fall below 2%, ending at 1.4% in 2026. Doubtless part of that is a result of the estimates of scarring, to which I have already referred, and one ray of hope is that there is still massive uncertainty about those estimates so it may not have such a dramatic effect. However, if the forecasts are right then we are creating an environment in which businesses will not prosper, the tax yield will decline and enterprise and investment will find no incentives in the UK, which will in turn lead to lower employment. We could be entering a downward spiral.
However, I simply do not believe the forecasts; if I believed them, I would be preparing to leave the country. The only thing that keeps me sane is a belief that the picture painted by the OBR is simply wrong—and not just in the scarring effects, whether from Covid or from Brexit. We know the OBR is resistant to dynamic forecasting, and that may account for some of it; the contribution of trade to GDP is “negligible”, and that feels wrong; and the OBR’s growth forecasts are at the bottom end of those by independent forecasters. So, I shall not be packing my bags just yet.
There were two good bits in the Budget speech. The first was the reduction in duty on champagne. As noble Lords may know, champagne is the dieter’s drink of choice for its low calorific content, so this is clearly consistent with the Government’s obesity strategy.
The second good bit has already been referred to by my noble friend Lord Lamont and read out in full by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, so I do not have to take up the Committee’s time by repeating it, but I remind noble Lords that it concludes that there are limits to government involvement in the economy. It was good to hear the Chancellor saying that. It was the most Conservative thing he said in his 34-page speech. I hope he means it, and that we can return to Budgets which reduce taxes, curtail the size of the state, reduce burdens on business and support the enterprise sector to grow and prosper.
Lord Razzall (LD)
My Lords, it would be fair to say that there has been a mixed response to the Financial Statement. Noble Lords have made a number of criticisms; I would add three comments.
First, whatever the Chancellor’s justification, cutting air passenger duty for domestic flights in the context of COP 26 seems reminiscent of George Osborne’s ill-fated pasty tax. Secondly, to spend more money on a tax reduction for bankers than on the catch-up for schoolchildren seems ill-advised. Thirdly, following the Statement, independent forecasters now calculate that, by 2026, the average working person will be no better off in real terms than they were 30 years ago.
Of course, the Government blame the pandemic for much of their problems, but I fear the cat is now out of the bag, as revealed by OBR Blue Book. Brexit is much more to blame than the pandemic for our forecast economic position. The Government say that all economies are suffering, but page 7 of the executive summary in the OBR book states clearly that in the UK, unlike in other countries,
“supply bottlenecks have been exacerbated by changes in the migration and trading regimes following Brexit. Energy prices have soared, labour shortages have emerged in some occupations, and there have been blockages in some supply chains”.
Page 59 suggests that two-way trade with the EU has reduced by 15%, a large gap to be filled by trade outside the EU. This is where the OBR also says that the full effect of the referendum outcome has not yet come through.
Anyone who does not believe me should listen to Richard Hughes, the OBR chair, who gave an interview last week to the BBC in which he said that Brexit reduces UK GDP by 4% in total while the pandemic does so by only 2%, so Brexit has double the outcome for our economy of the pandemic, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said.
The dramatic effect of Brexit is illustrated also by the table of forecast GDP growth on page 50 of the OBR Blue Book. It gives a figure of 2.1% for 2023, then only 1.3% in 2024, 1.6% in 2025 and 1.7% in 2026. Where are the sunlit economic uplands that we were promised by the Prime Minister and others when we left the European Union?
The Brexiteers also promised us freedom to innovate and develop our scientific potential outside the European Union. Clearly, our continued participation in the European Union’s Horizon 2021-27 programme is a key part of our continued research and development programme, yet, although our participation was agreed in principle before Christmas, negotiations on a formal agreement have dragged on for months. Even Ukraine has beaten us to it. The president of the Royal Society, Sir Adrian Smith, has called for negotiators to stop treating the issue of research funding as a bargaining chip in other disputes with the European Union, and even Sir Bill Cash says that the delay is damaging UK businesses, although I suspect he blames the EU.
I can only assume that Brexiteers believe that there are other advantages for us of being outside Europe. As the OBR has clearly demonstrated, they are certainly not economic. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge this, although I doubt that he will.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, I first thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle for a most moving and human contribution to this debate. Secondly, I could not help thinking that my noble friend Lord Lamont, sitting here, would have made a very good Chancellor in today’s difficult times.
Chancellor Sunak has delivered a bold Budget that I believe is both political and high risk. It obviously seeks to support the Government’s levelling-up policy. He has been driven by the substantial increase in UK economic growth this year, which was well above the OBR forecast of only 4%. The actual figure turned out to be 6.5%, with 6% expected next year. As a result, the Chancellor has indulged in higher spending all over the place, including £4.6 billion per annum for Scotland.
Unemployment, at 4.5%, is better than the 5% forecast by the OBR, as well. I suspect that Chancellor Sunak is hoping for a feel-good factor to underpin politics and help sustain growth. He may be under strong pressure from the Prime Minister, who clearly wants economic achievements to cash in at the next general election.
Amazingly, all government departments will have substantial fund inflows. Unbelievably, Sunak’s Budget has pledged £150 billion of extra government spending this year. Overall spending will be up 3.8% per annum in real terms, compared with the 2.5% forecast in March. The tax burden had already been increased by £36 billion in the summer Budget.
Even more strangely, Chancellor Sunak ended his speech by asking if we recognise that the Government have a limited delivery power, when he has bought into an expansion of the state to a size not seen for 70 years. Was this a Conservative Budget? I have to comment, certainly not. There was virtually nothing for businesses large and small, other than the cut for one year in business rates. Bank taxation was up from 25% to 28%. No government department had a reduction in spending.
Last year, the Government borrowed £320 billion—15% of GDP; 2020-21 borrowing will be a further £183 billion. SMEs are desperate for a reform of business rates; they got an increase from 19% to 25% in corporation tax and an increase in wages. The national living wage has been increased by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour.
The £36 billion of extra NHS spending over three years already provided for has, astonishingly, had a further £6 billion added to it. Health spending has risen from 3.9% of GDP in 1978 to 8.4% next year—in cash terms, an increase of 78% over the last decade. Experience with the NHS proves the old adage that free goods have unlimited demand. The NHS also employs 1.3 million people, far more than should be necessary if it were well run. A complete review and restructuring of NHS management and rationalisation are needed.
During the height of Covid problems, Keynesian measures were justified to keep the economy alive, but we are past this stage. The only justification of the Budget measures is to deliver higher growth and higher tax revenues. The main concern is the impact of a rise in inflation on the public sector. The reforms to universal credit, where the taper rate will come down from 63p to 55p, will cost a further £2.2 billion next year.
It is difficult to understand why Chancellor Sunak opted for large tax increases rather than spending cuts. It is tempting to surmise that the Prime Minister had some input, both in crafting an “all in it together” Budget and in improving pay, particularly in the public sector, ahead of a potential general election in two years’ time. The Government will be fortunate if the increase in inflation yet to come remains manageable. At some stage, a more traditional Conservative approach to restraining excess government spending will be required.
Lord Turnbull (CB)
My Lords, as headlines scream “State spending and taxes at the highest since Clement Attlee”, I wonder whether the Budgets of 2021 and the health and social care levy could prove a turning point in our history. With the framework for debt and borrowing set out in the charter, which is not much changed from Gordon Brown’s, all that remains to be fixed are the levels of tax and spending. As others have noticed, the most interesting passage in the Budget speech was the Chancellor’s apology, regretting that taxes and spending were so high but assuring his supporters, “That is not the real me; I still believe in lower taxes and a smaller state”.
Yet there are a number of forces pushing state spending up over time as a proportion of GDP. The first is pure demography. Over the past 60 years, the proportion of the population of pensionable age has roughly doubled. Spending on healthcare and pensioner benefits combined has gone up from 6.8% of total spending to 14.2%. I do not think this will be reversed. The next is the relative price effect or, to the cognoscenti such as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, the Baumol effect, whereby the prices of services, especially public services, tend to rise faster than prices generally, as there is less scope for raising productivity to offset rising wage costs.
The third influence is that the basket of goods and services we may choose may change as society gets richer. The cognoscenti—again, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell—call this the income elasticity of demand. I used to believe that, as we got richer, we would want to pay for more out of our own pockets. I now believe the opposite: as countries get richer, people want more of what the state provides—what used to be called a social wage—relative to what they finance out of their own pockets.
Why do I think this will happen in the UK? As we get richer, we may care less about getting a little bit richer, but more about protecting the standard of living we already have from the risks and vagaries of life. With its power to pool risks, the state is equipped to meet this preference by protecting us from adverse effects beyond our control. When we get ill, we want treatment. When we get frail, we want care. When a crime is committed, we want justice. When trust in the financial system collapses, we expect the state to intervene. We want to be safe on our streets. If we lose our job, we want a safety net and help back into work. We want our children educated. These are all components of our standard of living.
What strikes me about life in this country is how precarious it is and how weak is our resilience. Small events can have damaging effects. A small variation in weather patterns can trigger an energy crisis or flood our homes; even in good times, the NHS always operates on the limits, so that any shock quickly causes waiting times to grow; court cases are backing up; a small increase in traffic quickly leads to congestion. Public services need to be planned with more spare capacity.
The objection to providing a more generous social wage is said to be that it would impoverish us. But look at the standard of living in northern European countries which have much higher spending and taxes. Over the decade of Osborne/Hammond austerity, the fear narrative was that we had to pay down the deficit or we would impoverish our children. This ghastly phrase ignored the falling costs of government debt and the Government’s ability to borrow to invest. I believe this was a deliberately deceptive narrative, which used the debt argument to conceal a different policy: consciously reducing the size of the state, a policy which, if openly avowed, would have got little support.
While this greater realism about public spending is to be commended, important issues are unaddressed. Universal credit serves two different though overlapping groups: those who move in and out of work and those who rely on it for continuing support. The rate of benefit needed for the former does not need to be as high as that for the latter. People can get by for a few weeks or months if they can postpone some lumpy spending until they get back to work. However, those who depend on universal credit continuously cannot do that. Making the taper for those in work more generous is welcome, but cancelling the £20 addition for those on continued benefit is simply mean.
The second omission is council tax. The Government have accepted that business properties should be revalued regularly, but council tax values and bands have not changed for 30 years and have not reflected changes in relative property values across regions. The system has become massively regressive. Three things need to happen: first, a commitment to regular revaluations; secondly, several additional bands at the top going up to, say, £2 million; and, thirdly, changing the coefficient that limits the tax on the more valuable properties to no more than 2.5 times those at the bottom. Some argue that this is turning council tax, which was meant to be a charge for local services, into a wealth tax. So be it. Wealth embodied in housing is hugely undertaxed. There would be grumblings about taxing hard-earned savings, but that is nonsense. Half my wealth is embodied in the value of my house, which has increased tenfold in 30 years. I have not paid a penny in CGT nor have I moved into a higher tax band. Far from being hard-earned savings, this is a windfall worth about £1.5 million from living in a prosperous neighbourhood in London.
There is a gaping hole in the current social care plans. It is the estimate of what on average it costs per week to provide care. Let us call it £500, although it will vary by location. If that is not built into the financing of local authorities, they will not be able to pay care home providers enough to cover their costs. The result will be that either the number of care places contracts, something that is already happening, or care providers will go on charging those who are privately funded 50% or even 100% more than is being charged for people sponsored by local social services. That is an injustice. This figure for the reasonable cost of providing care rather than what the family actually pays is important for another reason, because it is the figure that will count towards reaching the £86,000 threshold at which the state chips in. If this figure is set too low, it will take families years to benefit from the cap.
How to sum up this Budget? When George Bush Senior was seeking the presidential nomination in 1988, his catchphrase was:
“Read my lips: no new taxes”.
The Chancellor’s catchphrase should be: “Don’t read my lips: taxes will stay high”.
Before I sit down, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her service in church and state. I was present for her maiden speech in March 2016. It was a breath of fresh air—vigorous and positive—and it led me to conclude that the bishops’ policy of retirement and refreshment may be one that other parts of the House ought to look at.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
I, too, congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, but I have no plans to retire.
At all times we need to remind ourselves that the Tories have been in power for 11 years, since 2010. To start, I shall say a few words about the worrying trend for the Chancellor not to bother with the detail. He sent a very silly tweet to his Labour shadow Rachel Reeves seeking to embarrass her about extra money going to Leeds West. She politely pointed out that the money was going to Tory Pudsey and, according to the Observer, the people of Pudsey are not happy. He had a photo op on his beer-barrel concession and used the wrong sized barrels, which did not qualify for the concession, and while he was in Bury market he claimed that he was in the world-famous Burnley market. There is a big lack of attention to detail.
There is a brief plus: if I have read the papers correctly, getting the Chinese out of financing our nuclear programme is a real plus. If the reports that the Foreign Secretary openly stated that the Chinese are guilty of genocide are correct, it gets better. I am not really clear why Labour is so quiet on the Chinese financing new power plants.
Boasting about getting education spending back to 2010 is weird. This is only consistent with the narrative that the Tories were not in power before December 2019. That is the tale. However, I would be remiss to the memory of my late Commons colleague Audrey Wise if I did not refer to the long-term freeze on personal tax allowances. A freeze for one year with low inflation, as happened in the past, did not cause any backlash and there was no reason why it should. However, a five-year freeze with inflation on the increase is a different matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, made a major contribution to the Rooker-Wise enterprise in 1977. His part of the statutory indexation amendment was that, if the tax allowances were not raised in line with inflation, the Chancellor should seek the approval of Parliament. Of course, Geoffrey Howe and others have done that. Is the Chancellor still required to do that or will he get a five-year deal in one go?
I have news for Tory MPs: the Government’s plan will cause monumental pain for the low paid and those on very small occupational pensions. Millions who are non-taxpayers due to low income will get sucked into income tax without any announcement of a tax increase. Millions more, with just above average earnings, will become 40% taxpayers over the five-year period. The amounts will be eye-watering to the low paid.
In fact, the extra tax take from freezing allowances is larger than the national insurance surcharge. Once you get to the eighth vingtile, according to the excellent Resolution Foundation briefing, the extra tax from the freeze of allowances and the national insurance surcharge wipes out all the universal credit taper reduction. People notice change, whether they are a non-taxpayer starting to pay tax or a basic rate taxpayer starting to pay 40%. People notice these things—believe you me— which was of course the catalyst for our amendments in 1977. People were complaining like hell about the taxes that they were paying when it was said that there would be no tax increase. It is true that inflation was a lot higher, but the point of principle is exactly the same: no announcement, but more tax paid. It is tax by stealth—we had put an end to that.
Money off beer, fizzy wines and low-cost air flights will not compensate for the anger, bitterness and betrayal that people will feel over the long-term freeze on tax allowances. On top of that, of course, will be large increases in council tax and social care not fixed either. Also, there was not one word in the Budget about the stall in life expectancy since 2010—that year again. It is the first time that life expectancy has stalled since 1900; the first time in 120 years. There are fewer older people to vote Tory due to life expectancy stalling and fewer older people to vote Tory due to the high Covid killing rate. Those who survive will be paying a lot more tax. It is not a confident time to be a Tory MP in red wall or marginal seats.
Lord Horam (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was absolutely right in his reference to the Rooker-Wise amendment in 1977. I remember it all too well, though I think that he fairly acknowledged that he and the late Audrey Wise only got it through with the help of the Opposition Treasury spokesman, then one Nigel Lawson, now my noble friend Lord Lawson.
Indeed, it is the case that there is no such luck today: no indexation of that kind has been made possible by the Government. I understand why and I think that the noble Lord may well understand why as well. The fact is that Britain has, for too long, been trying to get European levels of public service and welfare at US levels of taxation. The crunch has now come. The Government have given clear indication that they prioritise maintaining, and if possible improving, public services and are therefore prepared to put up taxation to the same extent.
That is fundamentally right, because of the point that the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, has just made. He said that, at one time, he thought that as people got richer they would spend more of that money in their own private way. Indeed, the opposite is now happening, as he pointed out. As we get richer, we need more of the services that the public sector mainly provides: education, health, care, addressing issues such as climate change, as well as levelling up—particularly from this Government.
I certainly support the levelling-up agenda. I particularly admire what the Germans are doing for some of their towns such as Dresden, Weimar and Erfurt, which were knocked about a bit during the Second World War and then went through the GDR period. However, it costs money to do that. If we are going to do the same sorts of things for our northern towns, we will need to spend a lot of money to make those improvements.
That sort of improvement for the north and the midlands, the so-called levelling-up agenda, is also good for the south. As Boris Johnson, when he was a journalist—and he was Mayor of London before he became Prime Minister—said, do we really want the south of England to be endless suburbia from Charing Cross down to the south coast? No, we do not. If there is better balance in the country, that is good news for both ends of the country.
That means that taxation has had to rise. As has been endlessly pointed out since it happened, tax as a percentage of GDP is now going to be 36.2% at the end of this Parliament as opposed to 33.3% of GDP today. As my noble friend Lord Lamont pointed out, looking at it that way is purely insular. Look at what has happened across Europe: today, by comparison with our 33.3%, the average in Europe is 41%—hugely higher. In Germany it is 37.5%, in the Netherlands 39%, in Belgium 44% and in France, amazingly, 46%. Compare that with our 33%.
Some people will argue that, if you go to a higher level of taxation, you will adversely affect growth. Is that the case? There is no evidence for it. Growth rates across Europe over the last few years are almost identical between France, Germany and us; there is very little difference at all. There is therefore no evidence that a higher tax rate, within the sort of limits that we are talking about, necessarily adversely affects the rate of growth. In fact, to bring together—maybe to their surprise —my noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, a factor that is important is the way in which you use the money that you have raised. That is crucial.
Despite what I have just said about the link between taxation and growth, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, that this is going to be a difficult year. As Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, perhaps the best and most respected commentator on these matters—I always read him first, anyway—has pointed out, living standards are going to be hit by the increase in inflation for all sorts of reasons, including Brexit, Covid and energy prices, so we are going to have a difficult year. The Chancellor has sensibly opted to hold back some of the money that he could otherwise have spent or saved for use in this period. He therefore has some firepower to deal with any faltering of growth that may occur.
One area where I would be critical is that I do not think that we should have scrapped the £20 uplift in universal credit. I appreciate that the Chancellor has put in a taper, but only 38% of people who receive universal credit are in work. The remainder are out of work and they will lose substantially. The Treasury has said that it would cost a lot to keep the £20 uplift, but the fact is that the poor in this country are very poor and they face a bleak winter. I refer to the excellent speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, in which she referred to the moral code. Archbishop Temple, while not putting in place any particular solutions because of his reluctance to get involved in the technicalities of how we deal with these things, referred to a moral code and, because of that, I think that he would have looked askance at the Government’s failure to keep the £20 extra for universal credit. It is a pity that they have done that; as a rich nation, we could and should have afforded it.
With that blemish, though, I none the less think that the Government’s overall strategy of meeting the extra spending that is necessary, and which will inevitably be followed by extra taxation, has been broadly right.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I follow my noble friend in adding my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on not just her speech but, as others have commented, her years of service to the Church and her public service generally. I wish her every success. As a money spider has just walked over our papers, I strongly recommend that she buys a lottery ticket before the end of the week.
I will focus on two aspects. I note the right reverend Prelate’s remarks on Temple and add my request for everyone to have the right to a warm home. I am the honorary president of National Energy Action, which is based in Newcastle, in the north-east. I am also the daughter and sister of dispensing doctors and I advise the board of the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. Many of my remarks will focus on rural areas.
I will talk, in particular, about not so much what is in the Budget but what has been left out. I regard it is a missed opportunity for the fuel poor. There are currently 1.5 million fuel-poor households and I regret to say that 25% of all electricity bills are raising and paying for the green levy. It is undoubtedly true that those on the lowest incomes have the least efficient homes and spend a higher proportion of their income on energy. It is feared that, when the price cap is removed in April 2022, a further 1.5 million households may tip into fuel poverty. The rise in energy costs before then will impact on other households, often in rural areas, which are not covered by the price cap, such as those that are dependent on coal, LPG and heating oil. One in four of Britain’s lowest-income households say that they cannot afford even a £5 increase to their monthly energy costs, so I regret that many of the fair recommendations for the Budget from National Energy Action were overlooked. In both the Budget and spending review, no measures were taken to alleviate the plight of the 4 million in fuel poverty.
I turn briefly to health and social care. The Government announced an increase in national insurance contributions in the form of the social care levy, to which my noble friend referred. This not just breaks a manifesto commitment but hits the two sectors that are trying to help the NHS and social care, as they are the two largest employers in the land. I press my noble friend on what is happening about the pledge that was made for 6,000 new GPs by 2024-25. On page 49 of the Red Book, reference is made to the increased number of nurses and appointments in primary care, but none is made to GPs. I understand that it was announced in the other place that this commitment would no longer be met by that time. It would be helpful to know, before the end of the debate, if that is the case.
I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Jeremy Hunt, who, earlier today in the other place, raised the severe labour shortages that there are in nearly every specialty in the NHS. While the Government and my noble friend said today that the proceeds of the levy will go to the NHS and social care, the Library, in preparation for today’s proceedings, highlighted that there are eight bodies that, presumably, will employ large numbers of these staff. That is not counting the ICS and clinical commissioning groups. In fact, the Red Book gives no detail on how the additional money will be spent. I press my noble friend with a direct question today: how will the money be allocated between primary and secondary care?
I have to say with regret that morale as I see it among doctors, particularly GPs, is at rock bottom. Patients have been told that they are unable to wait in waiting rooms for GP and dental appointments, and they are voting with their feet and going to accident and emergency departments. The Red Book tells us that there has been a 20% increase in the number of NHS staff in hospital and community health services since June 2011. How many of those increases have been in patient-facing positions, because that is extremely important?
There is real concern as to how the increased money announced by my noble friend today is to be allocated. It is usually allocated through the integrated care systems. What is the make-up of those? Does my noble friend agree that they are made up predominantly of secondary care rather than primary care representatives? Who monitors how this spending is allocated between primary and secondary care, and how will the budget be spread between rural and urban areas? In previous times, specific regard had to be had to rurality and sparsity of population. I understand that those conditions have now been dropped.
I end with a simple plea to my noble friend: that the Government act now to address the balance—or imbalance—between spending on GP surgeries in rural and urban areas, and hospitals, to ensure that the NHS can manage the stresses facing us this winter, not least in rural areas.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have always admired the Chancellor. As I have said before, I knew him before he became a Minister, and I have a very high regard for him. He did extremely well in facing the pandemic, which was a very unusual challenge for anybody, and he coped with that very well.
Having said that, I have to say that I am not all that happy with the Budget. Given that the Chancellor had favourable forecasts for GDP growth for two years in succession and given the size of those forecasts—ultimately of 6%—the first thing was to be cautious. How is the economy compared to the pre-Covid level when you have had those two growth figures? It is not all that much higher. We are not about to grow at 6% for ever and ever. As economists long ago pointed out, families spend their permanent income and not their current income—income may be high, or it may be low; you balance things out. The first thing that the Chancellor should have done was to look very carefully at the future prospects of the economy and how far we have come relative to the long-run path of the economy. That is why the economy goes down to 1.3% or 1.5%, which has been the historic growth rate of the British economy since 2010—almost since 2009. One has to be careful in fashioning a long-run strategy and not start a bonanza of champagne and this and that, giving money away frivolously.
If the Chancellor had the money, he should have restored the £20 cut in universal credit. The history of that is shameful, because it was George Osborne who took it away. It was then restored last year, and then, at the first excuse, it was again removed. Did the Chancellor know that he had a favourable growth rate forecast before he did it? If he had even a slight inkling that the growth rate was going to be favourable enough to cut champagne taxes, he should not have cut the £20 from universal credit.
Turning to the tax burden, I am a well-known friend of high taxation and I make no bones about it. People say tax is very high. I have said this before in your Lordships’ House: if you call it a taper it sounds very nice, but the 63% taper on the poorest people is a 63% rate of income tax. Then, when it is cut to 55%, everybody hails the Chancellor and says how kind he is. Why can he not go down to the average basic rate of income tax?
On the one hand, we are encouraging people to seek work; they cannot be on benefits for ever. The whole logic of the universal credit system is to encourage people to seek work. Then, when they do, you tax them 63% or 55%—no middle-class family would tolerate that. However, you can make the poor pay an incredibly high tax rate and call it a taper, and everybody is very happy. It is shameful that we have even a 55% taper on the poorest people in the country. Anything that the Chancellor can do about that, even at this late stage, would be welcome.
There has been a very welcome drift of the sentiment in today’s debate regarding this idea that we want to be a high-productivity, high-growth, high-wage economy but with a low tax burden. I think that is impossible. Let us get it straight: it is not possible, not given our growth rate and the huge backlog of things we have to correct, especially the National Health Service, social care and so on.
As many noble Lords have pointed out, the average tax burden in western Europe is 40% plus. A tax rate of at least 40% ought to be factored in, and then let us find out where we can get that money. I was very happy to hear the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, with his Treasury credentials, propose a tax that I proposed a while ago in your Lordships’ House: a tax on the frozen capital gain that every householder has. You have to unfreeze that capital gain and put it on the council tax base, and if that can be done, we will have good social care financed by councils and a decent system of taxation. I will not go into detail because time is short.
If you want a good growth rate, do not worry too much about the debt to GDP ratio. We have been through high debt to GDP ratios and come out of them. That is old-fashioned economics: when we want to borrow, we can borrow, and we will pay it back. It is important that we correct the long-term deficiencies in the economy regarding education, health and social care. We have learnt during the pandemic that these deficiencies are costing us quite a lot. They may not be costing us financially, but they are physically and in terms of people’s health and welfare. There is still time to correct these things, and I hope that the Chancellor does it.
Lord Risby (Con)
My Lords, I applaud the right reverend Prelate on her valedictory speech, which I thought was a wonderful combination of common sense and compassion.
A year ago, perhaps the only way to have had any forecasting credibility regarding the environment for the recent Budget would have been to say nothing at all. Nobody could possibly have forecast such a rapid economic rebound, with labour shortages, rising wages and inflation, higher property prices and positive stock market valuations, and even some recovery in the pound sterling. It is all precisely the reverse of what every observer and commentator expected.
There are now clear Budget pointers to try to create a more enduring economic base. Historically, this has been best understood in Europe by Germany, which since the 19th century has had a sophisticated and innovative training base that has substantially avoided the technical and vocational divide with universities that has existed here. The lifetime skills guarantee put in place last year will upgrade vocational and technical education. Upskilling our workforce is essential in diminishing our poor productivity performance, and now there is additional action with new, focused investment in apprenticeships and traineeships in this Budget.
It is to be regretted that we have some of the world’s finest educational institutions juxtaposed against millions of our fellow citizens who deserve and need more life opportunities. In this spirit, I particularly welcome the Multiply programme to improve basic mathematic skills.
It is perfectly true that despite overall real-terms spending increases over 10 years pre-pandemic, there were sectors in our country which were put under constraint and pressure, but we mercifully entered the Covid pandemic with our finances in near balance, and we can be grateful that this was the case—otherwise the comprehensive, considerable support by the Government during the pandemic would simply have been impossible.
I note the new fiscal rules which have been introduced in this Budget in an attempt to give assurances and to restrain any excessive public spending and the national debt by stipulating limits, as in the Charter for Budget Responsibility. Some of your Lordships may be sceptical about these sorts of objectives. I recall that a previous Chancellor introduced something called “golden rules”, which were in practice far from golden. However, there is a clear and necessary intention that underlying UK debt will be falling by the third year of the forecast period. Of course, rising interest rates and anaemic world or domestic economic activity could undermine this objective, but it makes absolutely clear that this will be, and has to be, a period of spending restraint which, we hope, can begin to assist in reducing our now high tax levels.
If we were to make some obvious observations about the structure of our economy, we would point to the dominance of our service sector, especially financial services, and our overall weak relative export performance historically. During the pandemic, the British economy suffered because of its overdependence on the service sector. The simple truth is that many countries are reluctant to open up foreign investment and activity by banks and insurance companies, for which we have particular expertise.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, referred to the importance of the consumer, but the United Kingdom has had an economy disproportionately propelled by domestic consumption rather than exports overall. This calls for a change, and this is now being recognised. For a number of years, as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, I have witnessed a transformation of our export efforts. This is critical and should involve no party-political divide. Today, UK Export Finance is successfully financing exports and even provides money for companies abroad to get financing as long as they purchase British goods and services. Happily, there is now much greater structural coherence with overseas aid and development in the Foreign Office and the success of our embassies in many countries in working with chambers of commerce. Now it is a sophisticated operation whereby it is easy to access British goods and services with backup and access through the Department for International Trade. Over time, all this will help to rebalance our overall economy. This is surely the lesson of the past two years. I welcome the announcement of an enormous increase in R&D to come and the much needed upgrading of our digital infrastructure to enhance the base for better export performance and to help commercialise our inventive capabilities.
Many of our trade agreements have perforce been continuity agreements, but they are an important start to boost commercial and industrial activities in geographical areas of higher growth. The innovation and entrepreneurship specifically targeted in this Budget, such as the new British business bank and the global Britain investment fund, coupled with a more liberal visa regime to attract more highly qualified people to rapidly growing businesses, indicate the need and seriousness of the commitment to regenerate our economy. My noble friend may wish to elaborate on that.
It is worth noting that for the first time the combined GDP of the Commonwealth, which has so much potential, exceeds that of the EU. If we accede to the CPTPP then this grouping of countries will have an ever greater share of global trade, showing the clearly evolving patterns of global trade and commerce.
Within the inevitable post-pandemic limits of any Budget, the Chancellor has attempted to give continuing support by increasing the national living wage, focusing on upskilling and stimulating new entrepreneurial activity and export promotion—a huge challenge indeed.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the Committee, I apologise for my late arrival but I was attending a meeting of the Finance Committee, and I understand that it is in order for me to participate. I have heard the majority of the contributions and benefited from what has been said.
I have a single, narrow but important point relating to pensions. the Chancellor said in his speech:
“I am announcing today that we will consult on further changes to the regulatory charge cap for pensions schemes, unlocking institutional investment while protecting savers”,—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 280.]
that took 25 words. It takes 29 words for the Red Book to say that
“the cap can better accommodate well-designed performance fees to ensure savers can benefit from higher return investments, while unlocking institutional investment to support some of the UK’s most innovative businesses.”
It goes on to refer to barriers to institutional investment.
I have three points to make in response. First, it would have been better for the Chancellor to have made it clear in his speech and in the Red Book that the charge cap on expenses applies only to default funds under automatic enrolment. Other forms of pension where people opt for other funds under automatic enrolment, or the many arrangements that take place outside the automatic enrolment arrangements, are not subject to the charge cap. It is up to the provider and the member of the scheme to arrive at their own provisions.
Of course, in practice the great majority of pension arrangements are default schemes under automatic enrolment. The number of schemes that have been taken up is testimony to the success of the automatic enrolment introduced by the last Labour Government. I think the default schemes are popular because people simply do not want to tackle what is inevitably a difficult decision. It could be characterised as great faith in pension providers, but I would put my money on inertia in the face of a choice for which most people do not have any training or experience and where there is limited or no independent advice.
Secondly, the situation where the default fund is the de facto standard arrangement places a particular responsibility on the Government not to play fast and loose with the trust, or the inertia, of the majority of people providing themselves with pensions. Over the many years that I have spent working on behalf of pension scheme members and promoting their interests, I have all too often encountered people with bright ideas, impressed with all the money that is held in the form of pensions, coming up with ideas to seek to use those resources for purposes other than providing pensions. The money in those funds is of course the members’ money and should be used in accordance with their wishes, not the wishes of Governments or others with other objectives.
That brings me to my third point. The Chancellor’s claim that
“savers can benefit from higher return investments, while unlocking institutional investment to support some of the UK’s most innovative businesses”,
is all too reminiscent of cold-call investment hucksters making promises that are too good to be true. If the potential returns are so attractive and so dependable, why are pension providers not able to promote them on their own terms, outside the default fund? Instead, they are all too ready to make unverifiable promises depending on future optimism. Make no mistake: this provision is about higher charges on workers’ pensions, with no guarantee of anything in return.
My advice to the Government is to be very careful here. They are, in effect, providing us all, the population, with investment advice. Of course, they are not authorised to do so. There is a history of pension scandals. Can the Minister assure us that he will take personal responsibility for making sure that we do not get another one?
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I place on record my thanks to the Chancellor, the Ministers and staff in Her Majesty’s Treasury. Quite frankly, the response that they gave to our population was proactive and sensitive and showed an understanding that I did not expect to see, so I thank the Treasury. I also thank the volunteers in the health service. I had a jab on Saturday, and the number of volunteers who are helping our people is amazing.
On the Budget, I pick out the global investment fund, which my noble friend just mentioned. It seems a very significant way forward. I will just cover exports and the NHS. First, on exports, I am a marketing man by profession and spent nearly 17 years working overseas and in the UK on exports, mainly focused on south Asia. The Financial Times of a couple of days ago had a headline:
“Sluggish exports: the ‘worrying trend’”,
which is quite right; that is one of the key issues that we face.
We now also know, on the ground—my noble friend Lord Londesborough has given considerable detail on this—about the problems of the supply chains and so on. I got a letter yesterday from the Department for Transport, and I just pick out that, on HGV drivers, it says we used to have a scheme for professional and career development loans, which was closed in 2019—understandably at that point. I suggested in a Written Question that it should be reopened, and am told that there are no plans to do so and that it is the responsibility of the employers to get on and do it. That is not the way forward to co-operate and get things moving in this country.
What can we do to improve the marketing? I personally believe that, as a Minister, Liz Truss went a long way to help and I hope that some of the energetic work that she has done filters through. But the Foreign Office is still not, in my judgment, oriented enough to exporting. I believe that the number 2 in every high commission and embassy should be in charge of export and business development. The ECGD is there—it should help and it wants to help. Look at what is happening in the port at Felixstowe; why have we not got that sorted out?
We used to use the BBC external services for promotion, and we have plans for a royal yacht. Why do we not revamp the Queen’s Award for Industry towards exports, or possibly resurrect the British Export Council? Perhaps we should use more collective market research, which we used to use a lot, but do not seem to use very much at the moment. Although I understand about air passenger duty, we also have to be very careful to look after our international airports, which are fundamental to our development as a world economy. There is a lot to be done in the world of exporting, and much of it is to do with marketing.
I turn to the National Health Service, which is the biggest employer in the UK, indeed in Europe. It now takes 8.4% of our GDP. I come from a doctor household: my wife started a practice in Biggleswade and built it up to be the biggest practice in that part of England. My son, also a GP, is now a deputy coroner. I myself studied and worked on the PAC for 12 years.
Just look at the PAC’s recent Test and Trace Update: Twenty-Third Report of Session 2021-22. It says that test and trace
“has not achieved its main objective to help break chains of COVID-19 transmission and enable people to return”
to work. I will pick out one particular paragraph:
“NHST&T’s continued over-reliance on consultants is likely to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds … Despite NHST&T committing to reduce the number of consultants it employed, the number”
went up between April and December. The pay is
“£1,100 per day but some are paid more.”
Finally, it makes the point:
“Over a third of the 523 recruitment campaigns run by NHST&T up to the end of May 2021 failed to appoint anyone.”
That is not a happy scene.
I would also look at medical schools. I have consistently raised questions about numbers in our medical schools, because I have in-depth knowledge about this. I started way back on 11 October 2011, and more recently I raised a Question in 2016, five years ago. Our dear friend, the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, who was in the Department of Health at that point, said we would
“fund up to 1,500 additional medical school places”.
In my supplementary, I pointed out:
“In the last three years, we have lost 3,500 medical students, but the problem goes deeper … Today”—
that was 2016; it has worsened since then—
“56% of the intake of medical students is female. Furthermore, 70% of female GPs today work part-time, and a recent survey by the King’s Fund says that 90% of all medical students in training want to work part-time. Given that it costs £200,000 to train anybody … surely the time has come to consider a … full-time commitment of at least four years after qualification, similar to what they do in Singapore”.—[Official Report, 26/10/16; col. 197.]
The Minister said that they would study this and see whether they could produce a scheme whereby all medical students would have to be committed to four years after qualification.
Nothing has happened. Frankly, it is not good enough. It is a huge problem. The Great British public cannot get to a GP today. I feel particularly strongly about it. We need to get a grip on central expenditure, review the number of medical schools urgently and ensure that there is a contract for every single medical student such that, when they qualify, they either pay back the money if they are not going to work or sign on for four years, as they have to do for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the valedictory speech by my fellow Novocastrian the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. I express my thanks to her for her hard work both in this House and in her diocese, and for her work in addressing issues of inequality and disadvantage so effectively.
To be a success, the Budget depends on our economy expanding and interest rates remaining low. This strategy is very risky because businesses face rising costs, particularly in energy, and shortages in the supply chain and staff in some sectors, with inflation heading over 4%. The Government’s policy of spending now to reduce taxes later may prove hard to achieve. Indeed, the OBR forecast in March that if interest rates were 1% higher than forecast, additional debt interest of £20 billion a year would be needed, which would be twice that raised by the planned health and social care levy from next April.
The Chancellor’s opening words in his Budget Statement were:
“Employment is up, investment is growing, public services are improving, the public finances are stabilising and wages are rising”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 273-4.]
He failed to add that prices are rising, taxation is rising, and that low-income families are particularly exposed to that higher inflation and those rising taxes.
Some experts have said that there will be a cost-of-living crisis for the lower-paid and that the average worker will be much worse off over the next five years, with taxes now rising to the highest level for 60 years. As the Office for Budget Responsibility has said, mortgages will no longer be cheap.
I have not understood how the Government can claim they are pursuing a levelling-up agenda while they pursue a policy of regressive taxation to fund local services. Levelling up cannot be delivered without progressive taxation. You do not level up people, or the areas in which they live, by putting up their tax bill well above either the rate of inflation or the growth in their incomes.
That takes me to council tax—I suppose I should remind the Committee that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Since 2016, the Government have been pursuing a policy of increasing council tax to help fund adult social care at levels well above inflation. And council tax is a regressive tax. Council tax payers have been required to pay up to 15% more over the past five years. Council tax will go on being increased in this way through the life of this Parliament. It may even get to 6% a year. This approach means that councils able to generate higher receipts from their council tax base can raise more money for social care than poorer councils, when it is often the poorer councils that have the greatest demand for social care.
Council tax needs reform, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, advocated earlier. Some poorer areas pay 20 times the level of council tax of the wealthiest areas, compared to the value of their properties. The system represents an excessive tax on poorer people. Council tax should reflect the ability to pay and should be based on up-to-date property values, yet valuations are 30 years old. Extra bands and a full revaluation are urgently needed.
Let me say something about business rates. The Government have been promising a review of business rates for several years, not least because of the damage being done to high streets by online retailing with its lower business rate levels. But now the Government have decided to avoid that full review. I am surprised, but then I suppose that a tax worth some £25 billion a year is too attractive to the Treasury even though the tax can be unfair, does not take account of the profits and losses of individual businesses, and can be a barrier to investment.
I welcome the cancellation of next year’s planned rise and the 50% temporary relief for retail, hospitality and leisure sectors and other targeted temporary reliefs, but, as my noble friend Lord Fox said earlier, it is a temporary fudge. I am disappointed that the Government will only explore the arguments for and against an online sales tax. We need a much deeper review of local taxation to include both council tax and business rates.
What consideration are the Government giving to the potential benefit of a proportional property tax, as recommended for consideration by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee earlier this year? It could replace council tax and business rates as well as stamp duty. To be revenue-neutral, it would need to be a flat rate charged annually at 0.48% of a property’s value. Many of the problems I have identified today could be eased by its introduction. Inevitably, it would take time and effort to achieve, but it could be fairer for those on lower incomes and with lower-value properties.
In conclusion, this Budget has introduced some temporary palliatives both in extra spending and in reduced taxation, but, as so many speakers have said, some serious underlying problems remain.
Lord Hain (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee, as I already have to the Chair, because the group of amendments on which I have to speak in the House is one group away, so I may have to miss some of the wind-ups. I was here for all the opening speeches and remained for the debate.
The Chancellor delivered his Budget speech with his customary panache and began to bask in the warm glow of appreciation from his colleagues. How awful it was for him then to hear commentators instantly liken it to a Gordon Brown Budget—not the kind of talk likely to enhance his appeal among Tory traditionalists. Its one saving grace was that the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Director Paul Johnson contrasted it to a George Osborne Budget, which was much more to the Chancellor’s liking.
This was in fact a see-saw Budget, with a downside in March and September when the Chancellor announced record tax rises, and an upside a few days ago when he topped up his earlier public spending plans. Grasping the implications of the Budget for the economy means assessing both sides of his balance sheet, and they make for worrying reading.
In my view, this Budget bears closer comparison to George Osborne’s 2010 Budget than it has received, despite significant differences, because Chancellor Sunak is following in George Osborne’s footsteps in one key respect: he is withdrawing a major fiscal stimulus that has kept the economy alive. The way he is doing it is entirely novel for a Tory Chancellor; it is the reason why there are rumblings of discontent in Tory tea rooms and outside Parliament among what Harold Macmillan used to call “the party in the country”. George Osborne squeezed spending in the British economy by following the 80:20 rule: 80% public spending cuts and 20% tax increases. Chancellor Sunak’s strategy is very different: he is withdrawing fiscal stimulus through raising taxes by more than he is raising public spending.
The key distinction, which most commentators have overlooked, is that Rishi Sunak is a man in a hurry. He is withdrawing fiscal support for the economy twice as fast as George Osborne did. George Osborne took two years to withdraw 46% of the stimulus package with which Alistair Darling had tackled the 2008 global financial crisis. Rishi Sunak is taking two years to withdraw 85% of his own 2020 fiscal stimulus. In my view, that runs the same risk that George Osborne fell victim to: of causing the economy to lose momentum, real incomes to stagnate, and debt and deficit targets to be missed by a mile. Osborne’s strategy caused economic growth to halve in 2011 and come to almost a complete stop in 2012.
Many economists fear that Rishi Sunak may be running the same risk now. Martin Sandbu, European economics commentator with the Financial Times, has pointed to the pre-Budget IMF data showing that the UK had already pencilled in a much stronger fiscal contraction than its G7 or eurozone peers on average. Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts now show UK economic growth tailing off to 2% in two years and to only 1.3% in 2024, which could easily slip. The Labour decade before the 2008 global credit crunch saw UK growth average 3% per year, which is roughly double Chancellor Sunak’s plans. That Labour achievement is the least we should be aiming for now to begin to deliver a high-productivity, high-wage economy.
I support the pre-Budget open letter from 70 economists and nine think tanks calling for continued fiscal support for the economy, specifically a stimulus package of £70 billion to £90 billion in annual spending for three years, focused on green investment, social care and childcare. That would be closer to the example of vigorous action set in the US by President Biden and pressed by shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves in an excellent speech during the Budget last week.
The American economy is recovering from the pandemic more quickly than the UK’s because the US Government have taken much stronger discretionary action to boost the US economy. US GDP has already returned to its pre-pandemic level. Premature withdrawal of fiscal support is why Britain took longer than America and Germany to recover from the 2008 global financial crisis. The signs are already there that we are doing so again. This time we faced two added blows, from the pandemic and Brexit, with Brexit hitting the economy between two and six times as hard as the pandemic, depending on which economist you talk to. The forecasts for real household incomes look dire, especially for those on low incomes, hence the critical importance of the noble Baroness’s amendment to the social security legislation yesterday, which I hope the Government accept.
The Tory traditionalists who I mentioned at the start of my speech profess to hate high government debt and budget deficits. They crave balanced budgets, which they somehow associate with Margaret Thatcher. David Davis MP, writing in the Mail on Sunday, wonders whether Rishi Sunak can “match” her “brilliance”. Someone should tell Mr Davis that in 11 years in Downing Street Margaret Thatcher delivered only two Budget surpluses. Who delivered three in 13 years in office? Gordon Brown. Be careful what you wish for.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I recall many years ago, when I had my first public appointment in the Greater London Council, having a meeting early on with officers. We had an expenditure proposal on the table, and I said to the finance officer, “Can we afford it?” I will always remember his reply. He said: “Mr Balfe, there has never been a shortage of money in County Hall. There has frequently been a shortage of willpower when it comes to applying it to useful propositions.”
In the last year or so, we have seen that there is not only a magic money tree but a whole forest of them. I doubt that we will ever again hear the cry that we need a new Marshall plan, because when push came to shove the Chancellor found far more money than Jeremy Corbyn ever dreamed of spending on the economy. So I begin by pointing out that, if we need money, it can be found; the question is whether we should do the finding.
One of our difficulties at the moment is that we are told we are reinventing conservatism. I put it to your Lordships that reinventing conservatism has nothing to do with spending money. Stanley Baldwin reinvented conservatism in the late 1920s. He devised the assisted areas Act, which opened up roads and motorways to the north-east, the area that the right reverend Prelate came from. Baldwin discovered that not only did this enable people to travel to Newcastle but it enabled the people of Newcastle to leave it, which they did in great numbers. I suggest that levelling up is not going to be achieved by spending money. It may be achieved by investing money in education, health and other areas, but not by just throwing a dollop of money at a problem.
The Conservative Party is clearly in the process of reinventing itself. I would like to think that maybe the Labour Party would look at itself and do a bit of reinventing, because it seems to believe in something different every week. I read the pledges on which Mr Keir Starmer was elected, and I was enough of a junkie to read his speech to the Labour Party conference —or, rather, the booklet that was released. They bear very little resemblance to each other; it seems that the policies change almost with the weather. I hope the Labour Party will put its thinking cap on and try to decide what it wishes to achieve and then how it wishes to achieve it. Although I doubt we will ever be great political friends, I must say that some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, often come close to defining a policy area that is well worth a closer look. I shall leave it at that.
The position has been made about education and health. I have often argued in this House that health is safe with the Conservatives. Health expenditure is safe for the very clear reason that we need to keep these people alive. It is very well known that the older people get, the more likely they are to vote Conservative, so obviously the Conservative Party is going to be in favour of a strong, well-functioning health service.
However, I ask the Minister to get his colleagues to look at the way in which it is organised. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, was right: there is a huge need to sort out the dysfunctions of the NHS, and there are many. Its overweight bureaucracy now cannot even manage to see a patient. In our area, if you want to see the doctor, you have to be triaged and they decide whether you are going to be seen. Of course, as we know, many conditions have been missed.
The point on education is, of course, exactly the opposite. Young people do not vote and expenditure on education has been allowed to wither more than is sensible for an advanced country. I hope that the Government will look at spending on education.
My final point is that the Chancellor has said that expenditure must have its limits and clearly it must. Many people in my local association are concerned at the way in which government expenditure is going. They do not feel that it is the job of a Conservative Government to keep on pushing up expenditure; they feel it is the job of a Conservative Government to produce value for money. I hope that, when the Minister gets back to his department to reflect on this debate, he bears that in mind and looks for value for money from the expenditure that we are undertaking.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. The Chancellor’s Budget will not lead to an economic renaissance, reduce inequalities or improve household budgets.
The word “women” gets just one mention in the Chancellor’s Statement and there are no policies associated with women’s welfare, whether that is reducing the gender pay gap or the pension pay gap, or reducing women’s tax disadvantages. The disabled and pensioners get absolutely no mention in the Chancellor’s speech. The £10 Christmas bonus for pensioners was introduced in 1972 and is still the same. If linked to inflation, it would need to be around £140. The £100 winter fuel payment has not changed since 2011 and, if linked to energy prices, would need to be £153. The Government seem to really have it in for pensioners—they want to hurt them any way they can.
Household budgets are being squeezed by rising energy and food prices, but the Chancellor has not offered any relief by, for example, eliminating VAT on domestic fuel or perhaps offering or considering rent controls. The £4 billion tax cut for banks—from what I could add up—is part of a £54 billion tax giveaway, mainly in the form of tax relief to corporations that are already making billions of pounds in profits. The banks are a good example of that.
The Budget reduces the spending power of households and increases queues at food banks, and that will inevitably undermine the economic recovery. The suspension of the triple lock on the state pension will remove £30.5 billion from pensioners over the next five years, and some 4.4 million families will be worse off by around £4 billion a year because of the cut in universal credit.
Some £8 billion, perhaps more, is removed from household budgets by freezing personal allowances. Consequentially, 1.3 million people, generally the poorest, will be forced to pay income tax. The Johnson tax, which is the name I have given to the 1.25% levy—it does quite nicely on the internet—will remove £85 billion from people’s pockets in the next five years. Income tax begins at £12,570, but the Johnson tax is levied on an incomes from £9,500. People who do not earn enough to pay income tax have to pay national insurance and the Johnson tax. The IFS has pointed out that the Government’s relentless squeeze since 2010 will make the average worker almost £13,000 a year worse off by the middle of the 2020s compared with pre-2008 financial crash growth in wage rates.
The Government like tax perks for the rich. Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than earned income. Dividends are taxed at a lower rate than earned income. I hope the Minister will tell us why is it that no national insurance is levied on recipients of unearned income. If it were levied, it could go a long way towards addressing many of our social problems. I have asked that question of a number of Ministers, but nobody has answered. I hope that we get an answer today, and I am looking forward to it.
Even before the pandemic, the poorest 10% of households paid 47.6% of their income in direct and indirect taxes, compared with 33.5% by the richest 10%. The Budget has increased that burden, so I have another question for the Minister. Can he explain why the poorest continue to be targeted by the Government? What is to be achieved by increasing their tax burden even more?
The Chancellor said a lot about growth and productivity as the UK lags in international league tables. We have had more than a decade of low inflation, low interest rates, low wages and low corporate taxes, but that has not delivered the much-needed investment. UK investment in productive assets is around 16% of GDP, which is almost the lowest in Europe. When the opportunity arises, I hope that, on another day, I will be able to advance my thesis about why the UK remains in the doldrums.
Historically, the UK economy has been built by the public and private sectors. UK businesses have not shown a great deal of appetite for risky investment, which is why the state had to shoulder the burden and build airlines, telecommunications, biotechnology, nuclear and computer industries. It also had to rescue and reinvigorate railways, water, gas, electricity and many other industries. However, when you withdraw the state from that arena you do not really progress that much. What is the Government’s response? It is to reduce R&D spending by £2 billion to £20 billion. We are told that by 2024 they will spend about 1% of GDP on R&D. That is almost the lowest government spend in Europe, and it is again highly problematic. It will not deliver high productivity and growth.
The Government’s mishandling of Brexit is holding back the economy. The OBR said that
“supply bottlenecks have been exacerbated by changes in the migration and trading regimes following Brexit. Energy prices have soared, labour shortages have emerged in some occupations, and there have been blockages in some supply chains. These can be expected to hold back output growth”.
Yet the Chancellor offered no remedies for these structural problems.
The much-hyped policy of free ports did not get much endorsement from the OBR either. It said:
“There is also broader uncertainty around how much of the economic activity that takes place within a freeport will have been displaced from other UK regions and how much is genuinely additional.”
The major winners from the Budget are tax-dodging, champagne-sipping bankers on short-haul flights. For most people it is a continuation of austerity. That will inevitably increase social instability.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I echo the remarks of my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Lamont, as well as others. I will touch on two areas of concern. However, first, I am extremely relieved that I am not the Chancellor.
Every year that I can think of, the NHS is overwhelmed; every year, billions more are invested and yet it never seems to improve patient care. Covid aside, it is far too hit and miss. We have world-class doctors, surgeons and nurses and many others in front-line care but, as my noble friend Lord Naseby mentioned, only 11% of GPs work full-time. That was before the pandemic. It is not about the number of heads in a structure or system; it is also about the hours they are contracted to do.
I had a look at the structures, at what in Brussels we used to call an organogram—it is quite a good word. I do not pretend to be an expert in this field but, like everyone in the UK, I am a shareholder. Out of the 1.4 million employees, around 450,000 are doctors, surgeons and nurses, with many more directly supporting them. I was astonished, however, by the diagrams of the top-heavy, top-down—that is an understatement—bureaucracy. None of the 27 quangos apparently focuses on adult care or mental health. Then there are 223 trusts, clinical care groups, NHS England, healthcare providers, NICE—it goes on and on. That leaves about 700,000 administrators, which is about half the workforce. I am sure many of them are doing a very necessary and brilliant job but, of the £225 billion budget—or 10.5% of GDP—and excluding the billions that have been thrown at it for Covid, what proportion is spent on front-line care?
My second concern is quite different. The aviation and tourism sectors have been decimated by Covid and are desperately trying to recover. My interest is non-paid, but I have spent most of my life in these industries. I welcome the reduction in APD for domestic flights, but it should have been immediate, along with reduction in APD for international flights as well. Job losses and bankruptcies have taken their toll. In addition, this demonising of the airline sector is appalling, particularly at the moment at COP, when it is desperately trying to recover. Collectively, aviation and tourism employ and support nearly 4 million jobs. Before Covid, tourism raised approximately £71 billion a year, which went to the Exchequer. Aviation alone supports nearly a million jobs, with another £52 billion raised, though clearly that was very reduced during the last 18 months.
Looking at the aerospace sector, we in the UK build the cleanest, greenest aircraft ever. That is not by accident; decades ago, the industry realised that the lighter the aircraft, the more fuel efficient it could be, so the price of the ticket could cost less. It happened through competition, and we all benefited. People were able to live, travel and do business abroad at an affordable price. As an island nation, we developed the largest route network in Europe and the second largest worldwide, outside of the USA. It has given us connectivity and increased commerce. An aircraft is not just about going on holiday; every hold will contain cargo, goods and products built and grown here and exported around the world. Even orders from Amazon arrive the next day.
Let us be clear: the aviation sector—private jets included, which, by the way, are a very small proportion of the industry—creates around 3% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Engineers, scientists and the industry have over the years and decades invested heavily to continue to improve the aircraft of the future and we all support that. Let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater. These industries need confidence from government and from us, so I hope that we can have a more balanced discussion as we move forward.
Finally, this pandemic has caused havoc and we have spent billions of pounds dealing with it, but we have to get back to an economy where people keep most of the money that they earn, where businesses can plan ahead with certainty and where the Conservative principles of tax and spend return as quickly as possible.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Foster of Oxton. I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this debate today and I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on her thoughtful and interesting valedictory speech.
I congratulate the Minister on the way in which the Treasury has reacted swiftly throughout the pandemic to support those sectors of the economy that would otherwise have suffered enormous and lasting damage. The bounce-back loan scheme and the furlough scheme have helped businesses across the board to survive through the dark months and many of them now contribute to the economy, which is recovering more strongly and quickly than many had predicted. The Culture Recovery Fund, administered by DCMS, has helped to ensure survival for many enterprises in the arts, cultural and heritage sector, helping to ensure that the UK remains the best place for talented artists to develop their careers and enrich our national life.
Many have suggested that this Budget indicates that the Government have abandoned their commitment to true Conservative principles, adopting policies providing a greater role for the state than we have seen since Lady Thatcher’s successful reforms. Some commentators argue that, following the success of the party in winning so many red wall seats, the Government now need to adopt tax and spend policies that reflect the priorities of their new supporters in constituencies that have never or not often elected Conservative MPs. However, the election of Ben Houchen as Mayor of Tees Valley on a platform of low taxes and support for innovative new companies and wealth creation shows that his supporters believe in Conservative ideals as the route to greater prosperity just as much as Conservative voters in the south-east.
I recognise that the Chancellor could not continue to borrow more and more, especially as the national debt has risen to an alarming £2.2 trillion, or 95.5% of GDP. This is the highest level since 1961. It is, however, encouraging that tax receipts in September 2021 have increased by 11.1% over the figure for September 2020 and government spending is modestly lower for that month. This is of course before the very substantial tax increases take effect. I worry that we are getting close to the optimal level above which further increases would be counterproductive, because they would stifle growth and act as a drag on GDP.
The UK has already become a relatively less attractive place to incorporate a company, because corporation taxes will increase by 6%—that is, an increase of 31.6% in the rate—from next April. On top of that is the effective 2.5% increase in national insurance, aggregating employers’ and employees’ contributions. I fear that we are likely to see a reduction in the number of start-up companies registered here. The costs of employment will act as a disincentive to the creation of jobs.
The Chancellor is optimistic about economic growth and the Government now need to deliver on pro-growth supply side policies that will support it. Can my noble friend tell your Lordships whether the Government recognise that we must be swifter and bolder in adopting a less cumbersome regulatory rule book for both services and goods? That means fewer quangos, not more. Many of the new Acts of Parliament being taken through your Lordships’ House establish new committees and commissions, often with increased regulatory powers. This is not what the country voted for in 2016. The Prime Minister welcomed the report of the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform and he and my noble friend Lord Frost have said that the Government will drive forward necessary changes. Could the Minister confirm that the Government are indeed doing that?
My right honourable friend said in another place that the
“Budget increases total departmental spending over this Parliament by £150 billion. That is the largest increase this century, with spending growing by 3.8% a year in real terms. As a result of this spending review, and contrary to speculation, there will be a real-terms rise in overall spending for every single Department”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 277.]
However, the average annual growth figure shown in the Autumn Budget and spending review for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, on page 103, shows a reduction of 5% over the five years from 2019-20 to 2024-25. The FCDO is the only department facing a real-terms cut over that five-year period.
Is that the reason why the FCDO has been forced to propose the sale of around half the British embassy estate in Tokyo? Global Britain, our enhanced bilateral trade agreement, our application for accession to the CPTPP and our deepening collaboration in defence and security are all reasons why our relationship with Japan has become, without any doubt, one of our most important global partnerships. History and tradition are highly valued in Japan. Our embassy in Tokyo is the source of the special and unique status that the British Government and British people hold in Japanese society. If the embassy reduces its size, Japan will see it as the symbol of a smaller Britain. I ask my noble friend to recognise that the Treasury’s failure to provide the appropriate level of funding for our diplomatic presence around the world has led to this highly damaging proposal, which should be reconsidered as a matter of urgency.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I start with a sad farewell to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle. I hope that her words today on the importance of investing in our children will be heard by all parties and all sides—not only by those sitting in this debate but by their colleagues. The work that she has done in this area has been important in driving the thinking within this House—again, on all Benches. So I say farewell and thank you from all of us.
On a very different note, I say to the Minister that I hope that the message has now been received that the Budget and the spending review are issues that should be debated in the main Chamber. I hope that we never see this decision to be in Grand Committee cited as a precedent for future debates on Budgets and spending reviews.
Many people who have spoken today have talked about the huge challenges facing our economy, whether they are recent through Covid or deeply embedded, and I want to capture a few of them as part of my winding summary. The OBR has confirmed that the economy is permanently severely scarred by 2% from Covid but, far more significantly, by 4% due to—as we heard in detail from the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and my noble friend Lord Razzall—a loss in tax receipts of £30 billion per year as a consequence just of the Brexit scarring. In fact, several noble Lords have stated that 4% is probably a rather conservative calculation of the level of permanent damage.
UK productivity continues its malaise, repeatedly growing at something in the area of only 1.3%. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, that this, in a sense, is the basis for the economic struggle that we face. Our rival economies have continued to do far better on productivity. We have to tackle that issue; it is a long-term deficiency, as the noble Lord, Lord Desai, essentially discussed.
I wanted to say, however—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, raised this question—that the Government talk about us being a high-wage economy. I know the noble Lord was afraid of the consequences if that is not driven by productivity, but may I refer him to the OBR? Its forecast shows that real wages will have grown just 2.4% between 2008 and 2024. That is not a high-wage economy, and is one of the fundamental problems that we have to address.
Business investment—mentioned by several people—continues to be weak; both foreign direct investment and domestic investment are at very low levels. According to the publication Credit Strategy,
“52% of businesses are now saddled with ‘toxic debt’”.
Of course, that is not even through all the various sectors, but many of our key sectors will be struggling with the debt burden for years to come, holding back their growth. UK corporate debt was up in 2020 from £1.9 trillion to £6.6 trillion. It is an eye-watering number.
To pick up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, exports to the EU are down sharply, but I say to others who have talked about new trade agreements, new opportunity and so on that, according to the forecasts, they are very far from being offset by new opportunities elsewhere. I am picking up on ONS figures. It has led to real concerns that the UK is losing overall competitiveness.
Again, as many have said, we have a rapidly ageing and increasingly dependent population. I was looking at the dependency ratio, which rose in 2020 to 57.6%, up from 51.7% in 2010; that comes from World Bank figures. The issue that lies behind this is that it is pretty much unsustainable, particularly when that dependency is coming from an older population and not a group of youngsters who will be future workers.
Taxes are the highest since the 1950s and on a path to exceed 36% of national income. However, I want to pick up the issue that my noble friend Lord Shipley raised, which is the tax burden of local councils and is not included in those tax numbers that are quoted by the OBR. There is a 5% increase in council taxes, which will be a burden distributed most unfairly under a regressive system. The noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, talked about completely reforming the council tax system and, again, my noble friend Lord Shipley raised the same issue. This is an area that must be fundamentally addressed because of the damage it does to many of the least well-off in our society at a critical time.
Public service net debt is forecast by the OBR to reach 98.2% of GDP and not to start falling until the end of the three-year period. It will just squeak through the Chancellor’s new rule, if the OBR numbers are right. The number that I think frightens most of us is that CPI is forecast to exceed 4%—many are now saying 5% or perhaps even higher. Because it seems to be based very much on essential purchases such as food and energy, its impact will be on the poorest in our society.
Facing all that, I hope—and I join the noble Lord, Lord Hain, in this—that the Government will now accept the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, which was passed yesterday. It would reshape the definition of the triple lock for this year in such a way that it does not leave pensioners utterly impoverished.
If all that were not enough, we have two of the greatest existential challenges of any age: the scourge of climate change and the challenge, which has hardly been spoken about, of the digital revolution. To me, that says one thing—that we needed a transformational Budget—and what we got was simply underwhelming. There was a sort of scattering of seed as if across the bird table. There were quite a number of good things in it, and quite a number of attractive things, but nothing that could sustain an economy in the long term, just as the feed on the bird table cannot sustain birds through the entire winter.
If anyone doubts the fundamental weakness of the Budget they just need to look at the OBR forecast. This was addressed by my noble friends Lord Fox and Lord Razzall, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. It forecast growth of GDP of 1.3% in 2024 and 1.6% in 2025. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is optimistic that those numbers are fundamentally wrong, but, my goodness, that is a long shot. These are the best numbers we have to work with, and we are scared. I mentioned a list of challenges: if we had just a few of them, they would be tough to deal with in that kind of limp economic growth, but when we look at the full list—and I suspect people will add others—we are looking at a serious risk to our standard of living and, frankly, not all the hot air of boosterism will change any of that.
I shall refer to a few particular policies because I think I must. I realise that I cannot go on too long. I join others in not understanding the cruelty to the 3.5 million people on universal credit who are unable to work or able to work only part-time. They are being pushed into penury by removal of the £20 universal credit uplift, which is made worse by the pressure of inflation. All the talk about optimism will not stop people being hungry, and I pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, that every one of them has the right to a warm home. These issues were addressed by the noble Lords, Lord Turnbull, Lord Horam and Lord Desai. That does not mean that I do not welcome the taper in the UC rate, which will help people in work full-time, and the boost to the national living wage, but I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, that it still leaves those people facing effectively a 55% marginal tax rate, which is simply unsustainable and outrageous. I also pick up the issue recognised by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, which is that national insurance starting at a much lower threshold is an additional pressure on those individuals. I quote the IFS:
“the working age benefit system is overall substantially less generous than it was in 2015.”
I am also very worried that the increases in spending for most government departments are a sort of unannouncement of previously announced budget cuts—perhaps the Minister can confirm this—and that most of the money that is being restored is for capital spend, when we desperately need day-to-day spend.
I shall finish by focusing on what I think is the key issue of the day, which is climate change. Our Government call themselves a global leader in tackling climate change. If that is their ambition, why is this not a proper net-zero Budget? It contains announcements of modest, scattergun green investments, which are all welcome, but they are insubstantial compared with our economic rivals. I shall give a direct comparison: £620 million over the next three years to encourage us to use electric vehicles and to walk and cycle. In Germany for the equivalent period there is €5.5 billion just for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It is dramatic and transformational in Germany and in the margins in the UK.
Businesses are critical to net zero. They have told the CBI and anyone who will listen that they need a long-term fiscal plan of incentives and disincentives to reach net zero, including disincentives to support fossil fuels. Long-term fiscal certainty is the only way in which they will maximise their investment. There was no plan in the net-zero strategy. I think all of us thought it would be in the Budget but it is not.
The Chancellor’s proposals today are to use disclosure and embarrassment to get companies to push hard to net zero, but most of us in this Room are not naïve. To get businesses and the financial world to focus on delivering net zero to the timetable needs that combination of rewards and costs. It should have been in this, so we need to hear from the Government why there has been no such plan.
I would love to talk about other issues, such as reforming interest rates. I feel strongly about education. Many noble Lords said that spending per student is only just returning to 2010 levels. There is one suggestion I want to make to the Government on that: if they delayed that cut in the banker’s levy by one year, they could use that money to provide catch-up for all the kids who are struggling as a consequence of two years of inadequate education because of Covid. If they do not catch up, they will lose permanently. We have proposed that as a party and here is an opportunity to do it.
Just about everybody was displeased with this Budget in one way or another. For a brief second, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, would be fully supportive, but then he talked about the dreadful track and trace system, which wasted something close to £37 billion. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, said she was glad that she was not the Chancellor, but it is the job of Chancellors, in times like this, to make the transformational change, to step up to the struggle the country faces and make those big shifts. That was what was required from this Budget, but it was not what was delivered.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle for her speech and her contribution to our Chamber over the years. I particularly liked her focus on education as a key issue for our society to regard. I wish her well for the future. We are probably forgetting what our Chamber was like when we had only male bishops. Everything from the reading of the psalm to the breadth of speeches has improved as a result of our women bishops.
As ever, I also admire the detailed response to the debate from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. Unfortunately, I am not so skilled, so I just marked every speaker as favourable, neutral or unfavourable. I hate to share with the Minister that I came out with 20 unfavourable, three neutral and three favourable, so I wish him luck.
Despite the Chancellor’s upbeat delivery during last week’s Autumn Budget Statement, the reality facing many low-income and middle-income households is far from optimistic. In recent years, we have become accustomed to single-year spending decisions, rather than the usual multi-year settlements. Committing to certain courses of action was deemed too complicated, but the Chancellor’s new fiscal rules have afforded him the luxury of a longer-term view. This spending review contains caveats, especially on issues including overseas aid spending, but it at least gives us, especially those responsible for planning and delivering public services, an idea of what is to come.
The detail of the Red Book fails to live up to the cheerful tone adopted by Mr Sunak. Following last week’s Statement in the other place, the Resolution Foundation promptly warned that millions are facing a “grim reality”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies sees “real pain” arising from the double whammy of high inflation and personal tax increases. Wider circumstances, including the ongoing energy crisis, mean that the cost of living is likely to skyrocket in the coming months. Despite this, we saw no meaningful measures to support crucial parts of the industry in the long term or to help bill payers in the short term.
The change to the universal credit taper rate, which is expected by 1 December, will provide some assistance to certain households. However, its impact will be felt differently depending on an individual’s circumstances. Some will recoup what they have lost through the withdrawal of the £20 weekly uplift, where others will just lose out. A single unemployed person aged over 25 will go from £411 per month to £324. I do not know many people in this House who could contemplate living on £324 a month. It is a matter of £20 a week. Most people in this House—perhaps not all—losing £20 a week would not notice it. I certainly would not. However, we always have to bring our minds back to the fact that these policies will have a real, serious impact on real people. This is an unkind and, indeed, almost vicious move. The concept that if you threaten people with getting poorer, they are more likely to work, is simply unrealistic, unfair and cruel.
We welcome the increase to the national living wage, but it falls short of Labour’s commitment to at least £10 per hour. Working families must also wait until April and the actual benefit—if there is one, given rising costs—will be marginal.
Overall, households will be paying an astounding £3,000 a year more in tax than when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, yet many of our public services are simply not up to scratch.
A Budget provides an unparalleled opportunity to examine an Administration’s priorities. While the Prime Minister may present himself as being on the side of ordinary people, last week showed that he is anything but. Taxes on working people are going up to the highest level in 70 years, while allowances or loopholes amounting to billions of pounds have been put in place for bankers and large corporations.
The fine print of the Red Book and its supplementary documents reveal some hidden hits to working people. Next April, many families will find themselves subject to yet another council tax bombshell, while there will also be a £1.7 billion stealth raid on the self-employed over the next five years.
Even in the cases where the Government wants us to think it has seen the light, the reality is very different. We welcome the speed with which the Government are amending the universal credit taper rate, but even this supposed concession gives rise to several questions. Recently, both Houses were asked to fast-track legislation for the health and social care levy—a further burden on working people—with minimal scrutiny on the basis that the Budget would come too late to allow HMRC to update its systems. How could HMRC have been deemed unable to implement its changes between November and April, yet the Department for Work and Pensions can make and publicise fundamental changes to the benefits system within four weeks?
We should also remember that the Government’s supposed generosity on universal credit was never their plan. Ministers insisted on scrapping the weekly £20 uplift despite overwhelming evidence of the severe hardship it would cause. They refuse to do anything about the five-week wait, even though that also pushes people into financial difficulty.
The Chancellor was almost gloating when noting that the cut from 63% to 55% equated to “the rate originally envisaged” by Iain Duncan Smith. Therein lies the problem. The idea behind universal credit was a good one. However, reducing the share of earnings that went into claimants’ pockets repeatedly came top of the list of cuts during the Conservatives’ austerity programme.
As we discussed during a debate secured by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, last week, poverty is neither new nor inevitable. It is, in many senses, a policy choice. Why, then, has it taken until now for us to see change? Ultimately and sadly, only two things secure action from No. 10: political benefit and disquiet on the Back Benches. The recent NHS levy Bill was rushed through to ensure minimal opposition from Back-Bench Conservative MPs, while the revised taper rate is a response to unease at the end of the £20 uplift. We have also seen it with sewage in recent times, with Ministers miraculously acknowledging public health and environmental concerns—not when they were raised in March 2020 but when 22 Back-Benchers rebelled and more threatened to.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis demonstrates what Labour has been saying for months: that the UK took the hardest economic hit during the Covid-19 pandemic and is seeing the slowest recovery among the G7 nations. Even departmental spending settlements are not all they seem to be. Yes, there has been a loosening of the purse strings, but the shadow of austerity still looms large over Whitehall. The Resolution Foundation notes that despite increases in budgets, only a third of the post-2010 cuts to unprotected departments’ real-terms per-person spending will be reversed by 2024-25.
Ultimately, this Budget fails Labour’s key tests, and according to recent YouGov figures, it falls short of the public’s expectations too. It hammers working people while giving banks a tax cut. It offers no concerted plan to shift the tax burden from working families to those with the broadest shoulders. It contains little to tackle the worsening cost-of-living crisis, nor puts the UK on the path to strong, sustained growth. There is nothing to cushion the blow of higher energy prices over the winter months. The OBR says that pay increases will be cancelled out by spiralling inflation and tax rises, probably in late 2023. Changes to universal credit will benefit only a third of claimants, leaving others facing difficult winters.
This Autumn Budget was an opportunity to tax fairly, spend wisely and grow our economy in a way that helps the environment and supports British business. As we have so often seen, the Government have ducked the challenge. Instead, they have prioritised narrow corporate interests and the management of internal party politics. This is no way of doing business and, regrettably, the people of this country will be worse off as a result.
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to close this debate on behalf of the Government. Let me thank noble Lords for the many insightful and considered contributions that we have heard today. Given the number of speakers and the time that I am allocated, I will try to respond to as many of them as possible, but forgive me if I do not cover everybody.
On the economic and fiscal picture, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, raised the issue of inflation. The Bank of England is responsible for controlling inflation, and CPI inflation has averaged around its 2% target rate since the Bank became responsible. The Government are taking targeted action worth more than £10 billion over the next five years to help families with the cost of living, and the Plan for Jobs is helping people get into work and gain the skills they need to progress, which is the best approach to managing the cost of living in the longer term.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is worried about real wage growth. Wages have continued to grow since the start of the pandemic, which, frankly, none of us would ever have conceived even if we go back a year, but they are now 4.4% higher compared to February of last year.
Looking at the labour market more broadly, the OBR has revised down the unemployment rate peak on at least two occasions, to 5.2% for the end of this year, which is down from 6.5% in the March 2021 forecasts and from 7.5% in the November 2020 forecasts—that is 460,000 fewer people expected to be out of work than in only March this year.
My noble friend Lord Lamont asked about the approach to the quoting of debt figures for the Bank of England. The Government have chosen to focus on public sector net debt excluding the Bank of England because excluding the Bank’s contribution to public sector net debt—for example, through the QE programme —reflects the impact of government decisions. The IFS has said that
“it is often appropriate to focus on debt excluding the Bank of England when evaluating the fiscal situation.”
Public sector net debt is falling and by a larger amount again over the forecast horizon. It peaks at 98.2% of GDP this year and then falls in every year of the forecast to reach 88% in 2026-27. The Treasury will continue to monitor public sector net debt excluding the Bank of England, providing a better overview of the public finances.
The noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, asked about supply shortages exacerbating inflation. The Government are working hard with international partners to tackle this problem. We must acknowledge that this is not a local issue; it is happening across the world. When the whole world has woken up from Covid, the enormous suppressed demand combined with the huge fiscal interventions, with money in people’s pockets, means that people are bursting back into spending much quicker than anyone could have imagined.
We are trying to support those at the more vulnerable end with increases in the national living wage and the Household Support Fund. The fund is ring-fenced so at least 50% will be spent on households with children. The fund has been set at a level that will allow local authorities in England to support, for example, 3 million to 4 million vulnerable households with an average payment of £100 each.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, asked about the increased holding of gilts leading to higher interest rates. Given that I have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, that the noble Lord is one of the cognoscenti, I must be careful in how I respond. As I understand it, while debt is forecast to fall over the medium term, it will remain significantly above pre-pandemic levels. That means that we are vulnerable to shocks, which means that we would be spending a lot more money on debt servicing. A 1% increase in both inflation and interest rates would increase spending on debt interest by around £22 billion in 2026-27, which is almost twice the impact than if it had been in 2014.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and my noble friend Lady McIntosh are concerned about energy prices. Ofgem’s energy price cap has protected consumers during the recent fluctuation in gas prices. Millions of low-income households will be supported with the cost of essentials through the warm home discount scheme, which helps 2.2 million low-income households with their energy costs, and the winter fuel programme, which provides £200 towards energy bills for households with a member at or above state pension age and £300 for households with a member at or above 80 years of age, a significant £2 billion contribution to winter fuel bills.
The noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Desai, Lord Turnbull, Lord Rooker and Lord Tunnicliffe, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle are all concerned about universal credit and I very much hear their concerns. However, the Government have always been clear that the £20 uplift was a temporary measure to support households whose incomes and earnings were affected by the economic shock of Covid. The taper means that 1.9 million working households will be able to keep substantially more of what they earn. That effectively represents a tax cut worth around £2.2 billion a year in 2022-23 for the lowest-paid in society.
Linked to that is the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that there are many people on universal credit who are not in work. This comes back to the whole jobs revolution. We seem to forget that it is an extraordinary position to have so many vacancies in our economy. The Government are building on the success of the plan for jobs with a total of £6 billion over the SR period providing targeted additional support to help these at-risk groups to find work, including those coming off furlough, younger and older age groups, the long-term unemployed and people with disabilities.
The national living wage is increasing by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour in April next year, which will benefit 2 million people. Since its introduction in 2016 the national living wage has increased the pre-tax earnings of a full-time worker by over £5,000 a year. This increase is consistent with the Government’s target to go even further and raise the national living wage to two-thirds of median earnings for over-21s by 2024, provided that economic conditions allow.
The noble Lords, Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Londesborough, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle asked about educational recovery. The SR21 reaffirms and expands the Government’s commitment to helping the most disadvantaged pupils recover learning lost due to the pandemic, bringing total investment to specifically support educational recovery to £4.9 billion since the academic year 2020-21. It provides more than £3.2 billion over the SR period. This includes a £1 billion recovery premium for the next two academic years for schools. Primary schools will continue to benefit from an additional £145 per eligible pupil, while the amount for eligible pupils in secondary schools will nearly double. In broad terms, this will mean an average secondary school could attract around an additional £70,000 a year.
Many noble Lords mentioned skills. I want to provide a bit of detail on the Multiply scheme that I touched on briefly in my opening speech. This will provide £560 million across the SR to give people the opportunity to develop their numeracy skills. We are targeting around half a million adults. What is important about this is that adults with poor numeracy are more than twice as likely to be unemployed at the age of 30 as those with competent numeracy. Getting these numeracy skills is one of most valuable things we can do to help people get on. It is the equivalent of a level 2 numeracy standard. Statistics show that this will increase wages by an average of 14% after seven years, compared with 4% for that wider cohort.
This is one example of dealing with productivity, which the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, and many other noble Lords raised. Our highest priority is to unlock the addiction we have had in this economy to low wages. I am optimistic that we will, because the ability to take the easy way out by bringing in cheap eastern European labourers will no longer be available. Noble Lords will know that, until a couple of years ago, employers were not even advertising jobs in the UK; they were just using agencies in eastern Europe and bringing people over wholesale. That has now stopped.
Some £1 billion will be invested across the SR to help children and young people get the best start. This includes £500 million for start for life services and family help, including new family hubs, investment in maternity services and infant and perinatal health, and a £200 million increase in funding for the existing Supporting Families programme to reach 300,000 families. There will be 300 new youth facilities as part of the £560 million funding for youth services.
I turn to net zero. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, raised concerns. The fiscal consequences of the transition to net zero will need to be managed in line with the Government’s broader fiscal strategy. As the economy recovers from the pandemic, borrowing will be reduced to sustainable levels.
On the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that there were not many initiatives in the Budget, I want to put a few of them on record. For example, there is a much more ambitious focus on nuclear energy, with £1.7 billion direct investment to enable a large-scale nuclear project. We confirmed a £120 million future nuclear enabling fund. There was £155 million for critical nuclear infrastructure; a £385 million advanced nuclear fund; £380 million for the offshore wind sector and for putting in place a more efficient approach to connecting offshore windfarms; and a doubling of the spending on energy innovation with confirmation of a total of £1.3 billion in energy innovation funding. There are similar items on buildings and transport, but I do not have the time to deal with all of them. I think that that we have led the G20 in our carbon reductions in the last 15 years and I feel that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is being a little bit hard on us.
The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and my noble friends Lord Naseby and Lady Noakes worried that, even though we are increasing taxation, we will not restore health spending levels to the 2010 inflation-adjusted rate. To fund the significant increase, the Government have taken the very difficult decision of the new 1.25% health and social care levy. We have also increased the rate of dividend tax by 1.25% to support that package. This will allow for around £13 billion average annual investment over the next three years to tackle the elective backlog in the NHS as it recovers from Covid. Alongside this, the Government have reaffirmed their commitment to 50,000 additional nurses and 50 million primary care appointments. We have already seen number of nurses increase by 21,000 since June 2019.
While the Government have taken the difficult decision to raise taxes, the health and social care levy is a progressive way to raise the money for households which will benefit from further investment. Analysis from the Resolution Foundation and the Government shows that our policies are set to boost incomes for those at the bottom of the distribution and that higher taxes will mostly impact middle to higher-income households.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, had some queries about levelling up. Levelling up means making sure that people’s opportunities are not limited by the areas in which they live. Put simply, we are trying to bring opportunities to talent, which is something this country has been very poor at in the past. We are doing this via targeted action worth more than £10 billion over the next five years, which I referred to earlier. We are spreading opportunity and improving public services by investing £3.8 billion in skills over the Parliament by 2024-25 and providing funding for at least 100 community diagnostic centres. We are boosting living standards by launching the new £1.4 billion global Britain investment fund, which will help spread economic opportunities more evenly across the UK. We are empowering local communities and leaders, for example through the UK shared prosperity fund, which is worth more than £2.6 billion over the spending review period, to help people access new opportunities in places in need, working in partnership with local leaders. The levelling up White Paper will set out further detail on how the Government are levelling up in the UK.
The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, asked about the impact of EU trade. The Chancellor has been clear in his view that the agility, flexibility and freedom provided by Brexit will be more valuable in the 21st-century global economy than just proximity. As noble Lords will know, we are already in discussions with Australia and New Zealand, which form an important part of the CPTPP trade bloc. We aspire to join that trade bloc, which is growing far more quickly than any activity in the EU.
The noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Sikka and Lord Londesborough, and my noble friend Lord Risby asked about investment for business. The Government are putting our plan for growth into action. The Budget and SR provide support to the UK’s most innovative firms, leveraging private sector investment and driving innovation to boost productivity across the UK. This includes providing £2.5 billion for Innovate UK core funding and launching the scale-up, high potential individual and global business mobility visas to attract highly skilled people. It also includes funding the delivery of Help to Grow schemes, which will enable more than 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses to boost their productivity, supporting the Made Smarter adoption programme to boost the productivity of manufacturing and SMEs and the £1.4 billion global Britain investment fund, which will support new investment in manufacturing industries.
On R&D tax reliefs, in this SR the Government are increasing direct spending on R&D to record levels, providing £20 billion per year across the UK in 2024-25. On the concerns about Horizon, in the event that the UK is unable to associate to Horizon Europe, the funding allocated to the Horizon association will go to UK government R&D programmes, including those to support new international partnerships.
It is also worth reminding noble Lords that the tax relief granted for EIS investments has become a significant way of investing in early-stage businesses. In 2015-16, around 3,500 companies raised funds from that mechanism, and that rose to 4.200 in 2019-20—which is just under £2 billion for those years.
On tax and business rates, the noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Turnbull and Lord Davies of Oldham, and my noble friends Lord Flight and Lady McIntosh of Pickering are concerned that people will be worse off because of tax measures such as the new levy. The highest-earning 15% will pay more than half of the revenue for the new social care levy, while 6.1 million people earning less than the primary threshold—that is £9,880 in 2022-23—will not pay the levy. If we had used income tax rates as the base for the levy, rates would have had to rise by more than 1.25% and therefore the impact on individual taxpayers would have been higher.
The decision to maintain the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold at 2021-22 levels out to 2025-26 was a progressive approach to fund good-quality public services and rebuild the public finances after the huge intervention of the Covid crisis. Nobody’s take-home pay will be less than it is now as a result of this policy, and for most taxpayers any real-terms losses are small next year. The average basic rate taxpayer will be around £75 worse off in real terms in 2022-23.
The Government have raised the personal allowance by nearly 50% in real terms in the last decade. It is the highest basic personal tax allowance of all countries in the G20 and remains one of the most generous internationally. A typical basic rate taxpayer will still be more than £600 better off in 2025-26 than they would have been if the Government had not taken this action to increase the personal allowance above inflation since 2010-11.
We have spent more than £350 billion on Covid mitigation, and freezing indexation is part of the way of addressing this. The income tax system is still highly progressive, with the top 5% projected to pay nearly 50% of all income tax in 2021-22 and the top 1% projected to pay more than a quarter of all income tax in that year. Even with maintaining income tax threshold levels, around 80% of income tax payers will pay no more than the basic rate.
The noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Shipley, and my noble friend Lord Flight asked about business rates. The business rates review provides £750 million-worth of support over the next five years for businesses to improve and decarbonise their properties, supporting them to become greener. The review commits to changes to improve the business rates system, such as more frequent revaluations to make business rates more adjustable to economic change and hence fairer for small businesses in the longer term. From 2023, the Government will introduce a new business rates improvement relief, so no business will face higher business rate bills as a result of qualifying improvements to a property they occupy for 12 months. This will enable businesses to adapt to meet rising demand and make improvements to their premises that support net zero and enhance productivity as employees return to the workplace.
On the APD, we have decided to introduce a new reduced domestic band to support regional connectivity. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, spoke about supporting the industry. Domestic aviation accounted for less than 1% of the UK’s total emissions in 2019, and we have taken considerable action to support decarbonisation of the sector, including investment of £180 million at SR21 for a competition to support the commercialisation of sustainable aviation fuel plants in the UK, the launch of the Jet Zero Council and the inclusion of aviation within the UK emissions trading scheme.
To wrap up, in this debate the Government have been criticised by noble Lords—I was going to say “opposite me”, but we are in a mixed economy today. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is right that I have not been met with universal adulation, but we all know that we do not go into politics for gratitude. My noble friend Lord Balfe and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made the very important point that the piece often missing in these debates is how well all this money is spent. If it is spent well, both sides will be wrong; if it is not spent well, everyone will be right and our citizens will lose out twice over, once from the taxes they have had taken and once from the failure of the services to improve.
We have a huge job of work to get the enlarged state to spend money properly. Too often, the default setting is simply to call for more money, not to spend what is available better. If someone can tell me with a straight face, as happened to me a week ago, that it is perfectly reasonable to spend £25,000 moving, not buying, furniture in and out of an office about the size of a one-bedroom flat, we have a problem. Noble Lords know all about test and trace, which was raised by my noble friend Lady Noakes. The total sum spent there in 15 months exceeded what has been spent on building new schools over the past 10 years. We all know that individuals spending their own money almost always achieve far more with it than the state does when spending other people’s money, so my call is to all noble Lords to help play their part in scrutinising the organs of government to ensure that money is spent effectively. The Treasury cannot do it on its own.
I thank noble Lords again for their constructive contributions. As the Chancellor said last week, notwithstanding my comments:
“Employment is up, investment is growing, public services are improving, the public finances are stabilising and wages are rising.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 273.]
This is a Budget and a spending review which builds the economy for a new age of optimism. Above all, it is a Budget which delivers a stronger economy for the British people.
House of Lords
Benefit Cap: Review
(3 years ago)
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Baroness Lister of Burtersett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they propose to conduct the next statutory review of the benefit cap.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
There is a statutory duty to review the benefit cap levels once in each Parliament, unless an early election is called. As such, the review will happen at the appropriate time, yet to be determined by the Secretary of State, which must currently be by December 2024.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, it is exactly five years since the cap on how much benefit can be received was reduced to its current level. Given that the numbers affected remain well above pandemic levels, and the mounting evidence of the cap’s contribution to deep child poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, mental health problems and difficulties faced by domestic abuse survivors, will the Government undertake now to do the review required by law—as the Minister said—and address in it the evidence of hardship and the growing calls for the cap to be abolished, including from the noble Lord, Lord Freud, yesterday in this House, who called it an “excrescence”?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am afraid I cannot commit to the Secretary of State reviewing the benefit cap now. I note the points the noble Baroness has made and continues to make, but for the Government the benefit cap provides a strong work incentive, and we think the national cap of earnings at £24,000 and £28,000 in London is a fair system at the moment. However, I will take her points back to the department.
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, the Government state that, where possible, it is in the best interests of children to be in a working household. What support is available for those impacted by the cap, in particular for people who want to become less reliant on benefits in their search for work? What support can be given to help with home rental costs?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I know there is much angst about the benefit cap, but let me tell noble Lords what we are doing to support people impacted. We have a range of employment support available with work coaches. The real desire is for people to be less reliant on benefits. Our work coaches have the flexible support fund, which is doing a lot of good to overcome the barriers that stop people going to work. Claimants can recover up to 85% of their eligible childcare costs. Local authorities provide budgeting advice and, in terms of rental cost support, the local housing allowance —where we have maintained the amount.
Baroness Primarolo (Lab)
My Lords, the number of households that have had their income limited by the benefit cap soared more than 137% during the pandemic. Those are the Government’s figures. Those numbers are still going up. Almost all the capped households include children: 400,000 of them are in families in which both parents are in work. The Government’s policy is dragging families deeper and deeper into poverty. Will the Minister tell the House what assessment the Government have made of the cap’s impact on driving children into deep poverty?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
We understand there are around 190,000 households in both universal credit and housing benefit that were capped in May 2021—about 2.8%. There are some exemptions to the cap, as the noble Baroness well knows, and some grace periods. I will need to go back to the department to ask the question about the impact. I cannot answer it now, and rather than give a wrong answer, let me write to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, evidence to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee states that the benefit cap is putting abused women
“in situations where they may have no choice but to return to the abuser or take out payday loans.”
Is it not time that the Government took action to address the injustices of the benefit cap and its effect on hardship and poverty?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
As I said, the benefit cap will be reviewed at a time to be determined by the Secretary of State, but we have a range of measures designed to support people who flee abusive and violent households, as it is quite unacceptable that they should have to do this. We have provisions in housing benefit and universal credit, and I can assure the House that, where necessary, we arrange split payments for people in order for them to be able to maintain an independent life.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in his recent book, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, said:
“The benefit cap made little sense in a system designed to provide each family what it needed.”
Quite, so why do it? Yesterday, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, told the House why. He said that George Osborne’s chief of staff had said to him:
“I knew it didn’t make much in the way of savings, but when we tested the policy, it polled off the charts.”—[Official Report, 2/11/2021; col. 1128.]
The cap has caused huge hardship and driven kids into poverty, but it was not because it was right, but because it polled off the charts, helped by rhetoric demonising the poor and those who could not work. Labour would scrap it to lift people out of poverty; will the Government now do the right thing?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am well aware of the observations passed by my noble friend Lord Freud. As I have said, the benefit cap will be reviewed by the Secretary of State. I am very sorry, but I am not able to give a commitment to scrap it.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister tell us what proportion of those subject to the benefit cap are realistically incapable of moving into work? Perhaps they are sole carers of very young or disabled children, or dependent adults, or they might be recovering from addictions. With such cases in mind, will the Minister update us on progress in developing universal support?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I will deal with the latter point first. The Government are fundamentally against universal support or universal basic income: it is the wrong approach for the people of the UK. It would mean that there was no incentive to work; it would not target those in greatest need, and it would fail to take into account the significant additional costs faced by many individuals. As for the people mentioned by my noble friend, it would be easy to write them off, but our absolute commitment is to say that the best route out of poverty—the best route for these people—is, where they can, to get work.
I was passed today just one story about a single father from Scotland who lives remotely, 25 miles from his nearest Jobcentre Plus, for whom finding work was almost impossible. However, his work coach found him a Kickstart job: they absolutely threw the kitchen sink at the flexible support fund and got him advance costs to enable him to travel. He is now working on the Kickstart scheme, which is proving to be very good for him.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the Minister rightly says that getting people into work is the best way out of poverty, but the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, asked about those who cannot work. Will the Government undertake to look into the statistics for those people who cannot work and look again at the benefit cap for them? I also note that December 2024, by which time the Minister says there has to be a review, may well be after the next general election, which may mean that the Secretary of State will never bother engaging in a statutory review.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The Secretary of State is required by law to do a review, so I do not see how she is going to get out of it—but perhaps the noble Baroness knows more than me. I know that the Secretary of State is a robust lady and is on the money, and she cares more about unemployed people than some people give her credit for—so let me just park that with you. It is important to know. I am exhausted now.
I have already agreed to go back to the department on the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, made about impact and so on, and I will do so. I thank the noble Baroness for the reminder.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, given that some families have particular difficulties, are there any circumstances in which the benefit cap does not operate?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I can tell my noble friend that when people have caring responsibilities, or someone has a severe disability or health condition, they will not have their benefits capped. Universal credit households are exempt from the cap if household earnings are at least £617 a month, and housing benefit claimants entitled to working tax credits are also exempt from the benefit cap.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
Will the Minister understand the concern—indeed, revulsion—across many sections of this House at this punitive policy? The Minister refers to people finding work where they can. The truth is that large numbers hit by the cap cannot obtain work. Will the Minister understand that this policy recreates less eligibility and the worst aspects of the Poor Law?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
As I have said to the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Smith of Newnham, and as I shall say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, I have agreed to go back and come back to noble Lords on this issue. The question is virtually the same, and I shall give an answer.
Education: Teacher Departures
(3 years ago)
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Viscount Hanworth
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent of departures of early career teachers from the teaching profession; and what plans they have to address the causes of such departures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, retention of early career teachers is a priority. About 20% of teachers leave the profession in the first two years after qualifying. We have addressed this through introducing the early career framework—the most significant reform to teaching since it became a graduate-only profession—backed by substantial extra investment. This is a funded, two-year support package for new teachers, providing them with the early career support enjoyed by other top professionals.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
I am thankful for that Answer. Yes, the Government’s own statistics show that 20% of new teachers leave the profession within the first two years of teaching, and 33% leave within the first five years. I imagine that, far from being seen as a benign approach to their induction into a school, the early career framework could be regarded by teachers as a further burden. One of the principal reasons why young teachers leave the profession is their failure to secure permanent positions; they are constrained to work as supply teachers for wages that are diminished by the fees of the agencies and without the support of sickness or holiday pay or pension contributions. Do the Government intend to address those problems?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I do not accept the noble Viscount’s assertion that this is going to be seen as a further burden for teachers. We consulted extensively on the early career framework; it has been evaluated independently by the Education Endowment Foundation, and has been warmly welcomed by teachers, head teachers, unions—and in time I am sure will be by pupils as well. There is time carved out of the early career teachers’ curriculum to get all the support and extra input that they need.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, in the discussion around this question there may be an assumption that we are focusing on key stages 1 and 2 and secondary schools, but, given that the most significant years of a child’s development are the early years, will the Minister say what is being done to ensure that nurseries and preschools attract, develop and retain vital key workers?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The right reverend Prelate makes a good point. We are investing £20 million to provide practitioners in pre-reception settings with access to high-quality training to raise their skills, and we are investing a further £10 million to support staff in pre-reception settings. We announced in June of this year a further investment of up to £153 million, as part of an education recovery package, to train early years staff to support the very youngest children’s learning and development.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend confident that the Government have in place the right incentives and programmes to attract—and for that matter retain—the best teachers for the next generation?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As my noble friend knows, teacher quality is the single biggest determinant of pupil outcomes within a school. She is right that it is vital we recruit the best and brightest teachers for our schools. We have a range of initiatives, with significant bursaries for subjects such as biology, geography, languages and, of course, STEM subjects. We remain committed to introducing a £30,000 starting salary for early career teachers and to professional development throughout their careers.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister say whether teachers with particular professional qualifications are, for whatever reason, more likely to stay in the profession? Do the Government have data on this?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am very happy to check what data we have on the longevity, if that is the right word, of teachers from different disciplines. Certainly, in preparing for this Question and looking at the experience of early career teachers, I know that there is actually very little variation in their initial appointment to teaching in a state school. Art and design and music, which I know the noble Earl is interested in, are in the mid-70s, but that is the same as chemistry, physics and a number of other subjects.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, Ministers have stood at that Dispatch Box and praised teachers in brightly glowing terms, but teacher workload continues to increase from an already unsustainably high level, as reported by Teach First and the National Education Union—the early career framework may not help this at all—and their salaries remain frozen. Even if the cap is lifted, their salaries will probably actually reduce in real terms, and certainly in terms of purchasing power. What plans does the Minister have to address these issues, which account in large part for the loss of teachers from the profession in their first five years?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness will be aware that starting salaries for teachers were increased last year by 5.5%. As I have already said, our commitment to starting salaries of £30,000 remains. That is important; in the research we did, we looked at both public and private sector jobs and set the target at a level that we believe is genuinely attractive in comparison with both.
Lord Storey (LD)
The Minister will know that teacher retention is often undermined by high workloads and unsupportive working conditions. What does the Minister think of the proposal from Teach First to reduce teachers’ timetables by 1% in the most disadvantaged areas, often staffed by the most inexperienced teachers, and then scale up the policy if it has a positive effect? By the way, I am sorry I did not give notice of that question beforehand.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The department is very open to testing and exploring new ideas. I will take that back and discuss it with colleagues. We are seeing a lot of good practice, particularly in some of the larger multi-academy trusts, in managing these issues. I genuinely think that, through the pandemic, some of the strengths of that model, and the pressure it has taken off teachers, is something we can learn from going forward.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, 80% of teachers who qualified in 2019 were still teaching one year after qualification. If, perchance, I had ever attained 80% in any school examination, I would have been congratulated by a surprised, if not shocked, teacher. I therefore congratulate my noble friend and her department on these figures. I hope that the retention rates can be increased further. How do these figures compare to the retention of new recruits in the emergency or health services?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I am sure my noble friend is being modest about his exam results. The retention figures are relatively stable across public sector professions. Retention of primary school teachers is somewhat above the average, and retention of secondary school teachers is marginally below the average. We are committed to making sure teachers get support at every point in their career, and we have committed the funding to deliver this.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just referred to a suggestion by the organisation Teach First about disadvantaged schools. That came from a report published by the organisation last year, which also showed that, when teachers were asked why they would resign from the profession, workload was the reason most often cited. The Minister will know that, in 2018, the Department for Education introduced the teacher workload reduction toolkit, developed in conjunction with teaching unions and Ofsted, to try to identify unnecessary and burdensome practices in a teacher’s day-to-day workload. Yet the latest figures on attrition among early career teachers show that the figures have hardly changed at all. Do the Government retain faith in that workload reduction toolkit? If so, what do they propose to do to make it more effective?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord is right that the figures have been stubbornly stable. The school workload reduction toolkit supports schools to review and manage workload. It remains widely used; there were a thousand downloads of the toolkit in September of this year. The noble Lord will also be aware that, in 2019, we announced the teacher recruitment and retention strategy. We have talked about the early career framework and the national professional qualifications. One of the encouraging signs we are seeing is that applications for initial teacher training are up by more than 20% this year, so that bodes well for the future.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
Teachers are the country’s most vital workforce and should be rewarded and appreciated appropriately, not overworked to breaking point. Rather than constant testing and pressure to reach the Government’s targets, is not the role of teachers to help each child become more self-confident and to find something they are interested in, something they can become good at and something they may be able to make a career out of?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As we know, the list for teachers is a very long one, and all the things that the noble Lord mentions are important. But we also know that, without the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, it is very hard to realise the aspirations which the noble Lord rightly highlights, hence our focus on those subjects in particular.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Railways: East Coast Main Line
(3 years ago)
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Lord Beith
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with (1) Network Rail, and (2) Train Operating Companies, about the delay to the proposed East Coast Main Line timetable changes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the east coast main line is a crucial route for passengers and freight and is already playing a critical role in helping passengers return to rail, as well as leading the revenue recovery vital to restoring the financial health of the railway. The department holds weekly discussions with Network Rail and train operators, which are focused on modifying the original proposals in response to stakeholder feedback and mitigating outstanding risks to delivering the timetable reliably.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, the timetable was withdrawn by Network Rail because it could not be operated reliably on the existing infrastructure and because there was such a hostile public reaction from areas that faced fewer trains, longer journeys and no improvement in connectivity across the north. Now that there has been a welcome rethink, what guidance are Ministers giving in these meetings to the industry? Should the industry plan a simpler timetable, taking account of the limitations of the infrastructure, or should it assume that the limitations on the infrastructure will all be fixed?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, we are currently in the fairly early stages of the very complex discussions around the consultation. The noble Lord is quite right: when you ask the British public a question and for their feedback, they rightly give it. We have had over 10,000 responses to the consultation. While the feedback was balanced, views were polarised, and I am afraid that it is impossible to keep absolutely everybody happy. The discussions continue—as I said, they are on a weekly basis—and proposals will be coming to Ministers in due course.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
There appears to be a conflict here between increasing services from Scotland and the north-east to London and the potentially adverse impact this would have on trans-Pennine services from Newcastle to Manchester and Liverpool due to track capacity constraints in the north-east. Why have the Government failed to address these issues—which do not spring up overnight—over the last 11 years, particularly bearing in mind that they now also impact on Northern Powerhouse Rail, about which the Government to date have said so much and done so little?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government have invested £4 billion in the east coast main line and are planning to invest a further £1.2 billion in issues such as capacity at Stevenage, the King’s Cross track remodelling and the Werrington grade separation works. These upgrades will deliver better journey times, reliability and capacity improvements.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I declare that I am a regular user of LNER and congratulate it on its reliability and punctuality, apart from during weather difficulties. My noble friend recently reported that some of the additional capacity will go to the south-west of England, yet passengers and LNER have suffered two years of disruption from Network Rail improvements into King’s Cross, with the promise of extra capacity between London and the north of England on the east coast main line route. Will she give her word that this additional capacity will be delivered?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, throughout these timetable considerations, the Government need to balance the feedback we get from people and organisations with the journeys that passengers actually take; sometimes those two do not have a lot of connection. But my noble friend is quite right to note that the demand on LNER is coming back more strongly than in other cases. Of course we are taking that into account and, if needs be, we will make sure that the capacity improvements on the services she talks about are put in place.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, it is five times more expensive to go to COP 26 using east coast main line train services than it is to fly. Since train travel is much more environmentally friendly than flying, how can the Government justify the Chancellor’s decision to make domestic air travel even cheaper by cutting APD? Since the Government subsidise the railways with taxpayers’ money, how can they justify giving tax breaks to their competitors, which will inevitably undermine the viability of railway lines such as the east coast main line?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
As the noble Baroness knows, the Government were really clear in the transport decarbonisation plan what the long-term future looks like for various modes of transport. We recognise in that plan that the cost of motoring has fallen at the same time, for example, as the cost of fares have gone up by 20% and even more than that for bus and coach journeys. But, of course, gradually and over time we will make trains and buses better value and more competitively priced. This will impact on the modal shift and take people away from flying or using their car and get them on to trains and buses. As she is well aware, there have been a number of competitions recently where people have taken a train and a plane at the same time and arrived at their destination at the same time.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I am sorry; I do not think that the question has been answered. When are the Government going to start making public transport cheaper and, for example, domestic flights more expensive? The Minister cannot just say it is going to happen some time in the future; we have a climate emergency to worry about.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government are subsidising train fares by a vast amount at the moment. Obviously we want them to be as low as possible, but the amount of subsidy needs to be fair to the taxpayer. The Government have asked for bus service improvement plans from all local transport authorities in the country, and we will look at their fare proposals and make sure that we can support those who offer the best value for money.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
With the problems over the east coast main line timetables, does the Minister believe that the advent of Great British Railways will end the design of timetables that are unworkable, cause chaos and delay, and confuse the consumer? I should declare an interest as the chair of the Built Environment Committee. On Friday, we are publishing a letter proposing a way forward on rail fares, another aspect of the Williams-Shapps plan for rail.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I thank my noble friend for raising this. She is absolutely right: Great British Railways is one of the ways in which we can ease the transition from one timetable to the next, and minimise the risks to delivering the services that passengers want and—as we know from demand figures—need. When Great British Railways is established and we bring together the ownership of the infrastructure, consideration about fares, timetables, and planning of the network under one roof, it will bring much greater benefits for the passenger and much greater accountability.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am a regular passenger on the new Azuma train on the excellent east coast line. When the private franchise is removed from time to time, the Government become the owner of last resort, yet the service appears to remain excellent and actually, I understand, makes a profit. Given that, does the Minister agree that it matters not who owns and controls the service, for it is the skilled, excellent, customer-friendly staff on the trains and in the call centres who make the difference and govern the high quality of the service?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I agree that the staff are absolutely crucial. They provide an outstanding service on LNER, which is why it is doing pretty well at the moment. However, I do not agree that rail services should be nationalised as a whole. The proposals put forward in the Williams-Shapps plan for rail keep the best elements of the private sector, with new contracts for passenger operators and strong incentives to run very high-quality services.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, Monday’s announcement by Avanti West Coast that direct train services between north Wales and London will not be restored till next spring will cause concern to commuters. At the height of the pandemic, services were slashed to two direct services a day but, as passenger numbers increase and the winter months approach, connection times will become far more onerous for passengers. Avanti needs to restore direct services to north Wales so that passengers get the service they pay for. Will the Government tell it that?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Of course the Government are working very closely with the train operating companies. There is, as the noble Baroness probably knows, the rail revenue recovery group, which is working across Network Rail, the train operating companies and various consultancies to ensure that we are able to maximise revenue in a very depleted revenue environment and provide the services required. Of course we keep services under review, look at passenger demand and make changes accordingly.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
There is no polarisation where I live about the suggestion that most of the services from London to Retford and vice versa should be removed. How can businesses such as the internationally renowned artisan food centre on the Welbeck estate survive if no one can get there by train?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord has highlighted exactly what has happened. There is no polarisation within any particular place, but the tension between different places and between the north/south and east/west routes is very vivid. However, I take his point that we need to make sure that the right services are in place to support businesses. That is what we are working through at the moment and we will of course consider what he has said.
Net-zero Emissions Target: Fossil Fuel Extraction Projects
(3 years ago)
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Baroness Sheehan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they give to the net zero carbon emissions target set by the Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019 when determining whether to approve new fossil fuel extraction projects.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, as outlined in the Net Zero Strategy, we are driving down our reliance on fossil fuels and have committed to reducing UK greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035. Oil and gas will play a smaller but important role in meeting future UK energy demand, as agreed by the Climate Change Committee. Fossil fuel projects are subject to robust scrutiny from our regulators before receiving consent, including on environmental grounds.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, the recent report by the International Energy Agency, which was in fact commissioned and welcomed by the COP 26 president, Alok Sharma, said that to stay within the 1.5 degree limit there can be no new fossil fuel projects. However, Friends of the Earth tells us that there are at least 40 UK fossil fuel projects in the pipeline, the combined annual emissions of which would be almost three times that of the entire UK currently. Given our ambition for COP 26 to keep 1.5 alive, does the Minister agree with the IEA’s director that:
“If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas and coal”?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The problem with the noble Baroness’s argument is that we currently get three-quarters of our energy from oil and gas. It is a declining percentage as we decarbonise, but we currently get three-quarters of our energy in that way. Would the Liberal Democrats prefer that energy to come from Saudi Arabia or Russia, or from British workers paying British taxes in the UK, paying contributions to the UK Exchequer? That is the choice that faces us.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, we have pledged to reduce methane by 30% by 2030, along with 103 other countries. Have the Government carried out an assessment of whether that is possible while they simultaneously allow new fossil fuel extraction projects to go ahead, and, if they have not, will the Minister commit to doing that as a due diligence exercise?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course we keep all these matters under review, and it is important that we meet our target. We are on a projection for net zero in 2050; we have a legal obligation to do that. Oil and gas projects will play a small and declining role as the years proceed, but in the short term we will need new projects.
Lord Fox (LD)
In reply to my noble friend, the Minister set up a false dichotomy. I will answer his question: we do not want the oil to come from Surrey. However, Surrey County Council has granted permission to drill oil wells as part of the Horse Hill development. If these are developed, they will put 10 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. So will the Minister use his influence with his Conservative colleagues who run the council and get them to step back from this development—and, if he fails, will he ask his colleague to call this development in?
Lord Callanan (Con)
It is strange; I thought the Liberal Democrats were in favour of local planning control—obviously not in these particular cases. As the noble Lord is aware, that application is subject to an application in the Court of Appeal at the moment, and therefore I cannot comment on it.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The Prime Minister said in the Statement we will discuss later:
“This is the moment when we must turn words into action.”
Is it not also the moment when we need to adopt a consistent and transparent stance on all new fossil fuel projects? Would the Minister agree that the Government would be aided in this if they adopted the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee to have a net-zero test against all new policies and over all new departments?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point. We are indeed following the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which has accepted the need for oil and gas as we proceed to net zero. I remind the noble Baroness that we have the fastest decarbonisation rate of any G7 country. So we are proceeding on the path to decarbonisation, but is unrealistic to expect that we can just turn off the oil and gas supplies tomorrow.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
The Energy Charter Treaty is allowing major fossil fuel investors to challenge the right of Governments to take the action required to reach net zero. During COP 26 this week, does the Minister consider that the UK should be leading the urgency to decarbonise the Energy Charter Treaty and remove the investor protections it provides in relation to fossil fuels?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The UK is indeed engaged in the process to modernise the Energy Charter Treaty to ensure that it is aligned with our climate objective and advances UK and global energy transition. So, through our COP 26 presidency we are working closely with global leaders to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, including supporting the accelerated phase-out of coal and the wider decarbonisation of the energy sector.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, in view of the importance of allowing the UK steel industry to survive and even thrive, and the obvious and immediate need for steel to manufacture those wind turbines we hear so much about, can the Minister explain the delay in opening the Cumbria coal mine? Is it sensible to allow all new fossil fuel extraction projects to be demonised and indiscriminately written off to fulfil net zero, when other urgent priorities, such as the imminent energy crisis, mean that the Government should be more pragmatic and look at all energy options, including shale gas?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Baroness makes some valid points. The steel industry is integral to building the infrastructure, such as offshore wind farms, that we need to tackle climate change. While there has been a decline in coal mining in the UK for some time, there is a global market for coking coal. This reduction in the mining of coal in the UK will have no impact on UK steel production. I would remind the noble Baroness that we published the UK’s first ever industrial decarbonisation strategy, which will help in this area.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, yesterday the Prime Minister said that the threat was huge. It has been very humbling to listen to some of the testimonies from countries such as Bangladesh, the Maldives and the Seychelles. I want to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Why do we have 40 licences out there? Are they going to be reviewed, and will this topic be discussed in Parliament? Will the Minister comment on what the Prime Minister said at 1.09 pm today to the Member for Brighton Pavilion, who was asking about this general issue? He said:
“I will say nothing about the Cambo oil field.”
This does not fill us with confidence, especially coming on the back of his strong and wise words in Glasgow.
Lord Callanan (Con)
The Cambo oil field is, of course, the subject of a licensing application at the moment. This is not a new development. The original consents were issued in 2001 and 2004 by the previous Labour Government. We are waiting for the Offshore Petroleum Regulator to take a decision, and then the Oil and Gas Authority will take a further decision. But I return to my previous point. We still import large amounts of oil and gas. It makes no sense to not produce it domestically if we can and then import it from Russia or Saudi Arabia. We need to decline our usage over time, and we are doing that. But in the transition, we do need oil and gas.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
My Lords, may I continue to explore the issue of the Cambo oil field? I hope that the Minister can help clear up any confusion. The Secretary of State for Scotland has said:
“100% we should open the Cambo oil field.”
The president of COP 26 has refused to be drawn on the issue. The Government have both denied and confirmed that the Business Secretary has the power to give the go-ahead or to stop it. Boris Johnson has told us that we are at one minute to midnight in combating climate change. Can the Minister confirm that proceeding with the Cambo field would be incompatible with the UK’s climate goals? If he cannot do that, can he explain how it will be compatible?
Lord Callanan (Con)
It is indeed compatible with our climate change goals. The proposed development of the Cambo oil field, located to the west of Shetland, is covered by licences originally awarded in 2001 and 2004 by the noble Baroness’s Government, and no decision has yet been made. Proposals for the development of oil and gas fields under existing licences—such as Cambo—are subject to extensive scrutiny by the regulators. That scrutiny includes a full environmental impact assessment and a public consultation. No final decision has yet been made.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
Our own dear Prime Minister, when asked about the coal mine in Cumbria, said that he was not in favour but that it was not his decision; it was for due process. Does our Prime Minister not understand how democracy and government work? He could amend the National Planning Policy Framework to ban new coal. Will the Minister take this idea to the Prime Minister so that we can stop at least one more fossil fuel extraction process?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am of course delighted to hear that the Prime Minister is dear to the noble Baroness. But, as I think she is aware, no decision has yet been taken on the proposed Cumbrian coal mine. The public inquiry began on 7 September. The formal part of the inquiry has now concluded. The planning inspector will write up his report by the end of the year and submit it to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It is now part of a quasi-judicial process, so the noble Baroness will understand that I cannot commit the Government to any action.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, that concludes Oral Questions for today.
International Agreements Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
To move that Lord Razzall be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Foster of Bath.
Liaison Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That Lord Collins of Highbury and Baroness Scott of Needham Market be appointed members of the Select Committee in place of Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town and Lord Tyler.
National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Monetary Penalties) (Turnover of a Business) Regulations 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
To move that the draft Regulations laid before the House on 6 September be approved.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 1 November.
National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Notifiable Acquisition) (Specification of Qualifying Entities) Regulations 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 6 September be approved.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 1 November.
Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021
The Earl of Courtown
That the Regulations laid before the House on 14 October be approved.
Considered in Grand Committee on 1 November.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Wednesday 3rd November 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 40-V(b) Amendments for Committee (supplementary to the Fifth Marshalled List) - (3 Nov 2021)
“Poaching of game
(1) The Game Laws (Amendment) Act 1960 is amended as follows.(2) In section 2(1), after “committing” insert “, has committed, or is about to commit”.(3) In section 4—(a) in subsection (1)—(i) after “section thirty” insert “or section thirty-two”, and (ii) at the end insert “or any animal, vehicle, or other article belonging to him, or in his possession or under his control at the relevant time.”;(b) in subsection (2), after “gun”, in both places it occurs, insert “, animal,”;(c) at the end insert—“(6) Where a person is convicted of an offence under the Night Poaching Act 1828 or the Game Act 1831, the court may order the offender to reimburse any expenses incurred by the police in connection with the keeping of any animal seized in connection with the offence.”(4) In section 4A(1), for “section thirty of the Game Act 1831 as one of five or more persons liable under that section” substitute “section 1 or 9 of the Night Poaching Act 1828, or section 30 or 32 of the Game Act 1831”.(5) After section 4A insert—“4B Disqualification Orders(1) Where a person is convicted of an offence under either the Night Poaching Act 1828 or the Game Act 1831, the court may, instead of or in addition to dealing with the person in any other way, make an order disqualifying the person from having custody of a dog for such period as the court thinks fit.(2) A person who is disqualified from having custody of a dog by virtue of an order made under subsection (1) may, at any time after the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which the order was made, apply to the court that made it for a direction terminating the disqualification.(3) On an application under subsection (2) the court may—(a) having regard to the applicant’s character, conduct since the disqualification was imposed, and any other circumstances of the case, grant or refuse the application, and(b) order the applicant to pay all or any part of the costs of the application,and where an application in respect of an order is refused no further application in respect of that order may be made before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which the application was rejected.(4) Where a court decides not to make an order under subsection (1) in relation to an offender, it must—(a) give reasons for the decision in open court, and(b) if it is a magistrates’ court, cause the reasons to be entered in the register of proceedings.(5) Any person who has custody of a dog in contravention of an order under subsection (1), is guilty of an offence.(6) Disqualification from having custody of a dog under this section includes disqualifying a person—(a) from owning dogs;(b) from keeping dogs;(c) from participating in the keeping of dogs;(d) from being party to an arrangement under which they are entitled to control or influence the way in which dogs are kept;(e) from dealing in dogs;(f) from transporting dogs;(g) from arranging for the transport of dogs.””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause is intended to broaden the powers available to the police and the courts for dealing with illegal hare coursers. Measures include providing for forfeiture of animals on conviction and permitting the recovery of expenses incurred by the police in housing a seized animal.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. In moving Amendment 124, I will speak also to Amendment 128 in my name. These amendments seek to strengthen police powers to deal with illegal hare coursing and, more generally, the illegal poaching of game.
Amendment 124 would amend the Game Laws (Amendment) Act 1960 to broaden the police’s powers to remove or arrest an individual trespassing on land where there is clear intent to trespass in pursuit of game, as defined by Section 9 of the Night Poaching Act 1828 and Section 30 of the Game Act 1831. It would also allow the police to seize any vehicles or animals used for the killing or taking of game found in the possession of the trespasser, and would allow the court to order
“the offender to reimburse any expenses incurred by the police in connection with the keeping of any animal seized”.
Further, the amendment seeks to broaden the court’s ability to limit repeated violations by issuing disqualification orders for those individuals convicted under the Night Poaching Act or Game Act for having custody of a dog or dogs.
Amendment 128 would increase the maximum fines for those found trespassing in pursuit of game and remove the distinction between a person and a group of “five or more persons” when determining the severity of a given fine to allow for individual convictions.
The diocese that I serve, which covers Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Luton and bits of London, includes many rural areas, and I know from conversations with landowners and farmers just what a problem illegal hare coursing is. It is not just the damage to land and property that causes anxiety, it is the threats, verbal abuse, intimidation and violence. This includes metal bearings being fired into tractor cabs; attempts to bribe farmers to allow hare coursing on their land; ringing farmers’ doorbells in the evening when they know that the farmer is out and the wife and children are at home; and direct threats that state that they know where the farmer lives, should the farmer report a hare courser.
One person described coursing as equivalent to being under siege—constantly having to repair damage from break-ins, and being scared for their own safety and that of the farm equipment. It is an illegal and barbaric practice that runs amok across the private property of farmers and landowners and helps facilitate organised crime, through the enormous sums that change hands in high-stake illegal betting.
Before tabling this amendment, I contacted senior members of the Hertfordshire police for their views. One spoke of how this amendment would give them confidence that hare coursing was being taken seriously and that, that being so, one of the most effective preventive tools would be to take the means to commit the offences away from the offenders.
Given the high value of the dogs used by those involved in illegal hare coursing, these amendments seek to address a substantial weakness in the existing law by extending the seizure and forfeiture powers for all poaching offences to include vehicles and dogs. That, alongside court-imposed custody of dog disqualification orders, would create the strongest possible deterrent to illegal hare coursers. These changes would address the current challenge of limited police resources, including having to pay for kennelling costs without being able to reclaim those costs from the offenders.
The current legislative framework for prosecuting hare coursing is failing farmers and landowners and it needs reform urgently. The NFU’s rural crime survey found that 41% of farm businesses had experienced hare coursing in 2020, and that figure went up to 60% in Yorkshire and 67% in East Anglia. I understand that Defra is consulting on provisions that are very similar to the ones outlined in this amendment, and I am encouraged by the comments of the Minister in the other place to the effect that the Government are taking this issue seriously and are committed to introducing new laws to deal with it. However, I am concerned that in the interim farmers and landowners will continue to be harassed, bullied and threatened by illegal hare coursers—and may well be so for another year, or two years, or longer, unless the Government bring forward legislation quickly.
The legislative changes that I am proposing command the support of some of the UK’s largest rural organisations, including the National Farmers’ Union, the Countryside Alliance and the Country Land and Business Association.
Our police and courts need the backing of the law to properly deal with illegal hare coursing and I ask the Minister to provide the Government’s timetable for introducing new laws to better deal with it, unless they are prepared to accept these amendments.
I thank other noble Lords who have signed these amendments, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, who, due to a clash, is in another debate. The noble Baroness asked me to read out a couple of comments that she was very keen to be made in this debate. “I am delighted,” she writes, “to add my name to this amendment and to lend it my strongest possible support. Tough action must be taken against the despicable crimes of hare coursing and lamping, the latter of which involves perpetrators from built-up areas such as Cleveland and West Yorkshire coming to rural areas, such as North Yorkshire, and leaving deer with such unspeakable injuries that the landowner is obliged to call a vet to put the animals out of their pain.”
“Rural crime,” the noble Baroness goes on, “must be taken more seriously and put on a par with all other crimes, in terms of not just reporting such offences but procuring and punishing the offenders.” She concludes by saying that “rural communities are being neglected, and that that cannot continue.” I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness and other noble Lords. I beg to move.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as farmer and landowner, as set out in the register, and as someone who has been directly and indirectly affected by hare coursing on more than one occasion.
I am pleased to add my name to Amendments 124 and 128 tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. They concern the Game Laws (Amendment) Act 1960, the Night Poaching Act 1828, and the Game Act 1831, none of which are very recent, nor do they take account of developments, particularly in modern illegal hare coursing. Instead, these amendments take account of modern access to land in 4x4 vehicles, the high-value gambling with dogs and the easy facility of the organisation of these activities through social media. Sites such as dragondriving.co.uk, the Facebook group “Let the Jackers See the Hare with Coreys” and biglink are used to advertise meetings, suitable vehicles and such like.
The right reverend Prelate has given details of the NFU survey. I will not repeat those figures, but they are pretty concerning. Hare coursing has existed for many years, but more recently there has also been an increase in deer coursing, which has also been referred to. The main drivers of these activities have been the ready access to and retreat from land by 4x4 vehicles, the high stakes in illegal betting, and social media. The consequences have not been difficult to see. They include violence and intimidation to anyone who has tried to intervene, and severe damage to standing crops, hedges, gateways, and anything else that gets in the way of hare coursers. Existing laws and sentencing are dealt with by the amendments.
A Private Member’s Bill received wide support. and an amendment was tabled in the other place on this Bill. The response by the Minister was that Defra was aware and dealing with the issue. Nothing further has been heard yet. This lack of action is regrettable, and I very much hope that the Minister will now accept this amendment, or at least come up with his own proposals. Failure to move on this issue is likely to lead to people taking matters into their own hands, with all the dangerous consequences that this involves.
A farm manager local to me has experienced threats to his life by phone calls, slashed tyres, windows catapulted and a stone landing on his sofa where his wife was sitting, catapulted windscreens, intimidation on foot and by vehicle, the revving of engines, the shooting of a dog, and so on. Others, whether gamekeepers, wardens or just neighbours doing their duty, have had similar experiences. This must stop. The police do their best, but are often too late or constrained by the evidence.
At a case at Boston Magistrates’ Court in Lincolnshire in September, the farmer who brought in the police arrived at the court and was kept safely away from those charged with the offence of hunting a wild animal with dogs. The Crown Prosecution Service thanked him for his bravery and support in the case and commiserated on the damage to his crops and livelihood but explained that, due to an administrative problem regarding helicopter CCTV footage, they had to stop the charges faced by the defendants. Imagine the alarm and distress caused to, and still experienced by, the farmer, as he was directly confronted with the defendants as they left the court as free men.
A more successful ending to such an episode that did not involve the police and was told to me by the farmer concerned was when some Travellers, or tinkers, had stolen the farmer’s dog. Bravely, and with others, he entered the Travellers’ camp and removed a dog, which happened to be a greyhound. Stalemate ensued, until it became apparent that the greyhound was a champion and very highly valued. Negotiations took place between farmer and Traveller, resulting in a meeting in a layby where the dogs would be exchanged. At the layby, deadlock ensued while the order of release was agreed as to which dog would be released first. The farmer prevailed and his spaniel was duly released. The Traveller waited expectantly for the return of the greyhound, which duly happened, but instead of a fit champion, a very happy and overfed greyhound was released, to the laughs of the farmer and his friends.
Obviously, the forfeiture of an animal, as long as it is accompanied by the ability to recover expenses, particularly that of food, works well. I therefore urge the Minister to accept these amendments so that the countryside can be rid of this awful and damaging activity to communities, individuals, dogs and wildlife.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am very happy and pleased to support these amendments, which would improve the powers for police and courts to tackle wildlife crime such as illegal hare coursing. Wildlife crime is by its nature difficult to police. When I was on the London Police Authority, I asked the Met police to start logging crimes committed on farms, which they did not do at the time. The problem is that the crimes are often committed far from police stations—especially so since the Conservative Government have closed quite a lot of those police stations. They are also seen as less of a priority than burglary and even traffic offences. There is some exciting new technology that the police can use to overcome these difficulties of geography and resources, but you need the right powers and the power of sentencing.
I have a friend who culls a deer herd for a local farmer. He was out, I think last week, and all of a sudden, two police cars turned up—this was in the middle of nowhere—with their blues and twos going. The police thought that he was a poacher. As he was standing there with a gun, a knife and a dead deer it was a quite difficult argument to make, but they did finally understand and managed to speak to the farmer. My friend takes responsibility for culling deer that have been harmed by poachers and then left to die in pain.
These amendments have practical solutions so that offenders can be perhaps deterred, but certainly punished and prevented from causing further suffering. They are amendments that the Government should accept in full.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the right reverend Prelate. It might surprise your Lordships to know some of the numbers. I am grateful to the Suffolk Constabulary for the figures of incidents of illegal hare coursing. These were the incidents reported—so not necessarily all the incidents—between 1 September 2019 and 31 March 2020. There were 139 incidents reported in 230 days. That means there was more than one incident a day for the police to deal with. The penalties for this illegal behaviour are not sufficient. That is why the right reverend Prelate’s amendments must be agreed.
I want to talk a little about hares, because they have been on the Biodiversity Action Plan list almost since its formation, in 1995. I am hugely grateful, as we all are, for the work done by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, which has been monitoring hares for many years and scientifically working out what their best habitat is. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, gave us a graphic description of the horrors that farmers have to face, but, if one looks at it from the hare’s point of view, they too would like these amendments.
If the farmer has too many hares on his property—particularly on the eastern side of the country, where the illegal poaching and coursing takes place, because that is where most of the hares are—the farmer will be tempted to reduce the number of hares to discourage poachers. If the laws are not strong enough and the police cannot keep the situation under control, the only sensible option for the farmer is to legally reduce the number of hares to such that it is not attractive for these people to come and drive over their land, smash their gates and cause intimidation. I am sure that, from the hare’s perspective—as I said, they are on the Biodiversity Action Plan, and numbers have been reducing since 2010—they would welcome the strengthening of the law.
I hope that my noble friend will not bat this away by saying that Defra is going to produce something. I think we are all a bit fed up of waiting for Defra to produce things—we need action now. By accepting these amendments, there is nothing here that will cut across what Defra might or might not produce in the fullness of time.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendments 124 and 128 in the names of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I would have certainly added my name had there been room on the list.
The right reverend Prelate has laid out the case for these amendments extremely clearly. Hare coursing is, at present, illegal, but the penalties are not sufficient to deter the really determined criminal fraternity. Big money changes hands during this obnoxious practice, so it is necessary to increase the penalties to assist in preventing unnecessary cruelty to hares and to reimburse the police for the trouble involved in catching and prosecuting the perpetrators. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has spoken from personal experience of the effects of intimidation from those participating in hare coursing.
I fully support the measures in Amendment 124, in particular those listed under proposed new Section 4B(6), which gives the list of the disqualification orders, from owning a dog right down to arranging the transportation of dogs. It is entirely appropriate that those subject to disqualification orders should pay for the costs of keeping animals that have been seized and the cost of applying to have their disqualification lifted, whether it is successful or not.
Section 5 of the Hunting Act, which bans hare-coursing events, is rarely used, mainly because of the very tight definition of what constitutes an event. Now is the time to change the way hare coursing is prosecuted to ensure that successful prosecutions can take place. The seizure of both dogs and vehicles is important to ensure that criminals are not able to carry on regardless in another venue.
Hare coursing has devastating effects on farming families. It is classified as poaching, and these amendments apply to all forms of poaching in terms of seizure and confiscation.
The right reverend Prelate has already referred to the NFU’s rural crime survey and I will not repeat those figures. But nearly half of all farming businesses have been targeted by these organised criminal gangs. The right reverend Prelate also set out the threats that farmers have to suffer. It is time to put a stop to this practice and to the high-stakes gambling that profits from this cruel and abhorrent practice.
I welcome the reimbursement of kennelling costs to the police, who have the task of seizing the dogs involved. This is long overdue. As autumn is the current season for hare coursing, which takes no account of dependent, vulnerable young, now is the time for this change in the law to be implemented without delay.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, I refer to my interests on the register. Until recently, I was a farmer myself, and I have experienced, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, explained, the impact of illegal hare coursing—illegal activity—on my land.
I shall not go through the data and all the statistics, which have already been conveyed to the Committee by previous speakers, but I fully endorse the two amendments proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and supported by other noble Lords.
The destruction, pain, distress and expense are difficult to quantify. As well as the experience outlined by other noble Lords, it has been my experience that fences have been broken down, livestock have escaped and crops have been trodden on, particularly in wet weather. These things cause enormous distress, and it is a considerable expense to clean up afterwards. Of course, farmers dare not take the law into their own hands, because the consequences of doing that are very apparent, and can be high-risk.
As has been said, all the key rural organisations very much endorse and support these amendments, and I hope that the Minister will accept them and see them as a really positive step forward. They would make the countryside a safer place, not just for people but for hares, deer and other animals.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for introducing this important debate. As we have heard in this debate, illegal hare coursing is becoming an increasing problem in rural areas, particularly in flatter, arable areas, where the land is open and easier to access.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who I thought very well illustrated that farmers increasingly feel isolated when having to deal with these problems. They feel that they are fighting this alone —and that point was equally well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It is true that, all too often, police forces—including rural police forces—have given priority to more traditional crimes, such as burglary, rather than recognising that these are serious crimes that need to be addressed.
Noble Lords have rightly highlighted the implications of hare coursing. Hare coursers and poachers regularly cause criminal damage to gates, hedgerows, fences and growing crops. This comes at a huge cost to farmers and landowners, wasting man hours as they are forced to look for and repair damage—and then they have to foot often very expensive bills for repairs to this damage and the need to increase security infrastructure, often involving installing CCTV cameras. This is extremely time-consuming, frustrating and upsetting for many farmers, whose land is the single most important asset of their business and their livelihoods.
As we have heard, it is not just about the damage that illegal coursers cause to land and property; verbal abuse, threats, intimidation and violence are all faced by landowners and tenants. The Crown Prosecution Service website admits that:
“Hare coursing can cause significant disturbance in the countryside and is a cause of serious concern to those who live in rural communities”.
There is a common fallacy that hare coursing is just a bit of poaching, but increasingly we know that it is closely connected to organised criminals and involves enormous sums of money changing hands, through high-stakes illegal betting. Coursing is often filmed from a vehicle and live-streamed across the internet. I remember talking to a rural police officer a couple of years ago who had been involved in some raids on hare coursing. He said that the minimum bet is £50 and people are betting in multiples of £50, so it is not just small sums of money changing hands here. There is obviously also the implication that there is money-laundering taking place. Those taking part in illegal hare coursing are often guilty of other crimes as well, such as road traffic offences, including the driving of unlicensed and uninsured vehicles, drug taking and the possession of firearms. Many of these criminals are also involved in major rural crime, such as theft to order and, on occasions, modern slavery.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, rightly pointed out that hares are a species we need to treasure because they are increasingly scarce, and coursing obviously impacts negatively on the brown hare population. The Country Land and Business Association estimates that tens of thousands of hares are slaughtered each year and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, illegal hare coursing does not respect the breeding season, when vulnerable young are still dependent.
The key ingredient of poaching offences is trespass. The older game laws are still the preferred route for prosecuting illegal hare coursing, and legal guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service says that the more effective tools for prosecuting are either the Game Act 1831 or the Night Poaching Act 1828. Is it not about time that we had up-to-date, effective laws, where penalties will act as a proper deterrent? Although the powers of the police and courts have been strengthened by more recent legislation, particularly the Game Laws (Amendment) Act 1960, the older legislation needs to be strengthened in terms of seizure and forfeiture powers, specifically in relation to dogs and vehicles.
Police forces are working together to deal with hare-coursing offences. They have found that the dogs are the coursers’ key asset and that the ability to seize dogs is proving an important deterrent. Unfortunately, this means that police forces must fund kennelling costs and cannot reclaim the costs from offenders via the courts. Given the high value of the dogs to those involved in illegal coursing, this is a substantial weakness in the existing law. The police have asked for years to be given this power. Does the Minister agree that, for rural communities and farmers in particular, hare coursing is not simply a nuisance but a serious blight on the livelihoods and well-being of those affected? Does he agree that the current overall framework governing policing and sentencing does not act as a sufficient deterrent?
We support these amendments, which, together with a joined-up approach across the criminal justice system, can begin to address the devastating impact that illegal hare coursing has on farming communities, the wider rural community and wildlife across England. I therefore hope that Ministers will give these matters serious consideration and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I have considerable sympathy with the right reverend Prelate’s wish to see greater powers available to the police and the courts in dealing with hare coursing. I have to declare an interest here as I am a member of the BASC, which is a member of the hare coursing coalition.
This vile activity has no place in our countryside. It involves cruelty to the brown hare and, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, I thought that my noble friend Lord Caithness made very important points on biodiversity and populations. It causes real harm to rural communities, with all the associated menacing and criminal practices so eloquently described by the right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and others. As we have already made clear, including when this issue was debated in the Commons, this Government are determined to take action. Our action plan for animal welfare sets out our commitment to crack down on illegal hare coursing-related activity, providing law enforcement with more tools to address this issue effectively, including through legislation when parliamentary time allows.
Officials in both the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office are working through the options in detail. My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at Defra, Rebecca Pow, is responsible for leading on this topic. She has begun detailed discussions of a range of possible measures, including in areas covered in these amendments. These were discussed at a round table she chaired in June. It is important to consider all the options carefully to ensure that the proposals that we bring forward will be effective in achieving the intended aims.
This work will, unfortunately and necessarily, take a little time, but we need to get it right, so I cannot offer the right reverend Prelate any encouragement that the Bill is the right one through which to take the matter forward. However, I assure him that the measures that he put forward in these amendments will be considered most carefully as we develop our proposals. This issue is being taken seriously: I reassure him on that point. Unfortunately, however, I cannot give him the timetable he has asked for. I nevertheless hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, that was a hugely disappointing reply. What is the difficulty for Defra and the Home Office in accepting this amendment? It does not impinge on the slow, laborious work that they are doing. Quite rightly, they have to take that seriously but, if one does not seize this opportunity to legislate in one area of the bigger picture, then we are losing a huge opportunity. What is the difficulty in accepting this? If it is accepted and it works for perhaps two years, when the next piece of legislation comes forward, it could be amended. The Minister should think of the damage that could be done in that intervening time.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am obviously sorry to have disappointed my noble friend Lord Caithness with that reply, but I can only repeat what I said earlier. I am afraid that these things take time, and the consultations are ongoing. We intend to do something about this problem.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I share the disappointment of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, because I am unclear exactly what the problem is; I have not heard anything substantive. I know that people working across rural areas in almost every sphere are absolutely passionate and are behind these amendments. There is a huge groundswell. I have been quite surprised, having tabled the amendments, at the appreciative comments from so many different groups. I totally accept that these amendments present only one solution, and I am aware of—and I welcome—the efforts of the honourable Member for North East Bedfordshire, who is an MP in my diocese and tabled the Private Member’s Bill in the other place. I will be meeting him before too long.
With the absence of any government proposals at this stage to deal with the matter, or to give any sort of assurances about timing, I am minded to bring these amendments back at Report. I would, however, be very happy to meet the Minister if that would help, to further discuss these proposals and see if we can find some way forward. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
“Offence of pet theft
(1) The Animal Welfare Act 2006 is amended as follows.(2) After section 2 (“protected animal”) insert—“2A Definition of pet A protected animal is a “pet” for the purposes of this Act if it provides companionship or assistance to any human being.”(3) After section 8 (fighting etc.) insert—“8A Pet theftA person commits an offence if they dishonestly appropriate a pet belonging to another person with the intention of permanently depriving that other person of it.”(4) In section 32 (imprisonment or fine) before subsection (1) insert—“(A1) A person guilty of an offence under section 8A (pet theft) (as inserted by section (Offence of pet theft) of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2021) shall be liable—(a) on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks, or a fine, or to both;(b) on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 4 years, or to a fine, or to both.(A2) When the court is considering for the purposes of sentencing the seriousness of an offence under section 8A it must consider the following as aggravating factors (that is to say, a factor that increases the seriousness of the offence)—(a) the theft caused fear, alarm or distress to the pet, the owner or the pet or another person associated with the pet;(b) the theft was for the purposes of commercial gain.”(5) In section 34(10) (disqualification) after “8,” insert “8A,”.”Member’s explanatory statement
Combined with two other proposed amendments after Clause 54, this new clause seeks to create a new offence of pet theft.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, I approach our deliberations in this Committee with some degree of despondency today. We are addressing the rule of law in this; we are, in effect, saying that the law is not being sufficiently complied with in order to get better compliance with the law for our citizens. The key aspect of the rule of law is that it applies to everybody. Approximately 45 minutes ago, in the other place, as a result of a government-whipped vote, somebody who had been found guilty of a breach of the conduct obligations of the House of Commons was, in effect, let off. The Government used their majority to let him off. It is very difficult for the citizens of this country to take Parliament seriously as an enforcer of the rule of law if the position is that, when one of the Government’s own looks like they are in trouble, they use their majority to let them off. The whole point about a code of conduct enforced independently is that it applies to whatever political party you are in. I look at these deliberations in Parliament, therefore, with a degree of real, personal despair. It is about much more than simply the conduct of the Government: it is about how the public will view Parliament.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I speak in favour of this small group of amendments in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton. He set out his case eloquently, and I fully support him on the move to introduce an offence of pet theft.
During lockdown, the family pet had an extremely important role in helping to keep the mental health of families in reasonable order. People were allowed to take exercise; if they had a dog, this meant slightly longer exercise. For those living alone, especially the elderly, there was a living creature to talk to—one that did not contradict or answer back. Children with small furry pets were able to spend more time with them and, hopefully, take more responsibility for their care, cleaning and feeding regimes.
Lockdown meant that there was an increase in demand for pets from all quarters. Some wanted cats and kittens; others wanted a dog. There was a boost in the need for puppies and the price rocketed. Sadly, the latter often resulted in the illegal importation of puppies who had been separated from their mothers too early. Like other Peers, I am sure, I had friends who were searching for a puppy. I stressed to them all that the puppy must be seen with its mother, not alone, and had to be more than 12 weeks old before it could be separated from its mother without harm.
Having acquired a puppy or kitten, or a full-grown cat or dog, it is devastating to have that beloved pet taken away by opportunistic criminals. There are examples of pet dogs being stolen to order. Some owners were afraid to take their pet out for a walk, in case it was stolen while they exercised it. This is not acceptable.
As has already been said, a pet is classified as the owner’s property, which it is—but this does not take account of the emotional distress caused. An elderly person will have lost their only constant companion. A child will have lost the friend they could play with and confide in when times were tough, especially when there were no school friends to talk to during lockdown.
As the noble Lord said, the Government set up a pet theft task force to tackle an increase in incidents during lockdown, with 2,000 dogs being reported as stolen last year. However, as a pet is currently seen only as property, with theft attracting a potential maximum sentence of seven years, this sentence is attached to the monetary value of the pet, which is treated as goods, not the emotional impact of the loss, so the maximum sentence is rarely reached.
Stealing a beloved family pet to bring monetary reward to the criminal should be treated with a more serious penalty which will both deter others and adequately punish the perpetrator. The task force has made recommendations, including introducing an offence of pet theft. Charities involved in animal welfare are keen to see sentences for this crime match those contained in the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021. If the Minister is not minded to accept these three amendments, perhaps he could tell us when the Government plan to introduce the necessary legislation on pet abduction. An explicit commitment on a timescale would be very welcome in this debate, as thieves continue to steal pets while the current derisory sentences are in place.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I support this amendment. During lockdown, mobile pet grooming businesses sprang up, with vans appropriately fitted out to wash and dry dogs, cut their nails and do whatever was needed. Regrettably, some of these mobile vans have been used as a way to steal pets, whose owners might never see them again or might be asked for a ransom payment. My daughter and her cockapoo Eddie use a reputable mobile grooming facility, but the risk of a pet being stolen in this way, particularly prevalent during lockdown, will continue if the deterrent in this amendment and the others is not adopted.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support these amendments. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, told us roughly how many pets had been stolen. Can the Minister tell us how many prosecutions have taken place for theft of a dog?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, I rise to respond to an amendment about pet theft, but I will start by saying a few words about amendment theft. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, stole some of the Committee’s time to give us a lecture about the rule of law. I regard the rule of law as a matter of supreme importance, but let us remember what it is and is not.
First, it is not a law; it is a constitutional principle. Secondly, we can have a debate about the scope of the rule of law. The rule of law as adumbrated by Lord Bingham, for example, has a different scope from that set out by Lord Justice Laws in his book; there are different views as to the breadth of the rule of law. But everybody agrees that one has to abide by the law as set out by a court. There was no court in the circumstances set out by the noble and learned Lord. The only court involved is the court of Parliament and, with great respect, the other place was quite within its rights both legally and, I suggest, morally to set out its own procedures.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Do I understand the Government’s position to be that there is no element of the rule of law engaged in complying with the court of Parliament, and in particular the requirements of Parliament?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
What happened today was Parliament complying with the rules of Parliament, because ultimately Parliament regulates itself. That is how it works. The phrase “rule of law” in the normal sense means a Government or an Executive abiding by the rule of a court. The only relevant court here is the court of Parliament.
However, I now turn to pet theft. I am sure we will come back to the rule of law, and perhaps the human rights issues, when we discuss the Judicial Review and Courts Bill. On pet theft, I thank the noble and learned Lord for tabling this amendment. As he set out, on this point there is actually very little between us. The topic of pet theft caused some consternation in the other place, and—again I agree with the noble and learned Lord on this—quite rightly so. Pets should not be seen as just property; that is at the heart of this issue. Pets are cherished members of the family, so it is right that we take time to consider, as the Government are doing, what measures we can and should take to tackle this abhorrent behaviour.
The Government’s Pet Theft Taskforce reported on its findings in September. It recommended a number of measures to address this crime, including a new offence of pet abduction. Your Lordships might ask why we should create such an offence when a simple pet theft offence might suffice. In that regard, I note that the noble and learned Lord’s amendment in large part mirrors the wording in the Theft Act 1968. However, I suggest to the Committee that we need to reconsider how pets are treated in law, because they are not just possessions or chattels. Therefore, I respectfully suggest that the wording of the Theft Act is inapt; it does not encompass the issue sufficiently. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, set out, that is particularly the case now we have seen so many cases of pet theft during the Covid period. We recognise that animals should therefore be treated as more than property. We are already bringing forward legislation to crack down on puppy smuggling and other cruel crimes, and I hear the points made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and my noble friend Lord Attlee.
In the new offence of pet abduction, we will seek to bring into focus not merely the taking of a piece of property or a chattel but the impact on the animal and its welfare when a stranger takes a pet away from its carer. This new offence, alongside the other recommendations from the task force, will make it harder for thieves to abduct and sell pets, make it easier for the police to catch them, and ensure that any welfare concerns can be appropriately reflected in the punishment given to offenders.
I will pick up two shorter and, I accept, more minor points which are relevant to this issue. First, the noble and learned Lord’s consequential amendment expands the scope of Section 17 powers under PACE. That section allows a constable to enter and search premises for the purpose of arresting a person for specified offences, and the amendment would include the new pet theft offence in that. We suggest that this is unnecessary. Because the amendment proposes to make the offence triable either way, the Section 17 powers would already be available.
Secondly, the noble and learned Lord has tabled an amendment in respect of Scotland. The Committee will be aware that crime and justice are devolved. Therefore, it would be for the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament to consider whether they wanted a specific offence under the distinct operation of Scots law.
Coming back to the main issue, the Government have announced that they will take appropriate action. I am afraid I cannot put a date on that today, but I hear the strength of feeling on this issue. The Government have made their intentions clear, and I hope that, whatever future debates we may have on the rule of law, the noble and learned Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Are the Government intending to table an amendment to this Bill to deal with pet theft?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
I cannot commit to that, but, as I say, I have heard the strength of feeling and what the noble and learned Lord has said on this topic. I am sure we can have future discussions on this point.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend take the precaution of instructing parliamentary counsel to draft suitable legislation just in case?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I shall put it this way: I am well aware that if we wanted to table the amendment to this Bill, we would need a properly drafted clause, and we know how to go about that.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to everybody who has spoken in the debate, with considerable force. There was a universal view around the Committee. I am disappointed to hear that there appears to be a retreat from what was promised in the Commons. I am grateful to the Minister for the points he made on my amendments, which we will take into account when we bring them back on Report. I anticipate that if he does not, we will, and will almost certainly seek the opinion of the House in relation to it.
On the broader point, I am absolutely amazed that the Minister thought that killing off the tribunal when one your friends had been found guilty by it was not a breach of the rule of law. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Paddick
“Misuse of Drugs Act 1971: power to search for possession of drugs for personal use
(1) The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is amended as follows.(2) In section 23 (powers to search and obtain evidence), after subsection (2) insert—“(2A) The constable conducting a search under subsection (2) must explain to the suspected person the grounds for suspicion and must record the explanation.(2B) Subsection (2) does not apply if the constable also has reasonable grounds to suspect that the drug is—(a) in the possession of the person for that person’s personal use only, or(b) in the vehicle or vessel for a person’s personal use only.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the power of the police to search a person or vehicle for possession of controlled drugs for personal use only.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 129, I will speak also to Amendment 276 in my name. It is unfortunate that these amendments were not grouped with amendments concerning the new violent crime prevention orders, as these, too, relate to police stop and search.
As well as being a police officer rising to the most senior levels in the Metropolitan Police over the course of more than 30 years, I worked in Brixton in south London between 1980 and 1982, in the 1990s, and again in the early 2000s. I was a police sergeant during the Brixton riots, a chief inspector and acting superintendent in the 1990s in Brixton, and I was the police commander in Lambeth, unusually in the rank of commander—the equivalent of assistant chief constable—in the early 2000s. In so saying, I am an expert on police stop and search. I realise that an expert is somebody who knows a little bit more about a subject than other people do, but I think I fall into that category, particularly in areas with high levels of visible minority communities and a poor track record of police community relations.
In 2001, Lambeth, with Brixton at its heart, had the highest street robbery rate in western Europe and high levels of burglary, and criminals were openly dealing crack cocaine and heroin on the streets. We were 100 police officers short of the 1,000 officers we were supposed to have in Lambeth. I recall an incident when I was a sergeant in 1982, the year after the Brixton riots, that clearly demonstrated that the community was concerned about street robbery, and not about possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use. When we chased a handbag thief into an illegal gambling den, the youth was ejected from the premises into our waiting arms; when we chased someone who we thought had cannabis, the door was slammed in our faces.
In 2001, it was more than just community priorities, and that involved the arrest of one of my officers for allegedly taking cannabis from suspects on the street and keeping it himself. But one of the prime motivations for suggesting on the front page of London Evening Standard that the police should not arrest people for small amounts of cannabis for personal use was that there were far more important things for the police to spend their time on—both far more serious crimes that were at endemic levels and crimes that were a priority for the community. Clearly, possession of small amounts of cannabis was not one of them. When the “no arrest” policy was introduced, a public opinion survey found that well over 80% of people in Lambeth were in favour of the approach—slightly lower among the black community but still over 80%.
Following intense media debate and the submission of detailed data about how long it took officers to process someone arrested for cannabis—two officers over four hours each—plus the administrative work by police support staff and the CPS to prepare the case for court, the court time involved and the usual conditional discharge or small fine on conviction, this all persuaded the then commissioner to agree to a six-month pilot in Lambeth, where no adult was arrested for possession of small amounts of cannabis. These are the sorts of penalties courts are imposing today for possession of small amounts of class A drugs for personal use, if the case gets to court at all—many cases are dealt with by means of a police caution.
Despite false stories in newspapers, an independent assessment by the Metropolitan Police Authority of the pilot, which was extended to 12 months, showed reductions in all forms of serious crime, an increase in the amount of cannabis seized—as officers were able to quickly and easily deal with any that they found by seizing it and warning the person on the street—and an increase in the number of class A drug dealers arrested. Fears of an influx into the borough of those seeking cannabis proved to be the reverse of what actually happened.
Police and community priorities change. Now, in many areas of the country, knife crime is the priority, rather than street robbery. Noble Lords will quite rightly think that properly targeted stop and search is a powerful weapon in taking knives off the street, particularly if third-party information—community intelligence—points to those who are the knife carriers.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has done some number-crunching on stop and search, and I am very grateful to Matt Parr —he might not be thanking me in a moment—who briefed Peers on the issue last week. Some 63% of police stop and search is for drugs; over 80% of those stop and searches are on suspicion of possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. On average, only 9% of police stop and searches—less than one in 10—are intelligence-led; the proportion varies by police force between 23% in the best performing and 1% in the worst. These are HMICFRS figures. The top five police forces in the UK account for 90% of all stop and search carried out. Policy Exchange, a centre-right think tank, published a report a few weeks ago that found the Metropolitan Police had the highest rate of stop and search of any police force and the lowest rate for apprehending drug dealers.
Tackling knife crime is the Government’s priority, it is our priority, and it is the priority of many communities, but, looking at the facts as presented by HMICFRS, it is not police officers’ priority when it comes to stop and search. My Amendment 129 would not allow the police to stop and search someone on suspicion of personal possession of a small amount of a controlled drug for personal use. The police already cannot search for possession of illegal psychoactive substances that are not covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act; in fact, possession of small amounts of illegal psychoactive substances for personal use is not even an offence.
We are not talking about not tackling drug dealing—that is not covered by this amendment; indeed, there will be more police resources available to tackle drug dealing. We are not even talking about an untried and untested leap of faith. When we did not arrest people for simple possession of cannabis over a 12-month period in Lambeth, the police ended up concentrating on more important offences instead, more serious crimes and crimes that were a priority for the community.
We have too few police officers at this time, as I had in Lambeth when I was the police commander. We have too much serious crime, as I did when I was the police commander in Lambeth. We need to focus scarce police resources on what really matters; whatever that priority is, it is not possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use.
The key to effectively reducing serious violence is the police and communities working together, with communities providing information to the police about who is involved in serious violence, so that the police can concentrate their efforts, particularly stop and search, on those carrying and using knives. Policy Exchange believes that community policing is key. Other metropolitan forces, such as Merseyside, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire, do less stop and search and more community policing than London’s Metropolitan Police, and they are far more effective at arresting those involved in drug dealing.
Nothing is more damaging to police-community relations, trust and confidence in the police than poorly targeted stop and search. From standing in the middle of Brixton, being bombarded with bricks, paving slabs and petrol bombs, as I was in 1981, following a massive poorly targeted stop and search operation, I can tell noble Lords that that is the sort of damage it does. Visible minorities are four times more likely and black people nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people, but they are no more likely to have something illegal in their possession than white people. That is when the police have to have reasonable grounds to stop and search people. Amendment 129 would not allow the police to stop and search for small amounts of controlled drugs for personal use, removing the cause of so much hostility between the police and communities, whose support and co-operation are vital in reducing serious violence.
That is not the only disproportionate form of stop and search. In 2010, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, responding to a European Court of Human Rights judgment that suspicionless stop and search under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act was illegal, said:
“The first duty of Government is to protect the public. But that duty must never be used as a reason to ride roughshod over our civil liberties”,
adding that the then Government would not have appealed the judgment, even if they could. She said that the court found that the powers were
“drawn too broadly—at the time of their initial authorisation and when they are used”
and
“contain insufficient safeguards to protect civil liberties.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/7/10; col. 540.]
That is very similar to the position we are in today with Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which still allows indiscriminate stop and search.
The purpose for which the police are using Section 60 goes far beyond what Parliament intended it to be used for. When this power was given to the police there was a recurring problem with rival gangs of football supporters arranging to meet at a specific time and place, arming themselves with weapons. Noble Lords will immediately see the point of a Section 60 power to search everyone in the area at the time rival gangs planned to meet, without the need for reasonable suspicion in these particular circumstances. This rarely, if ever, happens today.
Instead, if there has been a stabbing, the police will routinely impose a Section 60 order in the area surrounding the incident. That is not what it was intended for and of limited use in such circumstances. The first thing a knifeman will do after stabbing someone is dispose of the weapon and go to ground. Even if he is in the area, there is usually a description, from witnesses or CCTV, and other powers of stop and search based on reasonable suspicion can be used. I maintain that the Section 60 power is being misused and is ineffective.
The second problem with Section 60 is that indiscriminate stop and search causes untold damage to police-community relations. As I have said, people from minority-ethnic communities are four times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police and black people are nine times more likely. But when it comes to Section 60, where no reasonable suspicion is required, that figure rises to you being 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police if you are black than if you are white. The overwhelming majority of these people have nothing on them to justify such a stop and search. Community intelligence is vital to make stop and search effective in tackling knife crime, but communities are losing trust and confidence in the police because too many innocent members of their communities are being stopped and searched using Section 60.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in tabling this amendment, and it is the reason that we first met. When I heard about this commander down in Brixton who had an innovative way of dealing with cannabis possession, I went down there very quickly to meet him and find out exactly what he was doing, and I was very impressed.
He has laid out the rationale behind the amendment extremely thoroughly and with great insider knowledge, but I will throw in what the Green Party has been saying for the past 50 years. Our drugs policy is to create a regulated drug and alcohol market that is focused on safety and harm reduction, which our current policy is clearly not. In the interim, decriminalisation is important, but it will never be as effective at reducing crime and improving health outcomes as a fully regulated system.
Many police forces have de facto decriminalised cannabis. They have seen that it just does not work to keep on with this targeted racist behaviour. The amendment would be a very welcome step. At the moment, it is a gateway power which allows the state to interfere with people and search them for something that should not even be illegal. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said very clearly, it alienates communities at the very point at which you need those communities to help the police with intelligence. I have been out with quite a few stop and search teams. I have seen it done well, but that was the exception. I have seen it done okay and done extremely badly. It is an issue of training as well as for the law itself, and it is used in discriminatory ways. This is a brilliant amendment. Well done to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling it.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 276, to which I have added my name. Suspicionless stop and search is a significant problem for community relations in this country. It is a significant problem for trust in the police. In recent days, we have rightly given a great deal of time and attention on all sides of your Lordships’ House, including in this Committee, to trust and confidence on the part of women, and young women in particular, but we must not forget other aspects of broader trust and confidence, including the issue of young black men and policing.
Decades after the Lawrence inquiry, we still need to keep returning to this issue. No power or set of powers has probably done more to weigh against the strides made by the late Sir William Macpherson and by everyone across politics, including former Prime Minister, Theresa May, to try to address problems with stop and search. No power has been more problematic than that of suspicionless stop and search in general and Section 60 in particular.
This is really not a partisan issue. Your Lordships know that, long before I came to this House, I was a civil liberties campaigner and not popular with Governments of either stripe in relation to powers such as these. In my view, there has been an authoritarian arms race about law and order in this country for too long. No Government are perfect. No Opposition are perfect. This is a good moment to look at stop and search. There is no better parliamentarian to be leading us in this conversation than the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.
The problem with suspicionless stop and search is this. No human is perfect; therefore, no police officer is perfect. Stop and search, conducted by humans of other humans, even with reasonable suspicion, is problematic, but there is no choice if we want to combat crime and investigate offences that have happened or that might yet take place. We have to have powers to stop and search. They are problematic, even when based on reasonable suspicion because what is reasonable suspicion? Who do we think is going equipped? Who do we think meets the profile of somebody who committed an offence a few hours ago? Of course, it is hard for any citizen, including constables, to rid themselves of all the baggage that comes with being in this—or any—society. Those problems are so compounded when reasonable suspicion is taken out of the equation.
Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act gives the power—which is triggered by a senior police officer, but a police officer none the less—effectively to change the criminal law in an area for the period in which that power is triggered. In that particular part of town, there is effectively a suspicionless stop and search zone. We are often talking about urban areas, and areas with a very high density of people from certain communities. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, can correct me if I am wrong. Within that area, young black men in particular know that that is a stop and search zone. Their first encounters with the police service are often very negative.
Because of the rise of the internet, mobile phone use and videos of incidents, this material is now there to be viewed. I have seen some very disturbing scenes of quite young boys being stopped and searched, without suspicion, on streets not many miles from here. These young boys and men do not have the protections that they have post-arrest in the police station. Arrest is based on reasonable suspicion. Officers usually stop a young man. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, gave the statistics. If you are a young black man you are many more times likely to be stopped and searched than if you are a young white woman, let alone a middle-aged woman like me.
Sometimes officers will be situated in a particular place. I understand their reasons. They are worried about knife use, for example. Some young men are being stopped on a routine basis. Sometimes big, burly officers make a human wall around a boy of perhaps 13 or 14 years-old. I have seen the pictures. People in that community—bystanders, if it happens in the daytime—will be trying to remonstrate with the officers. They will be held back. This young man—13, 14 or 15 years-old —is having his first encounter with the authorities. He is frightened. He is behind this human wall of big, burly officers. There is not even reasonable suspicion that he has done something wrong.
It seems to me that this is very dangerous—and it is not an occasion where I can even blame the police. It is an occasion when I have to look to the statute book itself, because this is about legislators, not police officers. I have been critical in other debates, and I am afraid that I will have to be critical about some decisions that the police have made. But this is a legislative problem, because legislators from both major parties have allowed this regime to be triggered for suspicionless stop and search, and it has created problems over many years. It really is time to address this.
This seems like a radical probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but if Section 60 were removed from the statute book, what would be the consequence? There would still be ordinary, democratic, rule of law-based powers to stop and search with reasonable suspicion. That is a fairly low threshold in any event, I would argue, but this ability and power to designate particular areas—everybody knows where those areas are and who is affected in them—would go. I cannot think of a more positive signal and progressive step for any Government, any party and any legislator who cares about race relations in this country, and cares about rebuilding trust in policing and the rule of law.
So once more I find myself thanking the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I feel that I will do so again a few more times in this Committee.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I have some questions for the Government on Amendment 129, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
Drugs policy and the drugs trade have come up in our debates on this Bill as part of the debate on the serious violence reduction duty, particularly regarding child exploitation and county lines. It will come up again shortly when we look at the groups of amendments on road safety and dangerous driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. There is a complexity of links in multiple areas of policy, be they poverty, health or criminal justice. On the serious violence reduction duty, the Government’s stated aim is to reduce serious violence through a public health approach. So my question to the Minister is: what work is being done alongside those plans to look at a coherent public health approach to drugs policy? As with serious violence, there needs to be a focus on what reduces harm, not just what deals with the symptoms.
Amendment 129 is specifically about removing the power of the police to search people for drugs for personal use only. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, gave a very informative history lesson, if you like, on his part in the “no arrest” policy in Brixton. I thought I might update what he was saying with my perception as a magistrate who sits in criminal and youth courts in London. I can say with reasonable confidence that I very rarely see in front of me, for the possession of class B drugs alone, either a youth or an adult who is of good character. I really cannot remember the last time I saw that in a court in which I was sitting. In my experience, when that is charged, other matters are charged as well, or the amount of drugs found on the person is at a much higher level but, nevertheless, the CPS chooses to charge that person only with possession rather than possession with intent to supply. Nevertheless, it is an interesting amendment, and the noble Lord raised a number of interesting points about the appropriateness of that power of the police under Amendment 129.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Could I put an ethical and constitutional question to my noble friend, who is both an experienced parliamentarian and a magistrate? When I go to the airport, I understand that I shall be subject to some search, and I have no problem with that—first, because I understand that an airport is a very sensitive place and, secondly, because everybody will be subject to the same search as me. Therefore, I feel no disgruntlement. Equally, with ordinary stop and search powers, if I am stopped and searched on reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence, I may know that I am completely innocent but I shall understand that I have been stopped and searched on reasonable suspicion of a criminal offence.
What is the ethical and constitutional justification for stop and search without suspicion, when everybody is not stopped and searched, as at the airport? If not a suspect and if not everybody, who then? My fear is that, subject to the answer that my noble friend—and, I hope, in due course, the Minister—will give, the answer is that that in-between stop and search, a suspicion under Section 60-type stop and search, is almost inevitably an arbitrary and therefore potentially discriminatory stop and search.
Earl Attlee (Con)
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, made a very interesting speech. For about the first 40 years of my life, I lived in north-west London and—on this discrimination point—I have never been stopped and searched by the police. I have had my vehicle stopped a few times, but I can perfectly well understand why the police did it. So it is quite an interesting point on discrimination.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My noble friend asked me a very interesting question, but I am not sure that I can answer it. I suppose that the short answer is that I am very conscious that this is a divisive issue and one that the police themselves have strong views on. They do not agree with each other—I have certainly heard a range of views within the police about its effectiveness or its blanket use being ineffective. I think that the answer is that the Government need to look at this issue very sensitively and be very aware of the distrust that it breeds within communities, particularly ethnic minority communities.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for explaining the amendments, which relate to stop and search powers. We can always rely on him to share his experience on the ground. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his very thoughtful contribution at the end.
Amendment 129 seems to be a step in the direction of decriminalising drug possession, but I do not think that the noble Lord has ever disguised his wish to see that happen—ditto, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. As the noble Lord will know, this Government have no intention of decriminalising drug possession. Our approach on drugs remains clear: we must prevent drug use in our communities, support people through treatment and recovery, and tackle the supply of illegal drugs.
The noble Lord gave the statistic from Matt Parr saying that 63% of searches were for drugs. He is absolutely right on that. We make no secret of our intention to disrupt drug markets, because that is often part of the police’s strategy for tackling serious violence, and possession searches may come in response from reports from CCTV or the public or from factors that officers more obviously encounter on patrol, such as drug transactions. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, seemed to reflect that in talking about the types of issues that he sees in the magistrates’ courts.
There is a substantial body of scientific and medical evidence to show that controlled drugs are harmful and can damage people’s mental and physical health, and our wider communities. The decriminalisation of drugs in the UK would not eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence and the misery that this can cause to families and communities. I bet that everyone in your Lordships’ House can think of someone who has been affected. The police therefore have a wide range of powers at their disposal to deal with drug-related offences, including the powers to search and obtain evidence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. How the police choose to pursue investigations is an operational decision for chief constables, but we are clear that we expect them to enforce the law.
I return to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about what we are doing to assist young people away from drugs. He will know that we invested tens of millions of pounds in the National County Lines Coordination Centre; he will also know that we do not wish to criminalise young people—our prime aim is to move them away from a life of drugs and some of the criminal activity that can sit alongside it.
On Amendment 276, the police should have the powers they need to keep the public safe and combat serious violence while ensuring that these powers are used fairly and within the law. The Government fully support the police in the fair use of stop and search to crack down on violent crime and protect communities. It is only right that these powers are used to stand firm against criminals who break the law.
Every knife taken off our streets is a potential life saved. While I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for his statistics, I will give some of my own. In 2019-20, stop and search removed over 11,000 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted in over 74,000 arrests. Crime statistics have previously shown that increasing proactive policing such as stop and search is helping the police find more knives and arrest more criminals.
That said, the noble Lord is right to highlight the vital importance of ensuring that officers are using their powers based on intelligence and legitimacy, to ensure that the rights of the individual are upheld. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gives police the powers to stop and search individuals or vehicles, in anticipation of or after an incident of serious violence, to find offensive weapons or dangerous instruments. They do not need grounds to suspect that the person or vehicle is carrying these items.
Because of its suspicionless nature, the use of Section 60 must be limited in geographical scope and duration, and must be authorised by an officer of at least the rank of inspector. That is to ensure that these powers are used proportionately and only where necessary. PACE Code A sets out that use of Section 60 should be authorised only where there is a reasonable belief that serious violence may occur, and that this should be based on objective factors and led by intelligence. The authorising officer should communicate this intelligence to officers on the ground. When carrying out searches under a Section 60 authorisation, officers should search only individuals likely to be involved, having regard to the intelligence that led to the Section 60 being authorised.
Section 60 searches make up a tiny proportion of the stops and searches carried out by police officers: in the last year they were just 3% of all searches carried out. Despite its low level of use, the police tell us it is a vital tool to tackle serious violence. These powers can also act as a deterrent to prevent offenders carrying weapons, by increasing the perceived risk of detection.
That is why the Government announced, as part of the beating crime plan in July this year, the relaxation of the five voluntary restrictions on the use of Section 60. This follows a two-year pilot during which we gathered and analysed data from forces and community scrutiny leads on their perception of the changes, which told us that officers felt more confident using Section 60 during the pilot, and that the relaxations better reflected the operational reality of policing and the pressures and conditions officers face on the ground. It also showed that many forces had implemented their own best practices to reassure themselves internally that this power was being used legitimately and with accountability.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, pressed me on this and I will say that there are a number of legal safeguards, including statutory codes of practice and the use of body-worn video, to ensure that officers are accountable during a search, including any conducted under the powers in the Misuse of Drugs Act. We publish extensive data on these powers, which allow police and crime commissioners and others to hold forces to account. HMICFRS also inspects force level disparities and the use of stop and search as part of its regular inspection programme. I assure the Committee that no one should be subject to the use of stop and search powers based on their race or ethnicity, and that safeguards exist to prevent this.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Before the Minister sits down, will she briefly address the question I put to my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, because I think it is crucial to what a legitimate use of Section 60 looks like. If I am a young man who feels I might be particularly affected by this, and after a crime there is an area that has been designated and cordoned off and everybody is being stopped and searched when they enter those two streets—like at the airport—I can understand that. Similarly, if I am stopped and searched under “reasonable suspicion” powers, I understand: I may be innocent, but there is a reasonable suspicion that I meet the profile of the suspect, or I have otherwise given rise to suspicion in my conduct. But how is Section 60 ever to be used in a way that is not arbitrary, and therefore most likely discriminatory? Why have I been targeted for a suspicionless search? How can I be legitimately targeted for a suspicionless search?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Of course, Section 60 is based on local policing intelligence in specific local areas. The noble Baroness has already pointed that out. I have talked about the safeguards, including statutory codes of practice, the use of body-worn video and external scrutiny; I will also talk about the use of data. The Home Office collects more data on stop and search than ever before. The data is published online, allowing local scrutiny groups, PCCs and others to hold forces to account and we discuss it with the relative NPCC leads in forces to understand why disparities occur, if they occur. HMICFRS inspects forces’ stop and search data annually, and extensive data is also published to increase trust and transparency. So, there are a number of things on which we test ourselves and are scrutinised to ensure that stop and search is not being used in an illegal and discriminatory way.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister did not disappoint me, because she mentioned the phrase “operational independence” for the police. Would she be entirely content if a local police commander decided that he or she was not going to have their officers do stop and search unless they thought it was absolutely essential?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It is part of that operational independence of the police that they know what is best for their area; therefore, it might be relevant for police forces in a certain area not to have much occasion for the use of Section 60 stop and search.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Chakrabarti, for their support for these amendments. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, that the issue of drugs is very complex: it needs a complex approach and stop and search of this nature is not the way to go. When I suggested to the commissioner that we did not arrest people for cannabis in Lambeth, former MP Ann Widdecombe accused me of usurping the power of Parliament: she cannot accuse me of that now.
Turning to the response of the Minister, almost her whole argument around Amendment 129 was an argument against decriminalisation, yet this amendment does not call for the decriminalisation of personal possession of drugs. It is all about focusing the police on serious crime, rationing scarce police resources by focusing them on what is really important to communities and to the courts. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that he rarely saw anybody in front of him for possession, particularly of class B drugs, unless by chance—usually it is when the police find cannabis when they have arrested the person for something else. They are there for the substantive offence and they get charged for the cannabis as well, for example.
The noble Baroness talked about the harm caused by drugs. Why, then, are new psychoactive substances not controlled by the Misuse of Drugs Act not an offence? Why is personal possession of psychoactive substances not illegal under the Psychoactive Substances Act, if drugs cause so much harm? Why is alcohol not illegal when we look at the harm that alcohol causes? But we are not talking here about decriminalisation; we are talking about getting the police to focus on what is important. As far as Section 60 is concerned, I support stop and search. I have said how important stop and search—properly focused, acting on community intelligence and focusing on those who are suspected of carrying and using knives—is, and how important Section 60 is.
The Minister talked about the figures between 2019 and 2020 and the number of weapons that stop and search removed. This is not an argument about removing the power of the police to stop and search; it is about focusing intelligence-led stop and search on taking knives off the street to be even more effective. The figures that the noble Baroness gave about the number of weapons taken off the street, I assume, are not weapons found by using Section 60. If Section 60 searches were only 3% of all searches, and only 1%—one in a hundred—of Section 60 searches find a weapon, then the figures that the noble Baroness quoted cannot possibly be about Section 60. Why is she using figures about stop and search generally when the amendment she was addressing is about Section 60? It is a blunt instrument.
The noble Baroness is right; it has to be an inspector who authorises a Section 60. Until a couple of years ago, it was a superintendent who had to authorise a Section 60. That is why there has been a 2,800% increase in the number of times Section 60 orders are issued, and that is why Section 60 is so ineffective, with only one in 100 searches resulting in a weapon, and why it is so damaging to police-community relations, which are essential to tackling serious violence.
The noble Baroness said no one should be stopped and searched based on their race. You are 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched under Section 60 if you are black than if you are white. The two things do not add up. Of course nobody should be searched on the basis of their race, but the facts are that you are 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched if you are black than if you are white. That is why Section 60 is so damaging and so ineffective. That is why I brought this amendment but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 129.
Lord Paddick
“Duty of candour
(1) The Secretary of State must within 12 months after this Act comes into force—(a) consult such persons as they consider appropriate, and(b) lay before both Houses of Parliament a report regarding the matters in subsection (2).(2) Those matters are means of achieving a culture of transparency in police forces and prosecuting authorities in England and Wales including a statutory duty of candour in their dealings with the victims of crime and the relatives of victims of crime.(3) The proposed duty is subject to any exemption required in the interests of national security.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is based on a recommendation from the Report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, to create a statutory duty of candour to be owed by law enforcement agencies to victims and their families.
Lord Paddick (LD)
There is no rest for the wicked. I rise to move Amendment 130 in my name and support Amendment 132A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, which seeks to achieve similar things.
I must first declare an interest. When I was a deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police—the equivalent of a deputy chief constable—I told the truth about a misleading statement made to the News of the World by the then commissioner of the Metropolitan Police about the shooting dead of the innocent Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, by the police in 2005. Another senior officer leaked to the BBC the content of the statement I had made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which was investigating a complaint by the family of the deceased that the police had misled the public. In response, the Metropolitan Police issued a press release saying it knew the officer who had given evidence to the IPCC and what he said—what I said—was not true.
The deputy commissioner at the time tried to bully me into issuing a press statement saying that I was mistaken. Instead, I instructed solicitors to threaten to sue the Metropolitan Police if it did not retract its press statement which effectively called me a liar; I was not the easiest senior officer to manage, as noble Lords can probably work out. The Metropolitan Police withdrew the press release and paid my legal fees. The IPCC subsequently confirmed what I had told it was true, but the die was cast; I was subsequently forced out of the police service for telling the truth. I think it is important for the Committee to know where I am coming from when I talk about this issue.
My amendment is based on the recommendation in the Report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel to create
“a statutory duty of candour to be owed by … law enforcement agencies”
to victims and their families. The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel was announced by the former Home Secretary Theresa May on 10 May 2013 to address questions arising from and relating to police involvement in the murder of Daniel Morgan; the role played by police corruption in preventing those responsible for the murder being brought to justice; the failure to confront that corruption; the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and journalists; and the alleged corruption involved in the links between them.
It is not possible or necessary to go into all the findings of the independent panel, but I want to give two examples. First, the Metropolitan Police admitted on more than one occasion that police corruption had impacted on bringing those responsible for Daniel Morgan’s murder to justice, but when asked by the independent panel what that corruption was, and what impact it had had, the Metropolitan Police refused to provide an answer. This is even though Tim Godwin, the then acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had made a formal admission of corruption on behalf of the Metropolitan Police at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority. The Metropolitan Police’s response to the panel was, “You’ll have to ask him what he meant.”
Secondly, at every stage following the initial investigation of the murder, the Metropolitan Police maintained that the initial murder investigation had been carried out in accordance with the standards of murder investigation at that time. It was only seven years after the independent panel was formed that the Metropolitan Police made the panel aware of the existence of the London Homicide Manual, which set out the standards expected of murder investigations at the time of Daniel Morgan’s murder. This document proved that the initial investigation was not, in fact, carried out in accordance with the standards expected at the time. Such a lack of frankness, candour and honesty is a disgrace that these amendments seek to address.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for introducing this group and referring to his personal experiences on the issue we are debating. The amendment in my name would likewise establish a statutory duty of candour on the police workforce and is similar in effect to that he moved. It would create a statutory duty on law enforcement to act at all times in the public interest and with transparency, candour and frankness, and to assist in court proceedings, official inquiries and investigations where its activities, including omissions, may be relevant. I will be brief because the Committee is already familiar with this issue and I do not intend to repeat everything that has just been said by the noble Lord.
In his 2017 report on the pain and suffering of the Hillsborough families, Bishop James Jones proposed a duty of candour to address
“the unacceptable behaviour of police officers—serving or retired—who fail to cooperate fully with investigations into alleged criminal offences or misconduct.”
As has already been said, in June this year, the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel recommended
“the creation of a statutory duty of candour to be owed by all law enforcement agencies to those whom they serve”.
The chair of the panel, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, said in this House that
“the creation of the duty of candour in matters such as this is vital for the integrity and effectiveness of policing”.—[Official Report, 22/6/21; col. 134.]
The report of the independent panel was frankly withering on the events that had influenced its recommendation. My thoughts, and I am sure those of all in the House, are with the Morgan family and the Hillsborough families, who have shown such courage and been denied justice for some three decades.
When the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report was published, the shadow Home Secretary called on the Government to publish a detailed timetable for when the report’s recommendations would be implemented, and called for urgent action on the long-overdue establishment of a duty of candour. In answer to questions in June from Members on all Benches of this House, the Minister responded that the Government were considering the duty of candour as part of their response to Bishop James Jones’s report and wanted to engage with the families before publishing a response. In the House of Commons, the Home Secretary said of the duty of candour that
“work is taking place across Government on how those wider issues will be addressed, but, at the same time, there is absolutely no justification for delay.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/21; col. 130.]
We now have before us a flagship home affairs and justice Bill from this Government in which they have found space to prioritise offences against statues and being noisy while protesting. Where is the prioritisation of the reforms needed in light of these failures of justice? What engagement has occurred with the Hillsborough families and the family of Daniel Morgan since June? Can the Minister confirm tonight that the Government will accept the recommendation for the duty of candour? How developed are the Government’s plans to bring forward reform, and when can Parliament expect to see legislation?
It is for the Government to ensure and prove to both the families and the public that these appalling failures of justice can never happen again. Frankly, it is time for the Government to cease dithering; it is time for the Government to act.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I congratulate the Lib Dem and Labour Front Benches on tabling these amendments. I had to laugh when I saw them, because you sort of assume you can expect duty of candour; it really should not have to be emphasised in the way that it has been here.
I have had a number of clashes—perhaps I should say experiences—with the police not exercising candour in situations where they really ought to have done. Examples include freedom of information requests, subject action requests, legal proceedings, police complaints and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The end result of all these processes, which others have gone through as well, has been a great deal of frustration and anger and very little progress. I trusted the police less; I am sure most people would find this to be their experience. Rather than feeling that wrongdoing had been put right and the truth exposed, I felt there were cover-ups.
Obviously, if we pass this amendment, we ought to expect candour in the other place as well, but I feel that would be a step too far. I am afraid that the Government are not very honest—in fact, they are duplicitous. The Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson—talked earlier about what they have done today as being morally right, but I think that is absolutely wrong. It is wrong of him even to say that; it was not morally right. Coming back to the amendment, I say that a duty of candour is something we ought to expect from our Government, but we absolutely cannot. Therefore I am not very optimistic about these amendments, but the Government really should put them in the Bill.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am more optimistic about these amendments than the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and want to help her find some optimism. However, I first pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I feel that his speech is historic and will be remembered in this country for a very long time. It must have been so hard to make; we all know that it is hard to speak out of turn in general, but it is particularly hard when you are speaking about your own profession, service, career and friends. I hope that Members across this Committee will share that tribute to him.
I hope the noble Lord will forgive me—he has trailed this already—that in terms of these amendments we have to prefer that tabled by my noble friend Lord Rosser. I congratulate my noble friend on not just his speech but this amendment, which was no doubt prepared with his colleagues and team. This is why I am optimistic. I do not believe that the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—is unsympathetic on this issue. There is not really a problem with something like the amendment proposed by my noble friend, not least because he anticipates the potential challenges that might come the other way. For example, there is of course a need to protect privacy, data protection and national security. Any duty of candour would have to be subject to those things, but my noble friend has already done so much of the thinking. The Minister also has the considerable resources and expertise of government, the government legal service and parliamentary counsel at her disposal, but I remind her that the Daniel Morgan review was commissioned by a Conservative Home Secretary, who had been and gone as Prime Minister before the review was published, with its excoriating comments, some of which I repeated on Monday evening.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. The statutory duty of candour is vital not just to affect the culture of the police and enhance public confidence in policing but to give confidence to those police officers who face enormous internal pressures from their colleagues not to be candid. They need support; they need a statutory regime they can point to in order to justify to their colleagues what is required.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, quoted some of what the Home Secretary said in answering questions in the House of Commons on 15 June, and I will quote one other statement she made. She was specifically asked by Yvette Cooper about the duty of candour, and her response was that
“there is absolutely more to do here.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/21; col. 132.]
I very much hope the Government will accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, but, if they do not, what more are they going to do in this area?
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
I rise briefly to support both amendments. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, looks at this from the position of the victim. It is, of course, right to acknowledge the huge progress that has been made over the last 20 or so years in improving the position of the victim—but we have not got to the end of the road. The important point of his amendment is that it gives further protection to the victim at two important stages: first, where things have gone wrong and there is an inquiry, and secondly and much more importantly, in the victim exercising the right of review where there has been a failure to prosecute. It seems to me, therefore, that the duty of candour is yet another step in putting the victim—as is so often said by politicians on both sides—at the heart of the criminal justice system.
The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, looks at this from a broader perspective, which encompasses the position of the defendant and the greater public interest. We should think of experiences over the years. One can go back, for example, to a problem that arose in Tiger Bay in Cardiff over 30 years ago, where the inquiry into the Lynette White murder investigation went on and on. One cannot help feeling that, if there had been a duty of candour, it would have brought that very damaging case to an end.
I say nothing about the undercover policing inquiry as it is still ongoing, but it seems that there is ample evidence that we need to enshrine this duty of candour to protect the position of the defendant and the wider public interest by making it absolutely clear that the police owe that duty—and they should be grateful to have that duty imposed on them, because we need to restore, above all, confidence in our constabularies.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I support these amendments as well. I look at the situation from an unusual perspective and with the unusual experience of sitting as the senior judge in Scotland in a criminal appeal. It was a case of murder, and I was not able—because I was sitting in a court where all the evidence was already out—to develop what was at the back of my mind, which was that the police had identified the wrong individual, who was then accused and convicted. I will not go into the facts of the case for obvious reasons, but it struck me that the court at that late stage was powerless to deal with what I thought had not been a frank and fair police investigation. I make that point simply because stages are reached where the situation is beyond recall, but I was deeply disturbed by what had happened in that case and could not do anything about it. So I welcome the steps that are being taken to improve the standard of candour among the police at all stages in the investigation of crime and its aftermath.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for once again sharing his experiences with the Committee in moving his amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for tabling his. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, summed it up very well: we have not got to the end of the road. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, also challenged me about what the Government are going to do. I hope I can explain to both noble Lords how we are going to get to the end of the road and what we are going to do.
Noble Lords have rightly highlighted the very important fact of transparency within police forces and prosecuting authorities when dealing with victims of crime and their families. I totally agree with noble Lords about the importance of placing this at the heart of engaging and supporting victims and their families and, as we have talked about so much over the last week or so, the importance of regaining trust in the system.
There are a number of areas where the Government have already made progress and where work is ongoing to improve integrity and transparency in policing. In relation to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, it is worth highlighting the introduction of the College of Policing’s statutory code of ethics in 2014, which makes clear the requirement on all officers to act within their powers and with integrity.
In February last year, we amended the policing standards of professional behaviour to make it clear that failing to co-operate as witnesses in investigations and inquiries can be a disciplinary matter. This means that there is now a clear framework in place to hold officers to account where they fail to reach the high standards the public expect of them. Ultimately, a significant breach can mean that an officer is dismissed and placed on the barred list. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, rightly asked me why no officer had been disciplined following the Daniel Morgan independent panel. The IOPC is still considering that, so we could still get a call-in referral. On the failure to co-operate, those regulations have been in force since February 2020, so anything before that would be difficult to enforce.
I turn to the concept of a duty of candour. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I pay tribute to the bereaved families and survivors of the Hillsborough disaster, who have campaigned for a statutory requirement for candour in public life. This idea, as noble Lords have said, was also endorsed by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel as a means of ensuring that law enforcement agencies are fully transparent with the public.
It is absolutely right that the Government carefully consider the arguments made around the duty of candour. This is not the first discussion we have had about it in this Chamber. There is ongoing work across government, and we continue to work closely with our partners to carefully consider all the points of learning in Bishop James Jones’s report concerning the bereaved Hillsborough families’ experiences and from the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report. Before we respond to Bishop James Jones’s report, we believe it is important that the families have an opportunity to share their views, as it is critical that the lessons that can be learned from their experiences are not lost. We hope to do that as soon as is practicable. The Home Secretary has committed to updating Parliament in due course on the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report.
I fully understand and empathise with the interest in the introduction of the duty of candour. The Government have already made significant changes to ensure that officers can be disciplined if they mislead the public, and we are committed to properly consider and respond to the recommendations for a duty of candour, as highlighted in Bishop James Jones’s report.
I hope that, having had the opportunity to debate this and given the work that is ongoing, the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for reminding us of the resilience and suffering of the Hillsborough victims’ families and of the Morgan family, and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Chakrabarti. I too prefer the noble Lord’s amendment; we tabled ours first. We need to address this issue.
The Minister said that this is not the first time that we have had a discussion about the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report and the duty of candour, but it is the first time that we have had an opportunity to do something about it. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, very disappointing that the Government did not take the opportunity of this Bill, which is so obviously the vehicle that should be used to get a statutory duty of candour on to the statute book. I hope the noble Lord will bring back his amendment on Report, so that we can divide the House on this very important issue, because this needs to happen. Wherever you look, this is urgently needed, whether we talk about Hillsborough, Daniel Morgan or what is happening in the Metropolitan Police at the moment—even yesterday, officers were convicted of offences.
The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, raised the very important point about support for officers. I am still regarded as a traitor by some in the police service because I told the truth about what happened after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, spoke powerfully about the need to protect victims, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, gave his own worrying example of the need for better, greater candour on the behalf of the police.
We will come back to this on Report but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 130.
Baroness Hayman
“Voyeurism: breastfeeding
(1) Section 67A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (voyeurism: additional offences) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).(2) After subsection (2), insert—“(2A) A person (A) commits an offence if—(a) A records an image of another person (B) while B is breastfeeding;(b) A does so with the intention that A or another person (C) will look at the image for a purpose mentioned in subsection (3), and(c) A does so—(i) without B’s consent, and(ii) without reasonably believing that B consents.”(3) In subsection (3), for “subsections (1) and (2)” substitute “subsections (1), (2) and (2A)”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would extend the definition of voyeurism in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to make it an offence to take a photograph or video of a person breastfeeding without that person's consent.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, this amendment is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Cumberlege and Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I am grateful to all of them for their support.
This amendment seeks to provide protection for mothers from being photographed or videoed without their consent while breastfeeding their babies. I suspect that few Members of the House will have been aware that such unpleasant, intrusive and distressing behaviour takes place at all, and will be surprised that it is not actually an offence. I suspect that even fewer would seek to defend what the then Minister, Victoria Atkins, described in Committee in another place as
“this unacceptable, creepy and disgusting behaviour”.—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 24/6/21; col. 748.]
Ms Atkins paid tribute in that debate to the many women who have shared their experiences and distress, and their demands for a change in the law in recent months, as do I.
I particularly congratulate Julia Cooper, who began the campaign for a change in the law after her own experience, and initiated a petition that has now been signed by over 30,000 people and supported by organisations such as the National Childbirth Trust, La Leche League and Mumsnet. Her experience was this: during a visit to a park in Greater Manchester, she noticed a man first staring at her as she fed her baby and then attaching a long-range zoom lens to his camera and taking photographs. She confronted him and asked him to delete the photos. He refused, saying it was his right. She then approached a park warden. He also unsuccessfully asked the man to delete the photos and then said that there was nothing more he could do because the law offered no protection. The response of Greater Manchester Police was exactly the same: sympathetic but powerless. Other women have come forward with similar stories and described how deeply distressing and violating an experience it has been, and their shock at having no recourse when their privacy has been invaded in this way.
This amendment therefore seeks to provide protection and a remedy for individuals affected by this unpleasant behaviour, and to deter and, if necessary, punish those who perpetrate it. But the context is not simply a matter of protecting the individual. Successive Governments have supported and protected women who breastfeed their babies, and continue to promote this public good. The Department of Health encourages women who can and choose to do so to breastfeed their babies because it brings powerful public, as well as individual, health benefits. Only last week, the Chancellor allocated £50 million to support breastfeeding in his package of help for young babies and young families. The Equality Act protects breastfeeding mothers from discrimination in employment and the provision of services. So it is illegal for a cafe owner to refuse to serve a breastfeeding mother, but not for a man to hover over her with a camera, videoing her as she feeds her baby in a playground.
Far fewer babies are breastfed in this country compared with many others in Europe and beyond. It is very obvious from repeated surveys on the issue that embarrassment and the logistical difficulty of combining feeding a baby with “normal life” is one of the main deterrents that keeps breastfeeding rates in this country so low, with all the detrimental effects on individual and public health. Failing to sanction unwanted, intrusive photography can only add to women’s reluctance and their fears.
Noble Lords will recall that, in 2019, Parliament took action against another unpleasant, intrusive aggression against women, upskirting, by passing the voyeurism Act. But the provisions of that Act are very narrowly defined and do not protect women in the circumstances we are discussing today. This amendment mirrors the provisions of the 2019 Act by adding the photographing or videoing women breastfeeding without their consent to the list of prohibited acts under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, to which the provisions of the Voyeurism (Offences) Act then apply.
When this issue was discussed in Committee in another place, the Minister did not query the need for action, and obviously shared the disquiet among Members at the present situation. She suggested that the matter could be considered in the strategy on violence against women and girls, but that strategy has now been published without any reference to the issue. Her main argument, however, was that we should wait for the Law Commission, which is reviewing the law around the taking, making and sharing of internet images without consent. That is a very broad subject, and we know how slowly grind the wheels of such a report’s journey to legislation. Even when the Law Commission recommends action, there is no guarantee that it will be agreed. Fewer than 50% of Law Commission reviews commissioned in the past decade have, as yet, led to legislative change. Rather than waiting on a review that may or may not be accepted by the Government after more consultation, and then for a relevant legislative vehicle, we have the chance in this Bill to act on the specific, clearly defined issue and to protect mothers and babies now.
I am ashamed to say that it is nearly 50 years since I first entered Parliament. One thing that I have learned in that time is that legislative time can be as precious a commodity as financial resources. This Bill gives us the opportunity to protect women from the damage and distress that is currently occurring. I hope that the House and the Minister will agree that we should grasp that opportunity. I beg to move.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I start by thanking the campaigner, Julia Cooper, who the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, quoted earlier, for her extraordinary diligence and campaign and her 30,000-signature petition to Parliament. I also thank the excellent Pregnant Then Screwed charity and Stella Creasy MP for their briefings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has spoken eloquently on the need to add to the offence of voyeurism that of those breastfeeding. I echo her comments on the critical need to encourage mothers to breastfeed for as long as possible—hopefully for a minimum of six months. The truly long-term health benefits to babies are well evidenced, not least in the extra immune protection they are given, lasting for years. It is good that Clause 13(6) of the Equality Act 2010 currently protects breastfeeding women by saying that any business that displays less favourable treatment, or denies a woman access to goods or services, because she is breastfeeding can be in breach of the Act. This has been tested in the courts under the employment discrimination in McFarlane and another v easyJet Airline Company Limited, where the employer did not provide reasonable adjustments for new mothers who returned to work while still breastfeeding. However, there is no protection in itself of the act of breastfeeding, so it cannot be used to require the police or the courts to act to tackle the practice of taking photos or videos without consent.
I was pleased to be a member of the Liberal Democrat team supporting the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, which created the criminal offence of up-skirting. Offenders now face up to two years in jail and being placed on the sex offenders register for taking a picture under a person’s clothing without them knowing, with the intention of viewing their genitals or buttocks. This law banned the degrading practice, with the intention of deterring perpetrators, better protecting victims and bringing more offenders to justice. As the law specifies the location in the body to which the Act applies as being below the waist, this legislation does not protect those who breastfeed from a similar intrusion. I remind your Lordships’ House that we did not need to wait for a Law Commission to decide whether that Act should go through.
Julia Cooper’s experience, outlined earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is chilling. The 30,000 people who have signed her petition, and the evidence taken from Pregnant Then Screwed, show that this is not an isolated incident. Polling by YouGov in May this year shows that 75% of the public think that breastfeeding voyeurism should be banned. One new mother told Pregnant Then Screwed: “Just a few weeks ago, in my first time out with my new-born, feeding on a park bench, a man walks past, gets a camera out and, pretending to take a photo of something behind as he walks by, the camera tilts down on me. He caught me off guard so I didn’t say at the time, but I am now far more conscious of who is looking and would call them out. But we shouldn’t have to think like this.”
Why should we not follow the recommendation of Victoria Atkins MP, the Government proposal that the ongoing Law Commission review on taking, making and sharing intimate images without consent is the correct vehicle for legislation? This review is currently expected to report in the spring of 2022 and might make recommendations to expand the list of protections under voyeurism legislation, but even this is not guaranteed.
This simple amendment echoes the up-skirting legislation by seeking to amend the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It also uses the language of the 2019 Act and would require consent to photograph or record breastfeeding without prosecution, ensuring that women breastfeeding are given the same protection. If passed as part of this Bill, it would quickly—in legislative terms—give protection to women who breastfeed, without compromising the Law Commission review, which would have time to consider this change, if necessary, in more depth.
It is important to say that the amendment has the support of the National Childbirth Trust, the La Leche League and the Breastfeeding Network. Those of us in favour of the amendment are pleased that the Government think that it is unacceptable for breastfeeding voyeurism to take place. I thank the Minister for that, but will he say why, if the Government support the principle of the amendment, it would be acceptable to delay its implementation for years, which would be the result of taking the Law Commission route? Why not use the route of the up-skirting legislation, which did not have to wait for the Law Commission? I hope that the Minister will be able to support the amendment.
Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, with great alacrity, I support the amendment put forward so clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. The noble Baroness, of course, has had a very distinguished career. We think of her as our first Lord Speaker in this House, but she also has a wide experience in health and other matters beyond. However, I just thought: “Breastfeeding? Why is she coming forward with an amendment on breastfeeding?” Then I understood that, when she was in the House of Commons, she was the first woman in Westminster to breastfeed. That must have taken a lot of courage and I congratulate her on that. Not only that, but, of course, as a Member of Parliament in the Commons, she also had the skills to manage the organisation of her constituency as well as a new baby. We know that new babies can be all-encompassing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and I are fellow practitioners in breastfeeding. She has four sons and I have three sons. My aunt had six sons, and I thought that the writing was on the wall: three is plenty. I have to say that they have grown up and they are very nice young men. We, the practitioners of breastfeeding, know that breast is best. There is no argument about it: it is best for babies and best for mothers too. In fact, my husband said to me the other night: “It is best also for us, you know—the partners—because we don’t have to get up at two in the morning to feed the baby.” So he said there was a bonus there.
When I was a junior Minister in your Lordships’ House, I did my very best to promote designer food for babies. That is what we called it. We know that it improves the baby’s immune system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the heart and circulation, the joints and muscles and much more. It is such an important start to life.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, despite being a lawyer, it is a great pleasure to follow three such excellent speeches. I have added my name to this amendment, in part to emphasise what is obvious—that this is a matter of concern not just to women who breastfeed but to men, particularly men who are fathers, husbands and fathers-in-law, all of whom are affected by this subject.
When the Minister replies, I think he will express two concerns about these amendments, unless he is prepared to accept them, which I hope he will. He might say there is a concern that Amendment 131 is too broadly drafted. I do not understand such concern, because the drafting is very simple. It ensures there is a criminal offence only where the woman concerned does not consent and—this is vital—the defendant photographs or videos the breastfeeding for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, or to cause humiliation, distress or alarm.
That is a very limited mischief. It is properly drafted, since it adopts in its definition the ingredients of the offence of upskirting, which is already on the statute book, so it is a confined mischief. There is no question of capturing someone who innocently takes a photograph, and, in the background, there happens to be a woman who is breastfeeding. However, as we are in Committee, if the Minister thinks that the drafting can be improved, I, and the other signatories to this amendment, I am sure, would be very happy to see an improved version.
The other concern, which I know that the Minister will express, and which has already been addressed, is that the Law Commission is due to report on the law relating to intimate image abuse. It had a consultation which closed in May. The report is awaited. We certainly will not see it this year. The Committee may be interested to know that it is a consultation paper that covers 423 pages of material, a wide range of subject matter and complex issues. After the commission reports, sometime next year, there is no possibility of any legislation being brought forward for months, and that is optimistic. Who knows when the Government may reach a conclusion on any of these topics, particularly the specific narrow topic that we are discussing today? Who knows—the Minister does not—when there will next be a legislative opportunity to bring forward proposals such as those promoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman?
It is time to address this because the case for a change in the law on this specific subject is simply overwhelming for all the reasons that the Committee has heard. There is no question of delay here because the conduct is every day causing great distress to the victims. We already have the model legislation in the upskirting provisions that Parliament has approved, which have been enacted and which are working very well.
In July, this Government announced their intention to take steps to protect women from violence and harassment. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, provide an opportunity for the Government, at no financial cost, to take a small but important practical step.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I support this Amendment and agree with every word that noble Lords have said. My strong advice to my noble friend the Minister, bearing in mind that this is a policing Bill, is to come quietly. The alternative is to have another 45 minutes on Report, lose a Division and get into ping-pong. It is much easier to agree in due course.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I feel quite inadequate. I only have two sons, not six, and two were a handful. Clearly, I am a huge supporter of this amendment, and was completely unaware of somebody wanting to watch someone breastfeed. I am pleased that we are today trying to stop this or at least make it clear that this is beyond the pale.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, we have witnessed a rather remarkable half an hour in the House where an overwhelming case was made. I pay a special tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. I thought her case was overwhelming until I heard the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Cumberlege. I then thought, “Goodness me, there are more reasons than those which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has given.” My mind then moved to the possibility of legal difficulties and whoosh, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, came in and dealt with them all.
What is the reason for not doing this? The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, gave two possible reasons. He dealt with what might be the arguments in relation to the breadth of the amendment, and I completely agree, but if the Government have some good reasons for why this amendment should be changed, I am sure that the House will deal with them. The other reason given was the Law Commission. As the person responsible for the Law Commission over a long period of time, over 50% of its reports never see the light of day. It takes a long time to get there.
I ask myself another question. Can you imagine any provision or suggestion that the Law Commission would make which would cut across this amendment? I cannot. I would expect the noble Lord—sadly not the noble and learned Lord—the Minister, to give reasons why this will not happen, because like the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, I was encouraged by the extract that she read of what sounded to be an incredibly understanding speech by Victoria Atkins in the other place, which was then dashed. The Law Commission is manifestly not a legitimate excuse. It should be treated with utter contempt if it is advanced as a reason. From the point of view of the Government, the work has been done by the campaigners, Stella Creasy and the crack squad of amenders that we have just heard from, so it costs the Government nothing to put it into the Bill. There will be some additional costs to the criminal justice system, and the police will deal with a number of cases, though I suspect not many, so there is not much public expenditure. The question for the Minister is: why not?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Attlee indicated that I should come along quietly. I am not going to do that; however, I hope that I will come along realistically and clearly in setting out the Government’s position. There is no dispute in this Committee that the behaviour we are talking about is absolutely abominable and indefensible. I therefore appreciate why a proposed new clause on this distressing subject of breastfeeding voyeurism has been tabled for debate. I start by expressing my unequivocal support for the mothers who have experienced this sort of appalling behaviour.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said, we have heard a number of really outstanding speeches, some of which were very personal in terms of people’s history and families. I respectfully endorse the point made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Brinton, that this is not just a matter of protecting privacy or preventing distress; it is also important because we want to promote the very real benefits of breastfeeding. I take all the points made in that regard on board; I also take on board the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on the bonding time—the quiet time, if I can put it that way—that breastfeeding provides. On whether breastfeeding also benefits fathers because we do not have to get up at night, on that I will—if, as a Minister in a UK Government, I am allowed to dip into a foreign legal system for a moment—plead the fifth amendment.
To pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I assure the Committee that, depending on the specific circumstances, it may be possible—I underline “may” because I accept that it will not be possible in all circumstances—to capture this sort of disgusting behaviour under some existing offences, including public order offences and offences dealing with harassment and stalking, along with the common-law offence of outraging public decency. However, this is not a complete answer; I do not put it forward as such. We recognise that the law in this area is not always clear, and that consideration should be given to improving it. That is why we asked the Law Commission to review the law around the taking, making and sharing of intimate images without consent, to identify whether there are any gaps—or, rather, what the gaps are—in the scope of protection already offered to victims. The review looked specifically at voyeurism offences and non-consensual photography in public places, including whether the recording and sharing of images of breastfeeding should be included in the scope of “intimate” images for the purposes of any reformed criminal law.
However, a change in the law here will not be straightforward. I will explain why in a moment. With an amendment such as the one moved by the noble Baroness, there may be a variety of situations in which it is still not an offence to take a picture of a person breastfeeding. That is why the Law Commission’s review is looking into intent, the definition of “image” and other circumstances relevant to this issue. As the Committee is already aware, the Law Commission’s work has gone at some pace. It obviously has an important eye for detail; that is why it is there. It intends to publish its recommendations by the spring of next year, so we are certainly not trying to kick this ball into the long grass. We are proactively considering what more can be done to tackle this behaviour and protect mothers now, ahead of the Law Commission’s recommendations for reform of the law in this area.
However, I respectfully disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that this issue is clearly defined in her amendment. I want to pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, if I may; we have had the benefit of some discussions. A number of points look like drafting points but are not, because they really go to the question of the scope of the proposed amendment and what it is seeking to encompass. Let me give a couple of examples, without turning the Committee into a legislative drafting session. Here is example A; I will try to use the initials from the amendment. A takes a photo of his wife, partner or girlfriend on a beach in her bikini, intending to use that image for his own sexual gratification. Another woman, B, is on the same beach, breastfeeding her baby, and is unintentionally caught by A in the picture. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, but I respectfully suggest that this would be caught by the proposed amendment. A would have no defence as, first, he intended the picture for sexual gratification and recorded the image for that purpose. Secondly, he would have no defence of consent by B because B did not consent. A would also not be able to have the second defence of reasonably believing that she was giving consent because he had no idea at all that she was in the picture.
That is one example, but this goes further than drafting. Let us say that A was aware that B was caught in the background of the photo but was not aware that she was breastfeeding. Again, A would not be able to say that B had consented or that he reasonably believed that she had consented. Further, would an image of someone breastfeeding that did not actually include the act of breastfeeding—for example, a photograph capturing only a breastfeeding mother’s face—be captured under this amendment? What parts of the body, if I can put it that way, would we require the image to capture? As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, explained, this is different from the upskirting offence because the law there condescends to particular parts of the body that must be captured in a photo. Would we wish to capture images taken of breastfeeding regardless of whether it is in a private, semi-private or public setting?
I underline to the Committee that I do not raise these matters as drafting points or to be difficult. On the contrary, it is because this issue is so important that we must get the nature, boundaries and scope of the offence absolutely correct.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Does the Minister accept that his second potential problem would easily be dealt with by a drafting amendment to make it clear that the offence relates to a photograph or video of a breast? It would not be difficult to draft that. In relation to his first concern, which, as I understood it, was that if someone takes a photo of their wife or girlfriend breastfeeding for the purpose of sexual gratification and there is some other woman in the background—oh, I am sorry, have I misunderstood?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
Before the Minister answers that question, does he not also agree that we have perhaps seven or eight weeks before we get to Report, so the pettifogging points he is making could plainly be dealt with if we all sat round a table and agreed a draft?
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
In drafting legislation, the first thing we need to do is make sure that we agree on the nature and scope of the amendment. I have tried to make it clear that I am not putting these points forward as pettifogging points of drafting. There are important points underlining this about what we want the amendment to cover. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, was about to rise again; should I give him an opportunity to do so?
Lord Pannick (CB)
It may be thought by the Committee that the first example that the Minister gave was somewhat esoteric and unlikely to occur in practice. The risk of such esoteric events occurring is more than outweighed by the actual mischief that this amendment seeks to address. In any event, the same objections—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, called them pettifogging; that is his word, but I understand why he said that—could well be raised in relation to upskirting, in that pictures could be taken in whose background there is some other unfortunate woman. Perhaps the Minister might wish to reconsider these matters. We would all be happy to sit round a table and agree a draft that meets these points.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for nearly 30 years. I have seen plenty of examples where, eventually, the Government have given way on an issue and parliamentary draftsmen have been able to draft far more complex provisions than these.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
We are all united in our admiration for the parliamentary counsel and draftsmen, absolutely—there is no doubt about that. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is an habitué of Instagram. If he were, he would appreciate that the example that I have given is far from unlikely: people take photos of their wives or girlfriends or, indeed, of people who they do not know, but who are not breastfeeding, for all sorts of purposes. Under the definition in the amendment at the moment, if a person is caught in the background of a photo breastfeeding, there would be an offence.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has spoken in the debate and for the support that has been shown, from all sides of the Committee, for taking action to combat a wrong that everyone accepts should not be allowed to be perpetrated. I have got a law degree, and I do not want to be rude about lawyers—and of course I listened with huge interest and respect to what was, if I may say, a very legalistic response, after the warm words and acceptance in principle on the issue from the Minister. He respectfully suggested to me that the best course was to wait for the Law Commission—he said for a few months. It would be a few months, maybe, for the first round of the Law Commission, but a lot more than a few months before we got the possible legislation.
I respectfully suggest to the Minister that there is another interpretation. We could legislate now and, when we have the Law Commission report on the wider issues, and we are looking at all the esoteric—I think that was the perfect word—examples that he gave, we could then put right anything that was wrong. But in the meantime we would have taken action and, in the meantime, on the 80:20 rule, we would have done a great deal to protect women.
Not all women can breastfeed and not all women want to breastfeed, but those who do deserve the protection of the law. With respect to a possible meeting with the noble Lord between now and Report to try to make this a better amendment in terms of drafting—I take his point about purpose, but I think the Committee knows what the purpose is, and we could get an amendment that would do some good. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Dholakia
“Low-value shoplifting
(1) The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 is amended as follows.(2) Omit section 176 (low-value shoplifting).”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause repeals section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, relating to low value shoplifting
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, the purpose of the amendment in my name is to remove Section 176 from the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. With regard to what is affectionately known as shoplifting, it is estimated by the British Retail Consortium that businesses lose £770 million a year to shop theft—and retail theft crimes are rising year on year. According to figures available from the Home Office, there was an overall increase in retail theft of 19.1% between 2014 and 2018, compared with an increase of 4.96% between 2010 and 2014. This is no surprise.
Section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 allows anyone accused of shoplifting anything under £200 to plead guilty by post, as if they had been given a parking ticket. Use of this legislation is often cited as a cost-saving exercise, but the truth is that it does not save money. In fact, it does the opposite, as everyone loses, whether it is customers who end up paying higher prices or the retailers who lose their jobs when the business fails. But it is still being used, with Thames Valley Police for example informing local shops that they will not send out officers to deal with shoplifters who steal less than £100-worth of goods. This piece of legislation has, therefore, massively reduced the deterrent to theft and the punishment that an offender can expect, with many savvy criminals exploiting the situation to steal with virtual impunity.
Just one in 20 of all shoplifting offences are now prosecuted, while the number of cautions for such thefts have fallen from 40,000 to just 5,000 in a decade, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, it is worth noting that it takes an average of 30 offences before an individual is convicted of a shop theft that results in a custodial situation. It is soul destroying for hard-working businesses to have their livelihood literally stolen away from them. The British Independent Retailers Association has come to see me on a number of occasions; its crime survey for 2021, just completed this month, shows that two-thirds of its members see most crimes against businesses valued at less than £200, while two-thirds of members also reported a disproportionate increase in the theft of goods worth less than £200 since this threshold was put in place in 2014. This shows that businesses are losing more and more each year to this type of crime, as it is currently being left unchecked.
John Barlow, a BIRA member in Nottingham, rightly pointed out that the police are basically telling kids, “Help yourselves”. Of course, there are more serious crimes that the police need to solve, but you cannot just give thieves a licence to steal. Shop theft is not a victimless crime; in fact, smaller independent retailers feel the impact of retail crime more acutely than larger retailers, which typically have better security systems, employ guards and security staff, sell larger orders and have better margins and economies of scale. Conversely, a small retailer operating on a typical margin of 8% would need to sell £2,500-worth of goods to make back £200 of stolen goods. In addition, they are often working alone, unable to call in back-up from another staff member, and left literally at the mercy of the perpetrator and the trauma of the event. How can this be right?
The removal of this legislation would send a signal to those who perpetrate shop theft: it is very clear that you will be prosecuted; your actions matter; and you will be held to account. It would show that this Government really hold our retailers, who have kept our country going through the pandemic, in high regard, and that the retailers can have confidence that justice will be served. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, we support my noble friend Lord Dholakia in wanting to protect small shopkeepers by calling on the police and CPS to take low-level shoplifting more seriously. Repeated low-level theft adds up and, as my noble friend has just said, when the profit margins are typically around only 8%, you need to sell a lot of goods to make up for those losses. This is particularly a problem if perpetrators do not believe that the police and courts will take effective action. I would welcome a response from the Minister to reassure small shopkeepers that the Government take this issue seriously—and that includes what action they will take in response to my noble friend’s amendment.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am not sure that this requires a change in the law; I think the problem lies elsewhere. Section 176 should have been an improvement; low-value shoplifting offences should have been dealt with much more quickly and efficiently.
The Home Office guidance for implementing Section 176 is very clear. It sets out, for example, that repeat offenders, organised criminals and people going equipped should all be referred to the CPS for prosecution, rather than using the simplified procedures. I am interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts.
Something has gone wrong. I am going to guess that it is a consequence of 11 years of austerity inflicted on police forces. Rather than being a legal problem, it is a simple operational matter of the police not having the resources to deal with the problem—they cannot respond, investigate or prosecute. I think the solution lies in policing and not the law.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, we too want to protect shopkeepers. I endorse the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, backed up by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, made an interesting point when she said it was not necessarily a mistake of law but in the application of the law that this problem has emerged.
I too received the briefing from the British Independent Retailers Association; its figures are stark. I also have the previous statements by Kit Malthouse, the relevant Minister. He has said that he is happy to look at the data to see what it tells us about the operation of the policy, now that we are four or five years in. I do not think there is any problem with us reviewing the data internally, deciding whether the policy is working and then promulgating some kind of best practice. However, in January 2021, in response to a Written Question on when the Government was planning to review the operation of Section 176, the Minister said that it would be part of a wider, post-legislative review of the Act but that no date had yet been set.
The point I want to make to the Minister is that there is some urgency on this. The system does not seem to be working very well. From my own experience as a magistrate sitting in London, I cannot remember the last time I saw a youth come to court for shoplifting—they never come to court for shoplifting; we see them for much more serious offences. I am not saying that they should be brought to court for shoplifting but that they are being dealt with in another way and it is questionable whether that alternative is appropriate. We do see low-level shoplifting in adult magistrates’ courts, but it tends to be by multiple, repeat offenders, who are part of a gang. We see that element of shoplifting, but we do not see occasional, low-level shoplifters in court very much. They are being dealt with in other ways, and this may be part of the problem.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for tabling his amendment and for explaining it in considerable detail.
I start by expressing my support and respect for all those who work in the retail sector. Shops are the lifeblood of our communities and neighbourhoods. As the noble Lord pointed out, that fact was perhaps amplified by the pandemic. It is important that businesses should be free to trade without fear of crime or disorder. I recognise the significant impact that shoplifting can have, not only on businesses but on the wider community and consumers. It is vital that perpetrators are brought to justice. As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, pointed out, it is not a victimless crime.
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation. A large number of these businesses are owned by people from our diverse communities, and corner shops are areas of high crime rates. They have made a number of representations to me. I shall discuss the Minister’s comments with them and, if need be, come back later, if possible. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
G20 and COP 26 World Leaders Summit
(3 years ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat a Statement made today in another place:
“Mr Speaker, with your permission I will make a Statement about the G20 summit in Rome and update the House on COP 26 in Glasgow. Almost 30 years ago, the world acknowledged the gathering danger of climate change and agreed to do what would once have been inconceivable and regulate the atmosphere of the planet itself by curbing greenhouse gas emissions. And one declaration succeeded another until, in Paris in 2015, we all agreed to seek to restrain the rise in world temperatures to 1.5 degrees centigrade. Now, after all the targets and the promises—and after yet more warnings from our scientists about the peril staring us in the face—we come to the reckoning.
This is the moment when we must turn words into action. If we fail, then Paris will have failed and every summit going back to Rio de Janeiro in 1992 will have failed, because we will have allowed our shared aim of 1.5 degrees to escape our grasp. Even half a degree of extra warming would have tragic consequences. If global temperatures were to rise by 2 degrees, our scientists forecast that we will lose virtually all the world’s coral reefs. The Great Barrier Reef and countless other living marvels would dissolve into an ever warmer and ever more acidic ocean, returning the terrible verdict that human beings lacked the will to preserve the wonders of the natural world.
And in the end it is a question of will. We have the technology to do what is necessary: all that remains in question is our resolve. The G20 summit convened by our Italian friends and COP 26 partners last weekend provided encouraging evidence that the political will exists, which is vital for the simple reason that the G20 accounts for 80% of the world economy and 75% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Britain was the first G20 nation to promise in law to wipe out our contribution to climate change by achieving net zero, and as recently as 2019 only one other member had made a comparable pledge. Today 18 countries in the G20 have made specific commitments to achieve net zero, and in the Rome declaration last Sunday every member acknowledged
‘the key relevance of achieving global net zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by or around mid-century’.
To that end, the G20, including China, agreed to stop financing new international unabated coal projects by the end of this year—a vital step towards consigning coal to history. And every member repeated their commitment to the Paris target of 1.5 degrees.
In a spirit of co-operation, the summit reached other important agreements. The G20 will levy a minimum corporation tax rate of 15%, ensuring that multinational companies make a fair contribution wherever they operate. Over 130 countries and jurisdictions have now joined this arrangement, showing what we can achieve together when the will exists.
The G20 adopted a target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population against Covid by the middle of next year, and the UK is on track to provide 100 million doses to this effort. By the end of this year, we will have donated 30 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and at least another 20 million will follow next year, along with 20 million doses of the Janssen vaccine ordered by the Government. And the G20 resolved to work together to ease the supply chain disruptions which have affected every member, as demand recovers and the world economy rises back to its feet.
I pay tribute to Prime Minister Mario Draghi for his expert handling of the summit. But everyone will accept that far more needs to be done to spare humanity from catastrophic climate change, and in the meantime global warming is already contributing to droughts, brushfires and hurricanes, summoning an awful vision of what lies ahead if we fail to act in the time that remains. So the biggest summit that the United Kingdom has ever hosted is now under way in Glasgow, bringing together 120 world leaders with the aim of translating aspirations into action to keep the ambition of 1.5 degrees alive. I am grateful to Glasgow City Council, Police Scotland, the police across the whole of the UK, and our public health bodies for making this occasion possible and for all their hard work.
For millions across the world, the outcome is literally a matter of life or death. For some island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean it is a question of national survival. The negotiations in Glasgow have almost two weeks to run but we can take heart from what has been achieved so far. Nations which together comprise 90% of the world economy are now committed to net zero, up from 30% when the UK took the reins of COP. Yesterday alone, the United States and over 100 other countries agreed to cut their emissions of methane—one of the most destructive greenhouse gases—by 30% by 2030. And 122 countries, with over 85% of the world’s forests, agreed to end and reverse deforestation by the same deadline, backed by the greatest-ever commitment of public funds to this cause, which I hope will trigger even more from the private sector.
India has agreed to transform her energy system to derive half of her power from renewable sources, keeping a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere. The UK has doubled our commitment to international climate finance to £11.6 billion and we will contribute another £1 billion if the economy grows as forecast. We have launched our clean green initiative, which will help the developing world to build new infrastructure in an environmentally friendly way, and we will invest £3 billion of public money to unlock billions more from the private sector.
The UK has asked the world for action on coal, cars, cash and trees, and we have begun to make progress—substantial, palpable progress—on three out of four. But the negotiations in Glasgow have a long way to go and far more must be done. Whether we can summon the collective wisdom and will to save ourselves from an avoidable danger still hangs in the balance, and we will press on with the hard work until the last hour. I commend this Statement to the House.”
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement to the House. Ten months ago, in his new year message, the Prime Minister, with his usual optimistic rhetoric, declared that with the G7, COP and other global summits ahead of us, 2021 would be
“an amazing moment for this country.”
Yet as the winter nights draw in, I am sure that I am not the only one who feels that perhaps Mr Johnson overpromised and has not made the most of the available opportunities. As world leaders leave Glasgow, we all want COP 26 to be a success. You could say that we need it to be a success. The G20 could have been a springboard for the agreement that we need.
The noble Baroness is right, therefore, to tell the House that two weeks of COP remain, but Ministers cannot rely on warm words alone to deliver the outcome that we all need. On the climate crisis, Covid recovery and much more, it increasingly feels as if the Government are exposed and do not have a plan, despite their promises and commitments. While I appreciate the Minister’s frankness in saying that there is far more to be done, I implore the Prime Minister to use this moment—it is just a brief moment of opportunity—to show real leadership and, more importantly, the direction that is needed.
The Rome G20 started in much the same way as the G7 earlier this year, with Mr Johnson yet again, unfortunately, distracted by ongoing issues relating to the botched Brexit deal. The small steps agreed in Sunday’s communiqué are welcome, and I cannot emphasise enough that we want COP to succeed. Judging, however, by the Statement—if I have understood correctly from listening carefully to the noble Baroness—it is not entirely clear that even the Prime Minister is sure about what was agreed in Rome. Page 1 of my copy of the Statement says:
“We all agreed to seek to restrain the rise in world temperatures to 1.5 degrees centigrade”.
On page 2 it has been downgraded from an agreement to a “shared aim”. By page 3 it is back to “a commitment” on a target, while by page 4 it is downgraded again to an “aspiration” or an “ambition”. Either the Prime Minister is confused or he has someone writing his Statement with a thesaurus to hand.
Together, the G20 nations represent 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As the noble Baroness understands, the world is reliant on their actions towards net zero. If they fail, it will be the small developing countries that pay the price. That is why we need a plan for implementation, whatever the word used for it. I did not hear a plan, strategy or road map today. Where is the plan?
Can the noble Baroness confirm whether the Prime Minister personally advocated for a 2050 net-zero date in the communiqué, or was he satisfied with the inclusion of “around mid-century”? Given the Government’s own record on new coal mines and oil exploration in the UK, did our domestic policy undermine our ability to negotiate a stronger line? The noble Baroness may recall that the FCDO previously announced a climate diplomacy fund to prepare for the summit. Can she update the House on how that money has been spent? I am happy for her to write to me if she is unable to answer today.
On international development, we are grateful to the G20 for reiterating that the consequences of climate change are already being felt by the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. But, as much as I welcome the acknowledgement in the Prime Minister’s Statement of the impact on important coral reefs, I would like to have heard more about the devastating and deadly human impact of our collective failure to act. But given the Government’s attitude to development aid and the cuts made, perhaps we should not be surprised. I wonder whether other countries raised this with Mr Johnson, especially those that have seen the pandemic as a reason to increase international aid.
On a similar note—again, I am happy for the noble Baroness to write to me if she cannot answer this—she will be aware that the Chancellor recently announced that the IMF’s special drawing rights will now be reclassified as international aid. This might sound like an accounting dodge, but it is important: it means that millions of pounds of support to developing countries will be lost. Given that the UK is the only major donor to do this, can she explain why the Government have taken this route?
On Covid vaccinations, for much of the developing world, the threat from the climate crisis is rivalled only by Covid-19. According to Amnesty International, while 63% of people in G20 countries are vaccinated, the figure in low- and lower-middle income countries is just 10%. We welcome the G20’s commitment, as previously agreed by the World Health Organization, to vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by the middle of next year. But, again, we come back to the plan: there is a lack of clarity about how this will be achieved.
I do not know whether the noble Baroness has had the opportunity to read the 10-point plan to produce and distribute vaccinations globally produced by the Labour Party. She might find it helpful. But can she outline for us the Government’s plan which backs up the commitments made?
On a note of optimism, the rubber-stamping of the global minimum corporation tax could pave the way for a fairer global tax system. But we come back to the issue of the plan: this is still a long way from implementation. Can the noble Baroness confirm whether the legislation has been drafted to give effect to this commitment? What steps are our representatives taking to develop the accompanying global framework at the OECD? The proposal represents an opportunity to build a new economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, but we also must take a lead in responding to the more immediate threats of rising inflation and the shortages we have seen. The noble Baroness may recall—although she may not be aware—that in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, the Labour Government, led by Gordon Brown, put forward a global plan to limit the damage and pave the way for recovery. That is the kind of leadership the UK needs and should provide again.
It is all very well, and is to be admired, for the Government to have aims, ambitions, and targets, and to work with others to secure commitments. But, coming back to my central point, unless there is a plan or detailed strategy to turn those commitments into reality, it is just warm words. If the Leader answers just one question today, can she tell us: where is the plan?
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. Before I move on to COP 26, perhaps I might ask her a couple of questions about the G20 announcements.
First, the PM highlights the target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population against Covid by the middle of next year. He then boasts about the fact that the UK is providing 100 million doses towards this effort, of which 70 million will have been donated by the end of 2022. Can the noble Baroness confirm that to date only 5 million doses have been delivered? Does she accept that, given the overall numbers required to meet the target, which the PM supports, run into several billions, just under 70 million doses from the UK by the middle of next year is simply inadequate? The WHO estimates that some 82 countries are at risk of missing the target, so will the UK be more ambitious and commit to increasing the number of vaccines it provides, so the target might stand a chance of being met?
The Prime Minister highlights the resolve of the G20 to work together to ease supply chain disruption. The declaration from Rome simply makes that statement with no hint of what the leaders intend to do about the problem. Can the noble Baroness explain what international action is planned and whether the Government intend to make any proposals to their G20 partners on how to resolve these problems? In relation to supply problems in the UK, could she update the House on the number of HGV drivers from the EU who have taken up the Government’s offer to work in the UK for the next two months? I think the last published figure was 27. Has it increased? On the assumption that we have not seen any significant increase in driver numbers, what assurances can she give that there will not be further disruption to the supply of presents and food in the run-up to Christmas?
On COP 26 and climate change, the agreements announced in Glasgow on deforestation and methane are very welcome. But does the noble Baroness accept that without the active participation of China in such programmes, and the general unwillingness of China to set targets commensurate with meeting the 1.5 degree target, the chances of hitting that target are remote. To date, the Government do not appear to have any strategy, working with like-minded international partners, of putting effective pressure on China. Does the noble Baroness accept that unless such pressure is brought to bear and there is further movement from China, COP 26 cannot result in a successful outcome?
Today’s announcement on sustainable finance is potentially extremely significant, because if it becomes more difficult for firms in the coal- and carbon-intensive manufacturing sectors to finance new projects, many of these projects simply will not happen. More generally, the announcement by many global firms and financial institutions that they will align their investment and lending with the Paris climate goals could, if executed, do more than anything else to reorient the world economy towards a net-zero model. But the track record of companies which have made such commitments in the past is not encouraging. In a number of high-profile cases, banks which have promised, for example, to divest themselves of fossil fuel investments have broken the rules which they set for themselves; and they have not applied the rules at all to some asset classes. What legal requirements do the Government plan to place on companies and financial institutions listed in London, or based in the UK, to set net-zero plans? What sanctions will apply if they either fail to set them in the first place or, having set them, simply fail to implement them?
At the weekend the Prime Minister said that the score was 5-1 against the chances of Glasgow succeeding. Yesterday he claimed that the forces of climate action had pulled back a goal, or possibly two. The fact this Government have allowed the score to get to 5-1 against is a telling indictment of the casual way they have approached this summit. Failure over the next few days to change the scoreline further would be a disaster not just for the Government but for the planet.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness and noble Lord for their comments. I am sorry that they were perhaps slightly more downbeat, so I will try to improve the mood by putting forward some positive facts about things that I hope are going on.
Starting off on the noble Baroness’s comments about the G20, this was the first G20 which committed to setting out long-term strategies to achieve net zero by or around the mid-century, and all leaders expressed support for keeping 1.5 degrees within reach, including accelerating action in the 2020s. However, I think the Prime Minister has been quite clear that we would have liked to have gone further, and, as the noble Baroness recognised was said in the Statement, there is work to be done over the next 10 days to try to keep the momentum going forward and make sure that we can get further with what we want to do. However, as the Statement said, as recently as 2019, only one member of the G20 other than the UK had made specific commitments to achieve net zero; today, 18 countries in the G20 have, so we are making progress. I will write to the noble Baroness on the climate diplomacy fund as I do not have those figures to hand.
On where we have got to, our leadership of COP has seen 90% of the global economy now covered by net-zero commitments, up from just 30% when we assumed the presidency, and if we take into account the significant new commitments, we are closer to 2 degrees rather than over 3 degrees, as we were when we took over the COP leadership. However, I stress again that this is not enough; we need to keep 1.5 degrees in reach, which is why the Prime Minister has called on all countries to commit to further action and why over the next few days we will be looking to negotiators to deliver on leaders’ calls to ensure that COP 26 accelerates this further action. As I said, we accept that there is a way to go, but progress has been made over the last couple of days and we are looking to ensure that momentum continues into this week.
The noble Lord asked about China. We welcome China’s commitment to net zero before 2060, and it signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. It has committed to reach a peak in its emissions before 2030 and will then cut them to net zero by 2060, and of course it also pledged as part of the G20 commitment to stop funding coal projects overseas. Of course we will continue to engage with it and will continue to put pressure on it to move further and faster. I can assure the noble Lord that the Prime Minister spoke to President Xi before the summit and we will continue to work with international partners to move China in the direction that we would like to see it go.
On the noble Baroness’s comments about international development, as I said before and as she will know, we remain a world leader in international development. This year we provided over £10 billion towards poverty reduction, climate change and global security—a greater proportion of our national income than the majority of the G7. We are expected to be the third largest ODA donor in the G7 as a percentage of GNI this year and the third-highest bilateral humanitarian donor country.
The noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked about some of the various tax initiatives in both the G20 and COP 26 so far. We were pleased that the final political agreement has now been reached on the framework for the two-pillar solution on global taxation, as that was one of our priorities for the G7 presidency. The plan should be implemented to the 2023 timeline and we will continue to work with global partners now that we have reached this milestone to ensure that it is delivered.
On the IMF special drawing rights, the historic $650 billion SDR allocation has provided much-needed resources for vulnerable countries to pay for vaccine and food imports as well as increasing fiscal space for countries to pursue development priorities, including on climate and the environment. We have also been a leading voice on advocating for a new IMF resilience and sustainability trust, which will provide low-interest funding to vulnerable countries to address long-term structural challenges, and we are considering a sizeable contribution to that once it is established.
I hope the noble Lord will be pleased to know that progress so far has meant that $130 trillion of financial assets, equating to 40% of global finance, will now be aligned with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement thanks to the climate commitments made from 450 financial services firms. On the announcement that the Chancellor made today, the aim of the plans is for financial services to set out clearly their overall targets for decarbonisation, how they will align with the UK’s net-zero commitment, and what concrete actions they are taking to deliver this. To ensure that this is robust and to prevent greenwashing, we will set up a transition plan task force to set the gold standard for transition planning across the economy. Firms listed on the London Stock Exchange will have regulatory expectations that they set out transparently to consumers, investors and the public on what steps they are taking to align their business with net zero. Obviously it will then be for the market to determine whether those plans are credible. However, next year we will publish a net-zero transition pathway for this sector setting out how the financial sector will evolve out to 2050.
The noble Lord and noble Baroness rightly asked about Covid and highlighted the fact that the G20 leaders have indeed adopted a target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population against Covid by the middle of the year. They also agreed to establish a G20 joint finance health task force to enhance dialogue and global co-operation on issues related to pandemic prevention and preparedness responses. We are being ambitious in what we are doing. We are donating at least 100 million Covid vaccines within the next year, 30 million of which we aim to deliver by the end of this year. That is in addition to the £548 million we have committed to COVAX to provide vaccines to help deliver more than 1 billion vaccines to up to 92 lower-income countries. As I said, before the end of the year we will have donated 30 million of the Oxford vaccines but next year we will donate at least 20 million more as well as all the 20 million Janssen doses we have ordered to COVAX. I can assure the noble Lord that that puts us well on track to meet our commitment of 100 million doses by mid-2022.
The noble Lord asked about supply chains. G20 leaders focused on the need for ongoing global co-ordination and action to address the huge price volatilities we have been seeing and they agreed to work together to better monitor and address supply chain vulnerabilities as economies recover and to support the sustainability of the global economy. In fact, the noble Lord will no doubt be interested to know that there was a dedicated session for like-minded partners that focused on how international co-operation to strengthen and diversify the supply chain ecosystem could happen, so a lot of work and discussion took place in that area.
On HGVs, we are increasing apprenticeship training funding by £7,000, investing £70 million in HGV skills bootcamps and we are increasing testing availability by 50,000 a year so that we can address this issue.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, in the Statement to which reference has just been made—I thank the noble Baroness for repeating it—there is a very interesting passage. In the context of considering world temperatures, the Prime Minister said:
“Now, after all the targets and the promises … we come to the reckoning. This is the moment when we must turn words into action.”
Against that promise, I want to go back to the issue of vaccination. I hope I may be excused for being rather sceptical about our capacity to meet the targets which have been set out in the Statement. For this reason, as of 30 September of this year, more than 50 countries, mainly in Africa, were unable to reach even the 10% target of the World Health Organization. In Africa, the percentage of those fully vaccinated was only 4.4%. If these targets which are set out in the Statement are ever to be met, they will require resources, not simply in the provision of vaccination but in the means of distribution. Where is the plan for distribution, as the shadow Leader of the House said? In the absence of that, the day of reckoning will not properly arrive.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
As I said, the G20 adopted the target for vaccinating 70% of the world’s population against Covid. I have set out the work that we are doing and the contribution we are making and I also set out the fact that we have committed £548 million to COVAX to provide vaccinations to help deliver more than 1 billion vaccines to up to 92 lower-income countries. Therefore, we are playing our part and will continue to work with partners to ensure that we meet these ambitious but correct targets.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the Statement and the measures taken to reduce global warming, but can the Minister elaborate on what measures have been taken to embrace more innovative technologies? While there has been much debate on measures to reduce deforestation, is she aware that algae-fuelled bioreactors can soak up 400 times more CO2 than tropical trees?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I have to confess that I was not aware of that, no, but I am very grateful that I am aware of it now. Certainly, the noble Lord is absolutely right that advancing technology and using technology will be some of the key things we need to do to ensure that we meet these ambitious targets. He may be interested to know that more than 40 leaders, for instance, have now joined the UK’s Glasgow Breakthroughs, which will turbocharge affordable green technologies in the most polluting sectors by 2030, including a $4 billion deal between the UEA and US, with the support of 30 others, for climate-smart agriculture and food systems, and $10 billion of funding from philanthropists and development banks to support energy access and clean energy transition in the global south. There are a lot of discussions going on within COP about how we can all come together in order to further develop and spread these technologies out, because, as he rightly says, this will be what we need in order to meet these targets.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
Can the Minister clarify one point about the hundred million doses? Is it the Government’s intention that they should all be distributed via COVAX, or will there be bilateral Government-to-Government action to provide doses to the many countries that need them?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
Obviously, we are working through COVAX a lot, but we have already had bilateral communication with other countries and have worked with them directly, so it will be a combination of both.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I think one should dispose and spread a bit of optimism, given some of the comments we have heard from COP 26. There are problems, as we have heard, and I do not deny that, but I think the Prime Minister is trying to embrace this with vigour—there may be a degree of rhetoric—and we need a lot of enthusiasm here. I have a specific question. First, it was a very good sign that Brazil might be stopping deforestation, but I have to say I will believe it when I see it. The thing that concerns me, and that I want to ask the noble Baroness about in particular, is methane. It is great that so many countries decided to curb their methane emissions, but I am very worried that Russia, South Africa, India, Australia and China ducked out of that, because they, put together, will really undermine the effort everybody else is making. Will the Government try to address this? Is there any way to bring pressure on those countries to join this commendable exercise?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The noble Lord is right; about 100 countries responsible for more than half of methane emissions have joined the global methane pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, but he is right, of course, that that does not include everyone. We will, of course, both during the rest of COP and going forward, keep encouraging and putting pressure on friends and allies to meet commitments along with us. But it is a good start, a good contribution and, as I say, the 100 countries are responsible for more than half of the emissions, so I do not think it is something to be sniffed at.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
We all wish success at COP 26, but it has been a bit confusing at times to understand what funds have been committed and in what context. The Prime Minister had said he wished to have commitments of $100 billion of funding annually for developing countries to be able to achieve net zero. Can the Leader of the House confirm what the Government’s commitment is on behalf of the UK; what other commitments have been secured from other leading nations, such as the US, other leading European economies and even China towards this total; and what is the total of all the commitments towards the $100 billion annually?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The noble Lord is right to highlight this as one of the areas where we had wanted to see more progress, so it has been somewhat of a disappointment, but it was fantastic to see Japan step forward this week with a pledge of $10 billion. We have set out our commitment to increase international climate finance by a further £1 billion by 2025, on top of the £11.6 billion we have already announced—so, £12.6 billion—but there will be a shortfall. We will not meet the $100 billion goal at the point we wanted to, as was originally said, which is deeply disappointing. The plan shows though that the goal will be met in 2023 at the latest, and continues on a rising trajectory through to 2025, but we have been consistently clear that the developed world must make good on this promise and we want to keep the eyes of the world on Glasgow to see how much further progress we can make over the next week.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
If I am allowed a quick supplementary, is there any news of what the US contribution is going to come to?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am afraid I do not have those figures; I am not sure it has got that far yet. As I said, the figure I have got is that the latest significant commitment was that of the Japanese of $10 billion.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, Back-Bench questions have now been completed.
Catchment Based Approach’s Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy 2021
(3 years ago)
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Lord Chidgey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Catchment Based Approach’s Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy 2021 and related reports from the Angling Trust and the Rivers Trust and others; and what steps they intend to take in response.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, I acknowledge that the Minister has extensive connections to the chalk downlands of southern England, together with his neighbour, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. We are fortunate to have two such experienced and knowledgeable guardians of our treasured chalk streams in this House. I can only say that as a third-generation migrant to Hampshire from Somerset, I have been at ease with the welcoming South Downs since childhood, through my own eyes, those of my children and now those of my grandchildren.
My concerns over our chalk streams, and the importance of their protection and restoration, have been greeted with intense interest and support from all sides and at all levels. I place on record my thanks to the many organisations and individuals whose work is helping in the assessment of the state of our chalk streams, the restoration work in progress and the commitments still needed. They include: Stuart Singleton-White and Martin Salter at the Angling Trust; Christine Colvin at Rivers Trust UK; Jacob Wallace of Water UK; Stuart Roberts of the NFU; the Troubled Waters report; the Wildlife and Countryside Link; the Itchen Valley Association; Hampshire county councillor Jackie Porter; and Winchester City councillor Margo Power, among others.
Chalk streams are unique to England and, to a limited extent, to France and Denmark. They represent unique biosystems, supporting broad biodiversity with a delicately balanced food chain. Many are in a sorry state through decades of pollution, overabstraction and reckless discharging. They, like the fish now gasping in shallow puddles, are literally dying as the streams dry up. No more moorhens busy paddling through the water; no more water voles scurrying along the banks; no more kingfishers skimming over river surface in flashes of colour, to the delight of passing children and the chagrin of water bailiffs.
As we debated the Commons response to the Lords amendments to the Environment Bill, noble Lords interjected in disgust at the news that a drone had recorded an open pipe pumping raw sewage into Langstone Harbour in Hampshire. The Environment Agency’s own statistics reveal that water companies dumped raw sewage into our waterways and seas more than 400,000 times last year alone. I ask the Minister to acknowledge in his reply the realistic cost estimates from the Rivers Trust of a phased exercise in reducing discharge of raw sewage into CSOs, and to discard the fanciful figures conjured up for Government MPs by their spin doctors. They resorted to the age-old claim of the privatised water industry that because of the age of our Victorian era water and sewerage systems, it would be extremely challenging and could cost £150 billion to eliminate sewage discharges from storm overflows.
As the Rivers Trust points out, not all of our sewerage network is a relic from the Victorian era. There are different approaches to the issues. For example, the costs of retaining storm overflows discharging to inland waterways, but limiting their operations, vary widely depending on how frequently they operate. Modelling nationally applied policies and scenarios showed that reducing spillages to 40 a year on average would cost around £5 billion, with an annual benefit of £2 billion, and an impact on household bills of only £9 per year. A refinement, mixing the requirement for spill control depending on river type, and reducing the number of spills to, say, 10 in sensitive catchments, could cost some £18 billion. The impact on annual household bills would be around £30 per year.
In other words, a focused implementation of CSO reduction on chalk streams is cost effective, despite previous claims that it is not. This shows that, while you can spin the politics, it pays not to try to spin the science.
Shifting the focus to the finances of the privatised water companies, new analysis revealed that, in the past 11 years, as raw sewage dumping increased, those companies have paid shareholders £16.9 billion in dividends, or £1.4 billion a year on average. How much has been invested in upgrading the sewerage systems and sewage treatment? There are no figures available.
Let me briefly reference a chalk stream issue causing concern to the good people of Chesham and Amersham. The Little Missenden Parish Council has been in touch, concerned about the planned HS2 tunnel under their River Misbourne, which will go through structureless chalk, rather than the competent chalk envisaged in the HS2 Act, greatly increasing the chance of settlement and damage to the chalk stream beds. I confess I am not familiar with the River Misbourne, but chalk is a porous rock, providing an excellent aquifer and containing up to 40% water in its interstices, which can make it structurally unstable. Bore holes will no doubt be required to confirm its structural integrity.
I turn now specifically to the chalk stream restoration strategy, drawn up by a cross-sector group under the leadership of the Angling Trust. The report sets out a series of recommendations interlinking water quality, water quantity and habitat restoration. This is seen as a clear, comprehensive vision and plan for the future of our chalk streams. However, it will be worthless unless immediate and urgent action is taken by the Government, the Environment Agency, Ofwat and the water companies. There is no more room for excuses and delays.
The key recommendation of the strategy is for an overarching level of protection and priority status for chalk streams and their catchments. This would give them a distinct identity and help to drive investment in water resources infrastructure, water treatment and catchment-scale restoration in chalk stream areas. Other recommendations from the Angling Trust include: a consensus agreement that sustainable abstraction is that which ensures flows are reduced by no more than 10% of their natural flow; time-bound goals set to meet the targets on all chalk streams where feasible and beneficial; where public water supply is heavily reliant on ground water abstraction, provision of higher protection through designation as water-stressed areas; driving down nutrient loading of chalk streams to appropriate levels; prioritisation of investment in all sewage treatment works, to which can be added installation of phosphorous strippers, replacement of defunct septic tank drainage and connections to treatment works; and targets for reducing pollution and restoring process.
In its current work, 21st Century Rivers: Ten Actions for Change, Water UK sets out a series of recommendations to enable the water sector and others to deliver a holistic, sustainable improvement in the health of England’s rivers. Not limited to chalk streams, the report nevertheless sets out its own 10 recommendations, strengthening the arguments for dramatically improving the health of our rivers.
It calls for a new, long-term strategy for rivers to include input from the Government, regulators, water companies, catchment partnerships, agriculture, highways and other sectors to help guide and prioritise investment and policy change. It sets out the importance of all sectors working together to achieve the fundamental changes required. The creation of a national plan to eliminate harm from storm overflows, prioritising nature-based solutions and action to massively increase public awareness of the water catchments are among other proposals made.
One of the key species that defines chalk streams is the Atlantic salmon. The River Clyde, running through the heart of Glasgow and currently COP 26—much in the news—was once a dead river, but now teems again with shoals of Atlantic salmon. If they can return to the Clyde, they can return to the River Itchen and the Test. If it can be done on the Clyde, it can be done for chalk streams. All it needs is the will.
Finally, my Lords, I return to the CaBA chalk stream restoration group strategy report. In conclusion, it emphasises that,
“Over and over … it has been made clear that when it comes to the investment decisions which determine the health of our chalk streams—in reducing abstraction, or pollution or paying for habitat work—a powerful statutory driver makes all the difference … to bring our chalk streams back to ecological health, not just in a few privileged places, but right across the map.”
It will perhaps allow future generations to share the delights of the chalk streams that we enjoy.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I put my name down for this debate primarily because of a little shot of nostalgia coming past; the first major Bill I did in this House was the privatisation of water all those many years ago. Many people will say, “You should have learned your lesson by now.” That is when I heard things about phosphorus run-off, ground water pollution, and the fact we had a crumbling Victorian infrastructure for our sewerage system and how it was all going to be saved and stopped by privatisation. There is a ring of that coming through. I could go on and follow my noble friend in the details he has put forward, but I would get some of them wrong and he has covered it better than I would.
I would like the Minister, if he can, to engage in another aspect of waterways, chalk streams and fresh water in general: the fact that they are part of our recreational infrastructure or at least have that potential. We have nodded at that potential over the last year or so, particularly during the passage of the Agriculture Act, when we studied the use of land, access to land, farmers using it and the maintenance of it. We carried on with that in the Environment Bill, however it is a “granny and egg” situation if I start talking about that to the Minister.
If we are going to make sure we get the best out of the steps the Government are taking, we have to have some form of coherent plan as to how we make sure we get the best out of our natural environment. If we are talking about encouraging that thing which is of great health benefit to us, the activity that most of us can carry on doing almost to our dying day—going for a walk—rivers and the environment around them are a great encourager of that.
I could make reference to where I live in the village of Lambourn in the Lambourn valley where my noble friend in a previous incarnation had a considerable interest, it being part of his constituency. I would make anecdotes about the River Lambourn, the ultimate chalk spring-fed river that was sometimes there and sometimes not—a playground for children, horses and dogs, in my opinion.
All of these things encourage people to go out and enjoy the countryside. If you have a sterile environment and the river becomes just a muddy puddle, nobody is going to want to use it. People are not going to walk beside it, they cannot fish in it, and let us not even talk about canoeists and rowers. I do not think chalk streams are the best environment for them, generally speaking. Also, let us face it, if you talk about canoeists and anglers together, one has visions of people turning up with seconds at dawn on Hampstead Heath with loaded pistols; they do not generally play well together. But they should; they should be co-ordinated. The Government should bring these people together to work together to monitor the water we have. We have just come through an experience where people have discovered open water swimming. You cannot do that in a river that is dangerous and does not have life in it. You can turn it into some sort of slightly unpleasant swimming pool, but it will not have the same effect.
The countryside and the rivers in it are a great way of encouraging people to take on the sort of outdoor activity that is of great benefit to so much of the rest of government—not the Minister’s department directly, but the Department of Health and the Department for Education. Do the Government have a coherent plan, or at least some structure, by which they will get these bits of government to talk to each other and work together to get the best out of this? Getting people to talk together in government is always a challenge, because you can punch a hole through a Chinese wall and find another one has been built three yards down the road.
Do the Government have some idea of how they are going to co-ordinate the actions they have taken in bits of legislation recently to make rivers, as part of the countryside, accessible and pleasant? People, generally speaking, do not take exercise in unpleasant environments. Let us face it, very few people go for a casual walk around an industrial estate. If we can get the environment right, with some way of monitoring it to make it somewhere you would go that is engaging, we will encourage this. It helps tourism, the hospitality industry and everything else. Can the Government give us some idea of what their thinking is? Without it, we will have small initiatives going off left, right and centre, not interacting, not getting the benefits and lacking the necessary support and structure.
I hope the Minister will give us at least some idea that some of this is happening, and of who will be leading this. Is the Department of Health giving some suggestions about activity, or is Defra doing something to lead into it? Is the Department for Education coming through, or even the poor little sports section of DCMS, which is now effectively the department for the media? Will they co-ordinate and how will they go through? It will take that sort of pressure and constant observation to get the best out of any strategy, and that is something to which we should all be paying some attention.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Chidgey on the timing of this debate after the sewage and water vote last week, and coinciding with the COP 26 conference. The issue of chalk streams is a very valuable subject to raise, particularly this week. My noble friend gave a very comprehensive review of the issues and my colleague and noble friend Lord Addington commented on the importance of the recreational uses and plans for these areas.
It is one of the pleasures and privileges of my life that I live in the heart of the Hampshire chalk stream country, right beside the River Meon. I am actually rather disappointed that nobody else in the House lives as close as I do to a chalk stream. The River Meon is the third of the three great Hampshire chalk streams: the Test, the Itchen and the Meon. It is the fastest-flowing of the three and is remarkable for the fact that the fish have to work harder, and are smaller, slimmer and fitter as a result, than their brethren in the Test and the Itchen.
I am a warden of the St Clair’s Meadow wildlife trust on the flood plain of the Meon, right opposite my house. It is a community-owned project of over 40 acres, financed by community donations and a Biffa Award from landfill tax revenues, and it is run by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. Before I say a bit more about the trust, I will take your Lordships back over 100 years—I think the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, will certainly appreciate this—to a man who probably did more than anybody else to promote chalk streams.
Not far from my home on the Meon, the great Liberal Foreign Secretary—also the longest-serving Foreign Secretary, from 1905 to 1916—Viscount Grey had a fishing lodge on the banks of the River Itchen. He used to catch the train from Waterloo station to Winchester and walk along the riverbank to his lodge most weekends in the summer. He wrote two books, one a very famous one on fishing and one on the charms of birds. He was an ornithologist. He was subsequently criticised for spending too much time fishing in the summer of 1914. I think this is slightly unfair. It is said that he should have been working to avoid a world war. Remarkably, the first time he actually went abroad was earlier that year in 1914, but who can blame him when he had a bolthole as idyllic as he had by the River Itchen?
The lodge no longer exists—it was burned down after the war—but I have often walked along that river footpath where the foundations still lie, and I cannot blame him for spending so much time there. It is an idyllic place, so much better than the formalities of Chevening or even Chequers, and an ideal place to relax and reflect on the cares of the world.
But I digress. Let me take your Lordships back to the Meon to reflect on how remarkable these chalk streams still are and how we should be trying to retain the idyllic environment, which would perhaps have been more evident 100 years ago at the time of Viscount Grey, without the current threats. The Meon rises in the Downs, five miles to the north of where I live. It is spring-fed, and it enters the sea in the Solent, just south of the medieval abbey of Titchfield, owned in Tudor times by Shakespeare’s sponsor, the Earl of Southampton. Every morning when I am in Hampshire, I walk along the banks of the Meon with my dog. It always makes me sad on a Monday to face the fact that I have to come up to London.
Let me share with your Lordships some of the pleasures of a chalk stream. At the start of my walk up the Downs, looking above the river, you see the skylarks springing out of the cornfields in the summer and in the hedges in the winter. The same crops have been grown in those fields since medieval times, as the Bishop of Winchester’s records show. He used to own the land. As you walk down to the river, you listen to the plop of the water voles as they scurry off the banks. You look for the trout in the river—the clear waters and the gravel beds over the chalk—and hope to see the fish rise for the surface flies. You are more likely to see them in the evening than the morning. In the sky you see the ruthlessness of nature: the circling of the herons, if they are not by the riverbank looking for the trout.
Very rarely, you might be lucky to witness the bright blue of a kingfisher coming out of the banks. In the midday sun, there is a profusion of butterflies. You will note the overnight digging of badgers searching for worms on the soft banks, and if you are really lucky you might hear, but will not see, the otters slipping into the waters. You might disturb a deer or two. You will notice now that the banks have been fenced off to allow for their restoration and to encourage wildlife, while black-horned cattle graze purposefully on the flood-plain meadows that have been there since medieval times. These cattle have been specially chosen to encourage back other wildlife and birds such as lapwings.
In the winter, the river breaks its banks on to the meadows, but in the summer the water levels sometimes fall too low. That is the first sign you have of the threats to this idyllic scene. The abstraction by the local water companies, particularly in summer, is a major problem. Sometimes in the smaller tributaries—some of which flow through my garden—you see the ruthlessness of nature as the water sinks and the stranded fish in the diminishing pools are devoured and devastated by the predatory herons.
Until recently, grazing cattle and sheep destroyed the banks of the rivers, but this has been arrested by the fencing and restrictions to allow vegetation to grow back on the banks. Intensive farming and fertilisers have damaged the draining patterns and powered nitrogen into the river, encouraging weed growth and undermining nature’s balance. We have been lucky, with the help of the Wildlife Trust, to push back some of these damaging tendencies. It is now an important pressure group against the extraction by water companies and for managing the land and agricultural practices so that they are adapted to restore the wildlife balance.
So what should we be championing as we go forward? First, we need to raise knowledge about and admiration for these remarkable chalk streams. They are jewels that are really worth preserving. They need the recognition and protection of an environmental equivalent of world heritage sites—they are world environmental sites. We need more recognition in local schools and pride in our local communities in these remarkable amenities. Often, although they live locally, people do not realise the wealth and potential that these chalk streams provide.
The environmental work of the European Union helped banish a number of pesticides and brought some control over fertilisers. But we still need to do more work on excessive nitrogen and more to counteract some of the damage from too-intensive farming. We want greater control of water abstraction. I find it frustrating that nobody in areas where water is abstracted knows what these agreements are. If local people knew the scale of these abstractions, they would be amazed and infuriated. We need publicity about what is being abstracted and when.
Where I live, there are huge water resources—artesian basins under the downlands—yet, even though we have very cheap water rates, we are still abstracting from the rivers in summer months, when the water levels are already lower.
We need more community schemes, not the Government just implementing measures. We need communities building from the bottom up to take control and respond, so that they themselves can see and benefit from the restoration work that they do.
Viscount Grey may have done much to promote interest in chalk streams 100 years ago. Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, in the 1960s was the first sign to me of the destruction we were exacting on the delicate natural balance of areas such as chalk streams, which I am now delighted to play my part in trying to protect. We owe it to future generations to acclaim them and restore them to their former glory.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for securing this opportunity for your Lordships to debate this critical environment issue. As we have heard, England has 85% of the world’s chalk streams. We also know that these precious and unique freshwater ecosystems are at risk. We have heard from noble Lords about their importance to wildlife and flora. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, drew attention to the recreational aspects as well.
As our climate emergency takes hold, our chalk streams are on the front line. COP 26 has now started. Fine words from the Prime Minister are all very well, but if we cannot save what we have, what we hold in trust for the world and future generations, we cannot lecture others on what they should be doing to protect their environment. The fate of England’s chalk streams is the litmus test of how this country treats its environment.
There are many reasons why our chalk streams are at risk: agricultural pollution; pollution from storm overflows, as we heard earlier; a decline in native species, particularly invertebrates; the introduction of non-native invasive species; development and population growth; and the simple fact that we use and waste too much water. On average, in Britain, we use more water per head per day than most other countries in Europe.
However, most pressing of all are low flows and chronic over-abstraction. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, mentioned his concerns on this issue. In recent years, we just have not had enough rain to support the level of abstraction still taking place, despite the constant warnings in recent years about the damage this is causing. There has been insufficient recharge of groundwater supplies to maintain an acceptable flow in our rivers over the summer periods. The swings we are seeing—from drought in the summer to extreme rainfalls in the winter and back again—are likely to continue as climate change makes its impacts felt.
As other noble Lords have said, there must be reform of the abstraction licensing system, which is currently allowing too much water to be taken out of our chalk streams. We need a more robust infrastructure, which can deal with the strain of an unpredictable climate and a rising population, plus greater investment in additional storage capacity and government support for demand-management measures, such as water metering.
We debated the sad condition of many of our rivers, including chalk streams, during the Environment Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, the Minister responding, said that he shared the determination of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, to protect our chalk streams, and:
“Restoring our internationally recognised and important chalk streams is already a government priority.”—[Official Report, 12/7/21; col. 1591.]
He also mentioned that one of the draft recommendations of the chalk stream restoration group is that they be given an overarching protection and priority status. There is already a large amount of evidence in various reports that have been mentioned—from the Angling Trust, Water UK and the Rivers Trust—demonstrating what must be done.
The Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy, a report with a catchment-based approach, was published last month. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, when ending his introduction, read the most important part of it, where it calls for its “one big wish”—the enhanced status for all chalk streams. This statutory driver makes all the difference. It allows the regulators, the industry and NGOs to do what they must to bring our chalk streams back to ecological health, not just in a few privileged places but everywhere.
The Government must give chalk streams the proper status, reflecting that they are not just locally precious—although clearly they are—but globally unique, by providing a statutory driver for the investment needed to restore their ecological status. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, is a redoubtable champion fighting to save these precious, important ecosystems. I am sure that following today’s debate he will continue campaigning to give them greater protection, and he will have our support in his aims, but he also needs urgent government support. I know that the Minister shares many of our concerns so let us get on with it and start implementing the recommendations from these reports.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, on securing this debate, and welcome the opportunity to respond on the catchment-based approach Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy.
The noble Lord and I share the privilege of having represented, in another place, an area with chalk streams, and this never quite leaves you. I had four chalk streams in the constituency which I represented. Before taking on this role in Government, I was on the board of River Action UK, a campaign to improve the quality of our rivers and tackle the pollution and all the other pressures that I have listened to being discussed. In a previous incarnation in Defra, I was involved in setting up the catchment-based approach, which is fundamental to the restoration of chalk streams, because it brings it down to a level which people can understand. There used to be river basin management plans, which were vast, unwieldy documents. The catchment-based approach involves all the stakeholders, all the people of interest. It is the right way forward and has fed through to this report.
When I was at Defra I set up a campaign, Love Your River, which speaks to the points which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was making. It is about connecting people to their river. There are wonderful charities which educate children out of the classroom. I am privileged to be a trustee of one, the John Simonds Trust, which gets children not just down to the river but in it, looking at the amazing life in a chalk stream.
I refer your Lordships to my interests in the register. I have a short stretch of a chalk stream which rises in the Berkshire Downs and runs past my house. My wife refers to it as my mid-life crisis because I spend a lot of time there trying to improve it. The passion that has been felt in this House tonight is mirrored by thousands of people around this country, who recognise that in England, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, we are privileged to have 85% of the world’s chalk streams. We owe it to them and to future generations to get it right.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, spoke of Viscount Grey. I think I am right in saying that he once took Teddy Roosevelt on a walk along the Itchen. You can still go on it; I think it is called the Roosevelt Walk. Being a great naturalist, he described the diversity of species that they saw on that walk. It compares, in a depressing way, with what you would find on that walk today.
Chalk streams are rich and diverse habitats of wildlife. I am on the record as saying that they are our rainforests and the measure by which our protection of the environment will be judged. It is shameful that, in too many circumstances, we have not got them in the pristine state they should be in. They are home to some of the rarest species, such as the winterbourne stonefly. They also protect some of the most endangered chalk stream species, such as the salmon of Wessex, which I am advised are genetically distinct. If we lose them, we lose them for ever.
If you represent an area with chalk streams in it and they flood, as happened in my case, you learn much about the extraordinary geology and dynamic hydrology of chalk stream aquifers. You learn how it is about not just the water that flows down them but the whole chalk aquifer and what has an impact on it, such as farming activities, the activities of water companies and the run-off from roads. This is complex. It is important that we think completely holistically, and vital that we protect chalk streams from the growing threats of climate change, unsustainable abstraction and water quality challenges, as well as the impact of an expanding population.
Although much good work has been done over recent years to try to improve the plight of chalk streams, more action is needed to meet the scale of the challenges they face. At the chalk streams conference last year, Defra talked with like-minded stakeholders at length about how to tackle these challenges. It was with this in mind that my honourable friend the Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow, called for the creation of the chalk stream restoration group. I am delighted to confirm that this group delivered a holistic and ambitious strategy, which was launched last month and has been well received—indeed, it has been much talked about this evening. I thank its author, Charles Rangeley-Wilson, who is an inspirational campaigner and writer on rivers, particularly chalk streams. He shared his significant expertise with the chalk stream restoration group and worked with many stakeholders, some of whom have been mentioned this evening, to set out the strategy.
The Government welcome the strategy and have committed to working closely both inside and outside of government to explore its recommendations fully. We are encouraged to see to see many pragmatic recommendations for government policy and action on the ground to improve water quality, make chalk water resources sustainable and ultimately protect and restore chalk habitats. These recommendations will be shared between Defra, our regulators, CaBA members and water companies as we jointly work to understand their implications and how we might deliver them.
The strategy identified a number of recommendations for government. Work has been going on in the background to make a start on some of those. Defra has taken the lead on launching the flagship restoration programme, which is a set of water company-nominated catchment restoration projects that will act as exemplars of best-practice approaches. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to the Lambourn, a river with so many overlaying designations that it is like alphabet soup. It is shameful that, in the village of Lambourn itself, there is often no River Lambourn. We must think about and understand the entire catchment area, right up to the source at the top of the Downs, and get all parties playing their part to make sure that the river flows with clean water, sustaining the natural environment.
These projects—this flagship restoration programme —will demonstrate how a catchment, when it takes the right approach, can be improved within a 10-year period to achieve good ecological status. Defra has also listened to the need for more areas to be classified as water stressed. To that end, we have extended the number of areas determined as such, which will help enable wider water metering. The noble Baroness spoke of the importance of using less water, and there is no better way in which to do that than to have a metered system to record how much each household uses.
The Water Industry National Environment Programme plays an important role in the future of our chalk streams. To ensure that the WINEP continues to deliver at pace, our WINEP task force began work last year to improve the programme and make it more outcomes-focused. In this way, we will ensure that our long-term approach delivers real and lasting improvements to the environment and for future generations. Our draft strategic policy statement directs Ofwat to drive water companies to be more ambitious in their environmental planning and delivery to contribute towards the priorities set out in the 25-year environment plan. We expect water companies to support environmental protection and enhancement of priority habitats such as chalk streams. If I had time tonight, I would hold the House spellbound with my understanding of the abstraction incentive mechanism, which is a means by which water companies can be incentivised not to take water from catchments when water flows too slowly—but it is rather technical.
Our draft strategic policy statement also makes it clear that water companies must reduce the use of storm overflows as a priority. This is the first time that any Government have set out this expectation for water companies to prioritise reducing their reliance on storm overflows to discharge sewage, and we expect investment to be approved for water companies to be able to do so. The Government have also announced that they will put the direction set out in the SPS on a statutory footing, with a new duty on water companies to progressively reduce impacts of sewage discharges. This builds on the measures already in the Environment Bill to improve our water quality and tackle sewage pollution, including requiring water companies to report in near real time on storm overflow operation and monitor their impact up and downstream.
We plan to publish a nature recovery Green Paper before the end of the year—and that may answer the desire for a cross-government approach, as has been mentioned tonight. The consultation will explore how we can improve our wildlife laws to deliver our ambitions for nature recovery, which includes the protection of important habitats such as chalk streams. Defra will lead the exploration of eight of the strategy’s 33 recommendations for action. During the scoping phase, which takes us to spring 2022, Defra teams will give detailed consideration to each recommendation, working collaboratively with partnering organisations; of the 33 recommendations, 10 are already in progress. Defra, along with other chalk stream restoration group members, has committed to report back on progress at a meeting of the working group in the spring.
I shall just refer to some of the points that have been raised in tonight’s debate. The noble Lord is right to be sceptical of some of the economic assumptions around the impact of bills. I remember when we started talking about the Thames tideway tunnel that the original impact was going to be £85 on every Thames Water payer’s bill; I think it is now down to £18, which is still a lot of money for many people, but it is different from what we were talking about. As a Minister I should be sceptical, and I am sure that other Members of this House will be sceptical as well and hold the Government to account for some of the economic assumptions under which we work. I do not say that we always get this right, but we want to.
Some of the other aspects of environmental policy that are coming through, such as the woodland buffer along our rivers—this incentive for farmers and land owners to have a 20-metre buffer either side of rivers, which is turned over to rewilded natural landscape or to tree planting—will have an enormous effect on their ecology. We need to look wider than that.
I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on recreational use. I was involved in drawing up the natural environment White Paper, which was the first time when there was a conversation across government to draw in health and well-being and education and all the other aspects in terms of river management. Now health and well-being is so much more about diverting people away from the health service than it is about looking after people when they are sick, and rivers can have a massively important part in that.
My noble friend Lord Agnew is taking forward a commission on greater access, and this will involve rivers as well. I am conscious of time, so if I have not answered any of the points that have been made, I would be very happy to get back to noble Lords in person. While we acknowledge how substantial some of these pieces of work will be for Defra, its regulators, water companies and environmental NGOs, the Government remain committed to protecting chalk streams and we will continue to take a lead to do so.
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill
Wednesday 3rd November 2021
(3 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 View all Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 40-V(b) Amendments for Committee (supplementary to the Fifth Marshalled List) - (3 Nov 2021)
Baroness Chakrabarti
“Commissioning of police weapons, surveillance equipment or investigatory technology
(1) Save as provided for by regulations under this section or as specifically authorised under other legislation, no constable, police force, police and crime commissioner or other policing body may commission the development or deployment of weapons, surveillance equipment or investigatory technology.(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations—(a) authorise a relevant policing body to commission the development or deployment of weapons, surveillance equipment or investigatory technology specified in the regulations;(b) specify technologies or providers that may or may not be commissioned by any relevant policing body;(c) prescribe conditions that must be met by any technologies or providers if they are to be commissioned by any relevant policing body;(d) authorise a person, or panel of persons, to monitor such commissioning as is authorised and compliance with such conditions as are prescribed.(3) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument.(4) Regulations under this section—(a) may make different provision for different purposes or areas;(b) may make financial, consequential, supplementary, incidental, transitional, transitory or saving provision.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 132B—a probing amendment—is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hain. The Committee will know that everyone here is engaged with scrutiny of the present Bill because we believe that police powers, criminal justice measures and the criminal law need to be on a clear and, for the most part, statutory footing—certainly on a clear legal footing. A brief skim of this very hefty piece of legislation will throw up references to well-established and legendary Acts of Parliament. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act is an obvious one, as is the Public Order Act; the list goes on. These measures, over the years, have come to govern police powers in particular: powers of arrest, investigatory powers, and so on.
However, because we are nearly a quarter into the 21st century, so much technological development—some of it just as intrusive as traditional powers of arrest and subsequent investigatory powers—has proceeded apace. I, for one, despite having been around this territory for a couple of decades, am not clear about the statutory footing for much of it. That is really the legal and constitutional basis for this probe, if I might put it like that. In a moment, my noble friend Lord Hain will use a more specific example that spurred us to table this amendment, even though that was only a couple of days ago.
In a sense, this is not that dissimilar to the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and many of his friends on the Benches opposite debated a few days ago. That was about non-crime information sitting around on databases, potentially to the detriment of citizens. His cry then, supported vociferously by people from across the Committee, but particularly that side, was that it must be on a statutory footing. The same must be true as a matter of law, not least the law of the European Convention on Human Rights but constitutional principle, in relation to the commissioning of weapons, surveillance equipment, investigatory technology and new algorithmic technology—much of which is currently under investigation by the new House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee, ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who is in her place, and comprising many illustrious Members of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Hain (Lab)
I speak in support of Amendment 132B, in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, to which I have added my name, and which provides for a new clause in the Bill. I ask the Minister to listen quite carefully and consider bringing back a government amendment on Report to address the issues that we have raised. There is a really important issue about the accountability and scrutiny of these developing technologies of surveillance and weapons.
The purpose of the proposed new clause is to ensure that drones and other new surveillance or weapons technology can be deployed by the police only within parameters and regulations set by the Secretary of State; in other words, it seeks to ensure proper parliamentary accountability and scrutiny rather than leaving it as a matter of exclusive police discretion. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti has pointed out, when, in the past, other forms of technological surveillance, and indeed digital technology, were not properly regulated, they started to encroach on privacy in a major way. We have all seen examples of that or experienced it ourselves.
Police in England and Wales are considering using drone-mounted cameras that could film high-quality live footage from 1,500 feet—457 metres—away, which raises concerns among civil liberties campaigners. The National Police Air Service—NPAS—which provides air support to 46 police forces, has asked private companies for information about systems that offer both airborne imaging and air-to-ground communication. A government website stated on 21 September:
“The imaging systems are intended for use on BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) remotely-piloted aircraft systems: ‘Drones’.”
The NPAS told potential bidders that the systems should be capable of transmitting live, high-quality images even in low light, using electro-optical or infra-red systems. It said that this would enable officers to pick out detail such as facial features, as well as clothing and vehicle registration plates, at a distance of between 500 feet and 1,500 feet. The NPAS added that the cameras should be able to operate on a drone that stays in the air for up to four hours and flies up to 30 miles from the base station from which it is controlled.
Drones have been used by various English and Welsh police forces, including the Metropolitan Police, which has explained that they have been deployed to survey crime scenes and provide live footage of operations. That is all to the good as a response to serious crime. It seems, however, that the NPAS may plan a national rollout of drone technology, which raises all manner of civil liberty issues, including privacy, how much autonomy will be granted to private companies operating such drone technology for surveillance by the state, and whether it will target legitimate protesters as opposed to criminals and terrorists.
I ask these questions because these important issues cannot simply be a matter for operational police decision-making. They should be placed within an accountable regulatory environment that can be scrutinised by Parliament. CCTV is already ubiquitous and operated by private companies able to watch whatever we do, certainly in urban areas. Surveillance of the vehicles we drive is also universal. Big tech companies are increasingly monitoring almost our every move.
Deployment of police drones with algorithmic and facial recognition technology should be properly regulated. This is the essence of what I am asking the Minister to respond to. Drone surveillance has even been used to stalk dog walkers during lockdown. It is not acceptable for a Home Office spokesperson simply to say, recently:
“Use of drones is an operational matter for police forces.”
Nor is it sufficient for Ministers to say that the police are already subject to the Air Navigation Order and the general data protection regulation. Although it was reported in the Guardian that the Home Office says increased use of drones would allow police forces to replace helicopters, reducing noise and carbon emissions, that should not be a reason to duck the necessity for proper accountability and scrutiny. I stress, to the Minister and to your Lordships’ House, that this amendment does not seek to block police deployment of drones for legitimate purposes such as to tackle criminals, drug or people traffickers, terrorists, or racist or fascist demonstrations targeting black, Jewish or Muslims citizens.
The Undercover Policing Inquiry, to which I gave evidence earlier this year, has already revealed stark injustices and abuses of liberty and privacy. The High Court has recognised this in its recent judgment finding against the Metropolitan Police in a case brought by environmental protestor Kate Wilson, who was intimately and improperly befriended by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy. Other example like this were revealed by the Undercover Policing Inquiry. I mention these because they relate to accountability, scrutiny and proper regulation. One undercover police officer told the inquiry that she did not know why she was infiltrating one feminist group, as only four people attended a meeting she went to. But she was deployed in this way, instead of on serious undercover police work, such as what I saw and approved as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. That was legitimate undercover police work.
This amendment is about ensuring drone technology is used to put serious crime under proper surveillance, is accountable and does not get out of control, as undercover police officers did. I have spoken previously in this House, on another Bill, about the improper use of undercover police officers to monitor and put under surveillance anti-Apartheid demonstrators, instead of pursuing the South African security services who were bombing Nelson Mandela’s headquarters in London. I will not go on about this, but my point is that the deployment of undercover police officers should have been more properly regulated. I hope that the current inquiry, headed by Judge Mitting, will produce recommendation to that effect, given that it was set up by the Government, which I welcome. The question is how deployment is regulated and who makes the ultimate decisions. I believe it should be based on a warrant—which I signed hundreds of, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and when substituting for the Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary—to deal with serious crime.
To give an example of what I think would have been a legitimate deployment of drone technology if it had existed then—I will describe this generally so as not to give away what was really going on—I witnessed graphic video-based surveillance of paramilitary members with guns seeking to attack fellow citizens in Belfast when I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 2005. That was done for entirely legitimate purposes. I will not describe how exactly it was done because I do not think that should be publicly revealed. The operation of a drone in that situation—because drone technology did not exist in the form that it does now—would have been entirely legitimate and I saw at first hand the way it could be legitimately deployed.
However, I can also see how this could be spread, if it is simply an operational decision by police, to target non-violent demonstrators and environmental activists. We may not approve of their methods, but we have already seen members of Extinction Rebellion put on a terrorist list by police forces. When that was revealed they of course said that they should not have been. This is about parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. Without such accountability, how do we know that drone-based surveillance is not being targeted on illegitimate purposes like undercover police officers most certainly were?
If the noble Baroness is willing to look at this, and she might find some technical reasons why our amendment is not acceptable to her, it may be that the same kind of authority should be given as under the warrant procedure for authorising surveillance. As I have just explained, I signed hundreds of those as Northern Ireland Secretary of State and in other capacities. Maybe that is one of the ways in which ultimately the Secretary of State would take the decision and be ultimately accountable under the legislation that Parliament passes. Parliament can therefore scrutinise, if not every decision, then the general pattern of decisions made. We need something similar for drone surveillance and this amendment tabled by my noble friend provides for that. I hope the Government will address this so that we do not have to bring back the same amendment or a similar one on Report, because the Government will have recognised this is an important issue and taken the initiative themselves. I ask her to consider that.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, way back in 2004 I was the Deputy Mayor of London—when there was only one deputy mayor and not a whole host of them. In that role I attended DSEI, the arms fair. What struck me was that there was a terrifying amount of military equipment being sold and repurposed for use by police forces and Governments against their own citizens. That was a few years ago and I imagine the situation has got much worse since.
On another occasion I was outside a kettle in Whitehall chatting to the senior police officer trying to give him some good advice about how to communicate with the crowd. He had a phone call, he stepped away to take it and when he came back, he said “I’ve just been told not to speak to you any more.” I asked, “Who by?” and he pointed at the helicopter that had been flying over us. That was the first time I realised just how powerful the cameras were; they had not only been able to photograph me but also recognise me which, from the top of my head, I would have thought almost impossible.
There is always a great amount of mission creep with this type of technology and people can get carried away with it. Our own Prime Minister infamously wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money buying illegal water cannons when he was Mayor of London. They ended up rotting down in Kent and I am not sure we ever managed to sell them—perhaps we sold them for scrap. As far as I know there is still no oversight or regulation of the facial recognition technology. I would be very interested to hear the Minister tell me about that, because I have been agitating for that for some time.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendment 132B in the names of my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lord Hain. Most of us were blissfully unaware that there was something called the National Police Air Service. We might have thought of it monitoring traffic problems and advising on detours, or perhaps tracking a getaway car through the streets. We probably thought that our local police service was undertaking this. Certainly, we would have expected such a service to have been accountable.
We were somewhat surprised to find that responsibility for commissioning this service in England and Wales is held in West Yorkshire and is becoming part of the remit of the Mayor of West Yorkshire. It was unnerving to read in the Guardian that there is to be a massive development in the role of the National Police Air Service without reference to Parliament, especially as it is considering the use of the technologies which have been described and which take us into worrying areas of policing that involve the use of drones, possibly fitted with facial recognition technology, and greatly increase the degree of public surveillance. Can the Minister say how much, if any, of the information captured will be accessible to the private company involved in its provision?
Amendment 132B aims to ensure that the commissioning of such equipment should be a matter for Parliament so as to ensure proper accountability and scrutiny. If there is one thing we should have learned from recent concerns about policing, it is that all aspects of policing should be accountable and open to public scrutiny. The antithesis of accountability is having an election every few years for a police and crime commissioner who is usually elected on the basis of a low turnout with little local understanding of that person’s role.
Can the Minister reassure the Committee about another aspect of accountability? When contracts are awarded for aspects of policing, they should be transparent and not clouded by being classified as commercially sensitive and therefore less open to public scrutiny. As other noble Lords have said, I hope that the Minister will take account of this amendment and the nature of the concerns it expresses.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has referred to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I chair. It is currently undertaking an inquiry into the use of new technology—I stress new, by which I mean artificial intelligence—and the application of law. I do not wish to pre-empt whatever the committee may recommend. We will certainly look at issues of so-called hard or soft regulation. We will also look at procurement standards, transparency—by which I mean intelligibility both to those who use AI and to those who are the subject of it—and accountability. The list of issues seems to increase with every evidence session. At a recent session, a witness said
“certain things with AI will always be the same. We will always have a data issue, a bias issue and an explainability issue”.
I do not think it appropriate to go into any detail this evening, other than to say, “Watch this space”.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, we support the principle of the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has tabled. Picking up a theme here, facial recognition technology is an example of where officials are concerned. For example, the guy who is responsible for the regulation of CCTV has very serious concerns that the technology is running ahead of the regulations and that this needs to be addressed. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, the use of artificial intelligence is another new and developing area where Parliament should at least consider whether these new technologies need to be subject to debate in Parliament and regulation.
However, I am not sure about the example of drones, which are sort of a replacement for police helicopters. I left the police in 2007; 14 years ago, with something not very imaginatively called “heli-tele”, police helicopters could pick out people’s faces from however many thousand feet they were up in the air and transmit those images to officers on the ground who had television monitors in front of them. It was extremely useful to see where crowds were moving in a fast-moving demonstration situation. Clearly, you can have a lot more drones than you can have helicopters, because they are a lot cheaper and so forth. The increased use of drones may be of concern, but the way in which they are being used is no different from what huge helicopters have been doing for years, whether members of the public were aware of it or not.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about the Mayor of London and water cannon. Again, I think it was Theresa May as Home Secretary who refused to allow their deployment. Unfortunately, if the Mayor of London had actually listened to experts in public order policing, they would have told him that they are more or less useless for the sort of things he was hoping to use them for. I think he felt that water cannon would be useful following the widespread riots across the country. In fact, in that scenario they are completely useless. They are lumbering giants of things that cannot possibly keep up with marauding gangs going round and looting and so forth.
I think my noble friend Lady Hamwee has hit the nail on the head—it is new technology that needs to be considered and regulated, or at least debated in Parliament to see whether it needs to be regulated. To that extent, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I have very much been in listening mode on this. Amendment 132B would require the oversight of the Secretary of State for police bodies to commission or deploy weapons, surveillance equipment or investigatory technology. I welcome the questions raised. All the speakers have thought about this matter far more than I have, and I look forward to the Minister’s response with interest. I do not know whether she is an expert on heli-tele, but I take the noble Lord’s point that technology as a whole is running ahead of regulation. That goes to the heart of the points made today. I also take the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the purposes of her committee in looking at the possible regulatory approaches, such as a hard or soft approach.
Things are moving very fast; we all know that. We are all challenged in our day-to-day lives in the way we communicate with people. This institution has been challenged in the last 12 months, and things have changed dramatically. With an open mind, I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for setting out their case for this amendment. I can do no better than echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on heli-tele, which were absolutely to the point. I think the Committee is generally referring to some of the new, emerging technologies and the framework around them.
I have done quite a lot of work in Parliament on LFR and biometrics, but very little in this Chamber, so I am very pleased to have a chance to debate this with noble Lords this evening. I refer the Committee to some of the work I have done in the Science and Technology Committee on LFR, biometrics, forensics and so on. It makes for riveting reading.
We are really aware of the issues that noble Lords have raised. There are some links to the matters we debated on Monday relating to confidence in policing and the importance of policing by consent. We are mindful of the need to ensure that the police’s use of technology is appropriate, and it might assist the House if I begin by setting out some of the existing legal framework in this space. What noble Lords have talked about tonight covers a vast area, but I will give some of the headlines for a flavour of what we are doing.
The framework includes police common law powers to prevent and detect crime, the Data Protection Act 2018, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and law enforcement bodies’ own published policies. This framework places important obligations on those responsible for the deployment of technology, including the need to undertake data protection and equality impact assessments, and has provisions to regulate automated decision-making where there are significant implications for the individuals affected.
I also want to assure the Committee that the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that there is strong evidence around the use of technology in policing. To this end, we supported the appointment, in June, of Professor Paul Taylor as the National Policing Chief Scientific Adviser. Ensuring that all technological developments in policing are based on good evidence and the best understanding of science is absolutely crucial. Professor Taylor chairs a police science and technology investment board, which demands rigorous quality assurance of all proposals. He is also represented on the relevant National Police Chiefs’ Council committees and is developing national research and development guidance with the College of Policing.
We also recognise the need for appropriate co-ordination of investment decisions across the policing landscape. Therefore, with oversight from the ministerially led strategic capabilities and investment board, we are supporting the development, mobilisation and implementation of the 10-year national policing digital strategy, to ensure that the right infrastructure is in place across policing to harness and exploit the benefits of data and analytical capabilities.
Work under way includes establishing an NPCC data board to promote a consistent approach to developing data literacy; assessing efficacy, ethics quality and standards; and establishing a central data office within the Police Digital Service, which aims to improve data management and sharing across policing. The data office will provide the essential infrastructure for the sector to ensure strategic direction, central co-ordination, and accountability on national expectations of locally held data. Work is also under way to develop a national data ethics governance model, building on the work West Midlands Police has done to establish an ethics committee to advise on data science projects. The national model will also be developed in collaboration with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and the Home Office.
Lord Hain (Lab)
Can the Minister say something more about facial recognition technology? She has covered this to some extent, but what is different from the heli-tele era that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, described, or the incident in Belfast I described, when you did not have facial recognition technology? This is going that way if it is not there already, and does that not raise important regulatory questions, or is this being addressed by the committee she has just described? I would be grateful if she could elucidate.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I have not engaged with the committee. The committee could invite me, but I think it spoke to Home Secretary in the past few days. Live facial recognition is the comparison of images against a watchlist, whereas heli-tele seems to be—from what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was describing—aerial CCTV. The two are quite different and are governed under different laws. The LFR is a comparison against a watchlist, and that is why it is different.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
I wonder whether the Minister will mind me intervening. My concern was not that the police and crime commissioners were not elected, but that the one that serves West Yorkshire is elected only by West Yorkshire, yet it is commissioning work on behalf of other areas in England and Wales that properly should be done here in Parliament.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
If the noble Baroness wants to elucidate further—perhaps not in the Committee—on those issues, I would be very happy to engage with her on them. The only point I was making is that they are elected.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who spoke on this amendment. I want to be clear: it was a probe, and my ideal scenario would not even be for a regulation-making power in a great big criminal justice Act, it would be an Act of Parliament itself. I say to the Minister—and I mean this genuinely in a constructive spirit—that it was a Conservative Government in 1984 who introduced what is now the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
What I am really saying is that there is so much of this kit and technology developing apace that we need something at least equivalent to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to put questions of commissioning and regulation—of who decides what the tests are and what the accountability is in relation to all this development and commissioning of this new technology in the policing space—in one Act of Parliament. Again, it is not a partisan point; I would be saying this whoever the Government were. That was a really important piece of legislation in 1984, and the time has come for something like it. There happens to be another Conservative Government, and I think something like that will come.
What I said to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson—sitting down—I said a couple of years ago to his predecessor: what is the legal basis of telephone extraction? I was told data protection and consent, or something of that kind. Here we are now, a couple of years later, in response to concerns, and there is going to be under this Bill a clear statutory framework.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I hope the noble Baroness does not mind me intervening, but I again refer her to the Science and Technology Committee, because the Policing Minister talked about gaps in the legislation. In fact, the honourable Member Graham Stringer was pleading for legislation, and I refer her to the comments the Policing Minister made in that regard.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that, and I will certainly go back to look at that. When she made her comments, I asked about the statutory framework, the legal basis. A list came back which began with the common law, the Data Protection Act, the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act—all good things—but my suggestion is that, as a matter of good governance, sound regulation and accessibility for the public—this is not about just civil liberties concerns and privacy but public money and accountability—all this regulation should be under one framework. That way there will be consistency across all 46 police forces in relation to where the commissioning should be, which providers are considered to be ethical and which are not, how they are to behave and what the conditions are, and then, once the technology has been developed, how it is to be deployed. I do not think it is asking a lot to suggest that this should all be under a single statutory framework. It would be something that the Minister and her Government could be proud of, and there could be a regulatory framework that could last for many decades, just as, broadly speaking, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act did.
I thank all noble Lords who spoke. To go back to my noble friend Lady Bryan of Partick’s point, where is the statutory underpinning of a National Police Air Service? Where is the Act says that says “there shall be a National Police Air Service”? I am not aware of it. Where is the Act of Parliament that set up a national College of Policing? I am not aware of it. It may exist somewhere, but I have not found it and I do not see it. I am not doing this to score points; I think it would be good governance and good legislation from which many generations and many Governments in future might benefit.
With that, and with my gratitude for taking this seriously, I hope that I have planted a seed for future thinking. The committee chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on which I have the privilege to sit, will no doubt develop this conversation with the Minister in due course. I thank everyone for their patience and engagement, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Whitaker
“(d) a constable, following a request of the occupier or a representative of the occupier,”Member’s explanatory statement
This is a JCHR recommendation. This amendment would provide that, as part of the conditions for the new offence of criminal trespass only a police officer could request a person to leave land and only following a request by the occupier of the land.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, I am proud to open the debate on these amendments. They are a means of addressing another very serious departure from the principles of social justice by the Government. I support most of the amendments in the group, which are mostly different ways of tackling the same problem.
I will speak to Amendments 133 and 149 in my name and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and the noble Lords, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Alton of Liverpool, for whose support I am very grateful. The lengthy trajectory of this Committee has prevented the noble Lord, Lord Alton, speaking in person, and the rail disruption after the sad accident near Salisbury has also derailed the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who told me that he considers our amendments proportionate, sensible and wholly right.
I declare interests as president of Friends, Families and Travellers, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, and other positions as noted in the register. I am also grateful to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its percipient report devoted wholly to the significant difficulties of Clause 62.
Our Amendment 149—the main one—would do away with the problem that the harsh and probably illegal provisions of Clause 62 purport to solve. If agreed, Clause 62 will not be the cruel anomaly that it is. The problem is, of course, the lack of authorised encampment sites, both permanent and transit, whether publicly or privately owned. Our amendment would oblige local authorities to provide adequate accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers residing in or resorting to their area—that is, permanent and transit sites as required. They are already required to assess the need for sites under planning law, so they should know what will be required in law. This means that Gypsies and Travellers would be treated on a par with other homeless families, except, of course at much lower cost than building housing, but because very many authorities have been so negligent in even making assessments, we have also provided a power of ministerial direction if need be.
The Home Secretary does not appear to understand the situation. On 8 March she wrote:
“As of January 2020, the number of lawful traveller sites increased by 41%”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/3/21; col. 21WS.]
The error here is that this increase refers to transit pitches for individual caravans for a limited period of time. It actually resulted in only 10 additional transit pitches a year, not permanent pitches on permanent sites. There had in fact been an 8.4% decrease in the number of local authorities permanent pitches, as shown in Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government figures. Will the Minister apologise for this mistake on behalf of the Government?
The real picture is that, in January last year, for example, only eight of the 68 local authorities in south-east England had identified a supply of permanent deliverable sites to meet the unmet need. That means that 60 had not complied with the Government’s planning policy for Traveller sites. In January this year, there were at least 1,696 households on the waiting lists for permanent pitches in England. As of last March, the last funding round for applications for Traveller sites had awarded funding for only two schemes across the whole country, and that was only for new transit sites. In the context of the overall housing shortage, these numbers may not look large but they are huge in relation to the small number of Gypsies and Travellers who still travel—for instance, in January last year, there were only 694 of them—and to those who need to stay on permanent sites while their children are in school or their elders receive medical care.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am also a patron of the Traveller Movement and an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, is a long-standing co-chair of that group, and it is a pleasure to follow her. I agree with everything she has said.
In this large group, I have added my name to Amendment 136 and to Clauses 62 and 64 stand part. I shall leave others to talk about the amendments, while I focus on the overall effect of those clauses and why they should not stand part of the Bill.
Since the mid-1990s, I have seen closely how society in our country manages its relationship with the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller community. As chair of education in Cambridgeshire, we worked very closely with our Gypsy and Traveller community, and our schools, to make it easier for children to access school when their parents moved for work—usually, but not only, following the patterns of generations moving from farm to farm to work at whatever the seasonal needs required. The families that we knew found it hard to access education, and the difficult reception that they faced from very hostile communities meant that all too frequently, children were bullied, in and out of school. Our district council community officers worked closely with these families to support them. The most distressing things that I heard directly from families then are still true today, and possibly even worse, because now, adults, including teachers, abuse and bully Traveller families, and even children in school.
On Clause 62 on unauthorised encampments, it is worth remembering that well over a decade ago, local government was asked by the Government to provide more authorised encampments based on the planning needs of their own Traveller communities. The reality was that far too many councils not only did not create the number of encampments needed in their area but have closed other existing ones. As a result, it is harder for a family to find a pitch on an authorised encampment. Without a base, it is much harder to access services such as education, health and even work. It is a vicious circle that this clause makes much worse.
Friends, Families and Travellers conducted research into compliance with planning policy for traveller sites and assessed the need and supply of Gypsy and Traveller pitches in 2016, and again in 2019, analysing Gypsy and Traveller accommodation assessments and local plans from all planning authorities in the south-east of England. The most recent findings revealed shockingly low numbers, with only eight out of 68 local authorities meeting their identified need for Gypsy and Traveller pitches. There is a similar picture across the country.
Despite the statements of the Home Secretary, there was an overall 8.4% decrease in pitches on local authority Traveller sites between 2010-2020. As a result of these pressures, the Gypsy and Traveller community, working with local authorities and landowners, has created other solutions to managing encampments that have been developed over recent times, such as negotiated stopping, where arrangements are made on agreed stopping times and to ensure the provision of basic amenities such as water, sanitation and refuse collection.
Part 4 of the Bill contains some of the most hostile legislation seen against one community. The introduction of a new criminal offence where trespassers have the intent to reside will apply when a person is residing, or intending to reside, on land without consent and has been asked to leave by the occupier, their representative or the police; has at least one vehicle with them on the land; has caused, or is likely to cause, significant damage, disruption or distress; has failed to comply with this request as soon as reasonably practicable and has no reasonable excuse for doing so. Failure to comply without “reasonable excuse” can lead to the police exercising powers to seize a vehicle—and let us remember that that is someone’s home, with all their possessions in it—as well as imprisonment and a fine. All these measures are completely disproportionate, but the severity of the seizure of a home and possessions is extraordinary.
The impacts of these measures will be catastrophic for an individual and a family suddenly without a home or possessions and with potentially any family member over 18 years of age thrown straight into the criminal justice system. Beyond the immediate impact, this will also affect the welfare of the whole family and severely impact on the children, who would lose their home and could face children’s services interventions, possibly with the family breaking up.
These proposals are being put forward despite the existence of a range of other eviction powers for encampments, and despite the range of alternative solutions grounded in a humane and common-sense approach, such as the provision of more sites and stopping places. There are already a wide range of eviction powers for encampments, which can be exercised as swiftly as within an hour and which can be triggered if incidents of anti-social behaviour occur. These enable a response based on conduct, not on what a landowner might think is “likely”. The powers will disproportionately affect this minority and ethnic communities, and are likely to be in conflict with equality and human rights legislation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has outlined.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I support Amendments 133 and 149 in my name and the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who has spoken so eloquently, and the unavoidably absent noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Bourne. I also wish to support Amendment 147 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and others. I refer noble Lords to my interest in policing ethics that is set out in the register.
As I said at Second Reading, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people have been a vital part of the economy of our nation—not least its agricultural sector—for many generations. Their mobility has enabled them to provide labour at the point of need for shorter or longer periods of time. The consequence of that very flexibility is that they have not acquired fixed land, property or dwellings over generations, but are constantly at the whim of the availability of sites and pitches for their vehicles and caravans. The labour shortages that presently beset us might serve as a reminder that we owe a debt to those who have provided a flexible workforce in times past. Instead, this Bill seeks to push them towards criminality while making no adequate alternative provision for them.
Amendment 149 is vital to the integrity of the Bill. It will repair the damage caused by the repeal of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 and give local authorities a statutory duty to provide authorised sites and adequate numbers of pitches. The present law is clearly failing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reiterated. Sixty out of 68 authorities in the south-east are not at present complying with the Government’s own planning policy. The problem with Clause 62 as it stands is that it seeks to respond only to the consequences and not to the cause. The world-renowned Desmond Tutu, formerly archbishop of Cape Town, famously remarked that it is not enough to fish bodies out of the river; we need to take a stroll upstream to see who is throwing them in. Amendment 149 addresses the cause directly; indeed, with it in place, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said, there may be little need for any of Clause 62 as drafted.
The present situation, with a planning policy but no clear statutory duty, places local authorities in an unenviable position. There are few, if any, votes in providing sites for Travellers; if there were, undoubtedly the planning policy would be upheld. On these Benches, we understand that sometimes the role of a bishop is to take responsibility for the unpopular decision that no parish priest dare take for fear of alienating some among their congregation. Amendment 149 will provide similar support for local councillors and council officers who seek to provide for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, sometimes in the teeth of hostile and prejudiced opposition.
Sometimes Ministers respond to requests for amendments such as this by indicating that the issue has merit but that some other, future Bill is the more proper route through which to deal with it. However, in this case, such argument should be afforded very little weight. Amendment 149 is not tacked on to a clause seeking to deal with very different matters; it lies at the heart of tackling the issues that Clause 62 purports to address. If there is to be a Clause 62 at all—and that is a matter for your Lordships’ consideration —this amendment is central to it.
I now turn briefly to the other amendments to which I have referred. I am grateful for the draft statutory guidance the Minister has shared with some of us: I hope that this indicates a willingness to work with those of us particularly interested in the clause. However, as it stands, it does not provide adequate safeguards against the clause being used prejudicially. Nor does it tackle the points of principle that amendments in this group seek to address. Amendment 133 may seem a matter of detail, but it is important detail. It is a matter of principle. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, to allow a landowner or other third party to escalate a matter of trespass to the level of a criminal offence without reference to any constable is a very grave matter. It could provide statutory support for decisions taken on pure prejudice. A judgment on whether particular circumstances constitute criminality is not something that, in situations such as this, should be devolved to any private individual, let alone one who may have a direct interest in the land or property in question.
As well as these matters of principle, there are strong, pragmatic reasons for this amendment. The presence and leading role of a police officer will be an important safeguard against abuse of the law, as well as assisting in providing a robust evidential chain should a prosecution follow. I hope the Minister will be able to accept this modest amendment or agree to meet us to find a mutually acceptable alternative before Report.
Finally, Amendment 147 seeks to include Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people within the same general safety net that applies to other households. The law properly places a high bar on depriving anyone of their home. The process by which a mortgage lender or residential landlord can evict a person from their dwelling is surrounded by robust safeguards. It takes time, and it should take time. Those affected, who may include children, vulnerable adults and others to whom a relevant local authority may have a duty to provide accommodation, need to be afforded adequate protection from seizure while they either identify and move to an alternative location or are given access to some other safe and secure place to live.
The safeguards that your Lordships’ House has enacted over many years and that mitigate the risks of homelessness for the vast majority of other members of our society cannot simply be disregarded and disapplied, or reduced to the level of statutory guidance, when it comes to this one small section of our community. Where such basic rights are to be lost, it should surely require far more egregious circumstances than the offence of criminal trespass that this clause seeks to create. All these matters would be far better dealt with in a Bill focused on the provision of safe and secure accommodation for all our people, including those whose lifestyle and culture is rooted in travelling. If Part 4 is to remain as a small and ill-fitting part of this very wide-ranging piece of legislation, we have much work to do to make it fit for purpose. I believe that the amendments to which I have spoken form a necessary part of that revision.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I will speak quickly, because I am speaking on behalf of my noble friend Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. It is wonderful to see such a huge coalition of Peers tabling amendments and speaking on this issue. I imagine that Gypsy and Roma Travellers, peaceful protesters, van-lifers, wild campers and anyone else threatened by this proposed legislation will be glad to see the opposition that is coalescing in your Lordships' House, and I foresee a struggle for the Government on this. Far from criminalising trespass, we should be opening up more land for access to the public and enhancing our enjoyment of our magnificent countryside.
We should remove these clauses completely. It is a nasty section of the Bill. It is discriminatory and dangerous. It will be to the detriment of the reputation of the Government—if it can be any more damaged—if they struggle to keep these clauses in. There are many other useful amendments in this group that we support, but the Government would be very wise to compromise on this issue.
Lord Garnier (Con)
My Lords, it may well be that the Government are wise to compromise on this issue. There is a fair amount in Part 4 that has excited controversy in this House, in the other place and among the wider public. But I would not want it to be thought that, because Part 4 and the clauses that may be subjected to these amendments—which have been articulately and powerfully advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and those who have spoken after her—are rightly subject to trenchant criticism, for all the reasons that have been advanced so far, the solution that appears in the amendment paper is necessarily the right one. The proponents of the amendment may well be right, but the solution they put forward to deal with the legitimate problem they have identified may not be. Unquestionably, the number of Traveller sites provided by local authorities is woefully small and may well be one of the great reasons for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers trespassing.
I just want to gently put a slightly different line of thinking. Twenty-five years ago, as a Member of Parliament, I was rung by a very distressed farmer in my constituency, whose land was being trespassed on. I do not know if they were people who come within some statutory definition of Traveller, though they certainly were not Gypsies or Roma. They had a host of trucks, most of which were unlicensed. There must have been about 40 individuals—men, women and children—trespassing with these vehicles. They also had dogs, and these dogs were running wild and disturbing, damaging and, in a few cases, killing my constituent farmer’s sheep. I fully appreciate that requiring one of the conditions in this clause through the amendment to be triggered by the presence or the say-so of a police officer would provide greater certainty that something unlawful was happening. I say unlawful, because that covers the civil aspect of this as well.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA and a member of the APPG on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. In speaking to this important group of amendments I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her powerful speech and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for tabling the amendments to which I put my name.
All these amendments deal with the issue of residing on land without consent. Amendment 135 states that a police officer can ask P to move only if there is a relevant caravan site within the local authority area. Last Thursday the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, initiated a debate on the importance of having a land use strategy. In my contribution I stressed to the Minister that as part of a land use strategy, all local authorities should identify land for a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller site. Unless all local authorities, regardless of where they are, have sites identified and fully serviced for the use of the Travelling community, Part 4 of the Bill will result in huge miscarriages of justice.
This amendment is based on a JCHR recommendation and would mean that a person commits a crime of trespass only if they refuse to move when there is a space on a site within the local authority area, so sites must be available in all local authority areas. Amendment 136 requires a senior police officer to conduct consultations with relevant bodies and carry out an assessment of the personal needs of those on the land, including children. I can envisage a situation where such an assessment is not carried out, the families are evicted from their home and their vehicles seized. The adult family members would do all in their power to prevent this happening, which could result in them being classified as committing offensive conduct such as verbal abuse and threatening behaviour. That could result in them being detained in prison, with the result that their children, having been left homeless by the seizure of their vehicles, would be taken into care.
Just what problem is this part of the Bill trying to solve? As far as I can see it is creating problems on all fronts.
Amendments 137 to 142 would leave out the words
“or is likely to be caused”
in respect of the aggravation that is anticipated when the Travelling community arrives on the land. It is not sufficient to anticipate that there will be damage and disruption; it has to have occurred before any action can be taken. How do the police proceed if they believe that a burglary is about to be committed? Do they arrest the likely culprit while he or she is doing their shopping or bathing their children, and no crime has yet been committed? No; they have to wait until the actual crime is in process before acting.
This classification of the Travelling community as villains of the piece has to stop. They have become the last section of our communities that it is acceptable to vilify and discriminate against, and they are marginalised simply because they choose a different way of life to the settled community. They are bullied both as children and adults, and their way of life is not respected.
Amendments 143 and 144 remove the penalty of imprisonment. As it is, Gypsies, Roma and Travellers are already over-represented as a classification in our prisons. Why on earth would the Government wish to add to this? This is 2021; it is simply unacceptable to penalise a section of our population in this way because of their way of life and the culture they wish to follow.
Amendment 145 removes “insulting words or behaviour” from the definition of “offensive conduct”. In my experience, the Travelling community themselves are more likely to be recipients of insulting words and behaviour than to be doling them out.
In the draft guidance circulated by the Minister, under “Significant”, it says:
“distress caused by offensive conduct such as verbal abuse and threatening behaviour. This may include a level of distress which changes behaviour, rather than distress which amounts to ‘disgust’. For example, this may include behaviours which may cause fear when walking close to the encampment which prevents a person from leaving their house.”
This is complete rubbish. The Minister must think again. This is not the way in which a civilised country behaves.
I have put my name to Amendment 151. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee was impressed by the number of inappropriate delegations in the Bill. It was particularly concerned at those in Clause 64 concerning trespass, which it felt should be the subject of parliamentary scrutiny.
I have spoken in this Chamber before of the public meeting I chaired many years ago when looking for a transit site for Gypsies. At that meeting, it was thought appropriate for one man, a local authority councillor, to stand up and say that the only thing to do with Gypsies was to stand them up against a wall and shoot them. All people deserve to be treated with respect and have their way of life respected. All deserve to have a home in which to bring up their children and care for their elderly relatives. If this is a caravan, then so be it. It is not for me or anyone else to judge that this is unacceptable.
It is the role of local authorities to provide adequate land for housing for their current residents and to anticipate what will be needed in the future. That provision must include sites for caravans and vehicles for the Travelling communities, both permanent sites and transit sites for those passing through. This is not rocket science, as the saying goes; it is basic human rights.
I have put my name to Amendment 147, which would prevent a police officer having the power to seize a vehicle that is a person’s home. Imagine a family, living in such a vehicle, that has managed, against the odds, to get their child into the local school. The mother is expecting a second child and has managed to get an appointment at an ante-natal clinic while her child is in school. She picks her child up from school and they return to find that their home has been seized and removed. They have nowhere to go, nowhere to prepare a meal and nowhere to sleep for the night. What other section of our community would be treated in this way? My noble friend Lady Brinton has spoken passionately about this. The Minister and the Government really need to think again.
Amendment 151 would ensure that this happens and that the guidance, which is not the same as the law itself, is properly scrutinised. There are many instances when the Government issue guidance on a subject but do not actually issue a statutory instrument which would make this a legal requirement. This causes confusion and is extremely unhelpful. Given the nature and serious consequences of this part of the Bill, I support others in attempting to ensure it is removed and made fit for purpose. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I have listened with interest to what noble Lords have said on this group of amendments, and I rise to add my support to them, particularly Amendment 149.
In 2019, the General Synod, the parliament of the Church of England, held a serious and lengthy debate on the treatment of Gypsy, Roma and Travelling communities. It noted the long and ugly history, going back at least as far as the Egyptians Act, passed by your Lordships’ predecessors in 1530, which sought to ban further immigration from Romani Gypsies and to deport resident Gypsies.
In preparation for that debate, a paper was circulated, entitled Centuries of Marginalisation; Visions of Hope. This was both sobering and a call to action. It was a challenge to the Church to do more, including providing sites and freeing up land. We have not made enough progress on the promises made at that time. In all humility, I should say that the Church, like so many other social institutions, has too often fallen short or even been complicit in the discrimination and marginalisation felt by these communities. That has been a failing on our part, and it was chastening to listen to the stories in that debate and to hear the level of abuse, discrimination and pain which has been caused. The synod’s resolution called on the
“Bishops in the House of Lords to continue to speak out boldly against legislation that seeks to further marginalise Gypsies, Irish Travellers and Roma”.
It is in that vein that I feel the need to address the Committee today, because I fear we are in danger of making the situation still worse.
It is 10 years since Michael Hargreaves and Matthew Brindley wrote in Planning for Gypsies and Travellers, a publication by the Irish Traveller movement, that
“There are no stopping places, few transit sites, no emergency sites and families on the road face constant eviction”.
The lack of permanent sites and the difficulties of getting planning permission due to local opposition, egged on by a hostile media, is the single biggest issue facing the Gypsy and Traveller communities. Not only has this not changed in the intervening decade but the Bill risks significantly exacerbating the situation.
Amendment 149 would be a small but necessary remedy to that exacerbation, returning us, as several have already noted, to a previous status quo. It would remove the current tyranny of the majority problem, which sees sites for Travellers weighed against electoral concerns. Unauthorised encampments are a consequence of inadequate authorised ones. This is not new, nor is it surprising, but it is possible to remedy—and I would urge Ministers to give serious consideration to this amendment.
Repeatedly, Ministers have told your Lordships’ House and Members in the other place that the Bill does not represent an attack on the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller way of life. Yet that sentiment is clearly not shared by many in those communities who have written to Bishops, and, I am sure, to other Members of your Lordships’ House, in advance of this Bill. It is certainly not the opinion of the Churches Network for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, to which I would like to add my thanks, along with my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. I hope that it is not too late for the Government to take steps to ameliorate what is presently proposed.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 136, to which I have added my name, but I support all these amendments, which attempt to mitigate the injurious effects of Part 4 on one of the most marginalised communities in our society. I will leave to the end my more general comments relating to the clause stand part debate, and I apologise for not being able to make it to Second Reading, because I was away.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, in responding to this group of amendments, I shall make four points with varying degrees of effort.
First, I commend the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. She is one of the few people in Parliament who is prepared to speak up for the GRT community, which she has done for many years. In this context, we should also remember the work of the late Lord Avebury. It really shows the benefit of having an appointed House, complementing an elected one. While my next point might not find favour with the noble Baroness, I hope that she, and other noble Lords, will be rather more relaxed regarding my last two.
Secondly, we keep discussing the unwillingness of local authorities to provide sufficient sites for Travellers to meet the demand. A possible concern of local authorities is that demand might be insatiable. A far bigger concern is that local authorities are answerable to their electorates. As we have discussed, there is no sector of our society more despised and feared than the Travellers. I accept that local authorities have legal obligations and that they are not adhering to them.
It may help the Committee if I describe my own lived experience, which is not unusual for people who operate in the countryside. I have a small workshop near Basingstoke where I undertake pro bono engineering work, largely in support of a museum that is a registered charity. Every single day I go there, I have to expend 30 minutes of work releasing and, later on, securing my equipment so that it is too difficult for Travellers to steal it. In the countryside, everybody has to take similar anti-Traveller precautions, which are expensive and result in significant loss of productivity.
One day, the heavy-duty padlock for my workshop container was literally ripped off the door mechanism. Fortunately for me, there was nothing of interest to them inside. It was thought that they were looking for quad bikes. Soon after, and near that location, a farmyard complex was broken into and a quad bike was stolen. At a nearby farm, Travellers broke into a 40-foot shipping container. They applied such brutal force to the lock mechanism that the container was shifted 12 inches from its original position. Fortunately, there were no quad bikes to steal. I mention quad bikes because, in August 2019, PC Andrew Harper was killed by Travellers resisting arrest for the theft of a quad bike.
It may surprise the Committee and the outside world to hear that I am not wealthy. I am the original impoverished Earl. However, in January 2012, I was able to buy the one and only new vehicle that I have ever owned. It was a Land Rover Defender and, to put it mildly, I became emotionally attached to it, as most Defender owners do. On 21 October, when I was in your Lordships’ House, that vehicle was stolen from a railway station. It is very unlikely that I will ever see it again. It was most likely in a shipping container before I left your Lordships’ House.
Obviously, I cannot claim that it was stolen by Travellers. What I can report, however, is that when Hampshire police successfully raided a Traveller site near Odiham on 25 October, they recovered about 25 vehicles, including three Land Rovers and several quad bikes. Sadly, mine was not among them. I understand that this well-planned operation required 60 police officers in order for it be undertaken safely and without risk of disorder. This would have been a force-level operation and would have taken some time for the police to plan.
The inescapable fact is that, collectively, Travellers are above the law. When the police have good reason to believe that stolen goods are located at a Traveller site, there is little they can do about it. I asked the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a Question on this very point on 15 October 2002. Afterwards, when we had a chat in the Prince’s Chamber, he said to me, “Not bad, not bad.”
My third point, which may be more palatable to most of the Committee, is that the provisions in the Bill are unlikely to help much, if at all. Despite the difficulties being experienced by the police, which I have already referred to, according to the Prison Reform Trust’s Bromley Briefings, 5% of the prison population identifies as being from a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller background. This is a totally disproportionate ratio that cannot be accounted for by bias, although bias probably exists to some extent. It is clear to me that a large proportion of the Traveller population is illiterate, innumerate and unable—and unwilling—to engage in exclusively legitimate economic activity. The youths convicted of killing PC Andrew Harper, I understand, fall into that category. However, I do not believe that a nomadic lifestyle cannot be legitimate. There must be plenty of things that Travellers can do to help our society.
My fourth and final point concerns solutions. How to prevent the Traveller community bringing up their children with the weaknesses and defects I have referred to is a complex social and cultural problem, and is not for me. The prison system is a different matter. According to the chief inspector’s monotonously depressing reports, all we do with prisoners of this nature is keep them in one building with extremely limited purposeful activity, fail to address their weaknesses and then wonder why we have a general reoffending rate of about 65% within 12 months of release.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
Can I ask the noble Earl a question? It seems, from listening to his speech, he is saying that all Travellers are criminals. He did not quite say that all criminals are Travellers, but he got some way towards it. What is his solution? Is it to deport them to some offshore island, so they do not affect our way of life?
Earl Attlee (Con)
When the noble Lord looks at my speech carefully, he will see I said there is legitimate economic activity for Travellers. I accept that plenty of Travellers engage exclusively in legitimate economic activity. I decided not to tease the noble Lord and ask him who he thought was stealing all the electrical cables from the railway system.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, the lateness of the hour and eloquence of many of the speeches tonight mean that I can be brief, but I feel compelled to say a few words in this debate. First, to the noble Earl opposite, to cite particular crimes committed by particular people of whichever community is no justification for a measure that targets all members of that community. We could all cite the statistics of people in prison. We know, for example, there is a disproportionate percentage of black and brown people in prison. Would that justify further criminalisation and demonisation of people who look more like me and less like the noble Earl? I think not.
Earl Attlee (Con)
When the noble Baroness looks at my speech in Hansard, she will see that I am arguing, as I will in relation to my Amendment 241, that we need to do something useful with people when they are in prison. The system we have does not address their needs.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Earl for that. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are a tiny percentage of our population in the United Kingdom. Undoubtedly, they are one of the most demonised minorities, not just in our nations, but historically and in Europe. We would not have a post-World War II human rights framework but for atrocities perpetrated against minorities, including Gypsy and Roma people.
It is very upsetting to look at Part 4 of the Bill. It is a disgrace. I am sorry to have to say this, but Part 4 is an inherently discriminatory piece of legislation. It is as discriminatory as previous ignominious legislation targeting east African Asians or gay people. If it passes in its present form it will be notorious. I have no doubt at all that it violates Articles 8 and 14 of the convention, at the very least, as other noble Lords have said. I praise the eloquence and perseverance of my noble friend Lady Whitaker in particular, and of many noble Lords and right reverent Prelates.
They know whereof they speak: to persecute people for their nomadic lifestyle—to criminalise the Traveller way of life—is the equivalent, I have no hesitation in saying, of criminalising people for their dress, their food or their prayers. It is a significant attack on their way of life to criminalise them for stopping in places when they have nowhere else to stop. Part 4 is that despicable. I signed one of the amendments; I could have signed any of them. This part, however, should not stand in any primary legislation in a civilised country.
This bit of the Bill is being put forward as part of a very populist and nasty culture war, to use the phrase of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. It is very dangerous. As the honourable Member for Maidstone, who has not been in this Chamber—perhaps one day she will come—but whose name has been mentioned at many points today, said, be careful about the difference, the fine line, between being popular and being populist. We might well remember that when we consider this part on Report.
My final thought is that in a former role I once had the privilege of chairing a meeting—it was, as I recall, at the Conservative Party conference. The audience was very sceptical about the value of human rights, and the Human Rights Act in particular. It was, potentially, a tricky meeting. I chaired a speaker who was addressing concerns in the audience about prisoners having human rights. Again, that is not a popular group in our society—prisoners and human rights is a bad cocktail. He was saying that prisoners have human rights and that some of them even thought that they had a right to a flushing toilet. What a disgrace that was—the audience was very upset and wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act, as some people still do. This eloquent and learned speaker said that it was very simple to deal with the problem: just fix the loo.
Fix the loo—do not demonise the prisoner, do not scrap the Human Rights Act, just fix the problem that is giving rise to the concern. In this case the fix would be to give people stopping places and the support that they need. The criminal law will deal with burglary and with people using their dogs to terrorise people, and will protect the innocent farmer. I wonder whether the eloquent speaker and passionate defender of the Human Rights Act who spoke at that meeting will remember the occasion, as I always have. He was, of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier.
Lord Garnier (Con)
I remember that remark very well, and I adhere to everything that I said then. I hope that the noble Baroness is not setting up an Aunt Sally. The speech that I gave a moment ago did not criticise the proponents of these amendments. It criticised much of the content of Part 4 of the Bill. All I asked was that in seeking to provide a solution for one group of people we did not create a problem for another group.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for that. There is ample criminal law and ample tort law for nuisance. There are ample laws to protect people from burglary, nuisance and so on. This measure, however, is targeted. The euphemism is so thin: “without permission, with vehicles”. I wonder who we are talking about there. The euphemism makes this racial discrimination even more obscene.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, we strongly support all these amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville said, the crucial point here is that if legal sites were provided it is unlikely that these provisions would even be in the Bill. Having adequate sites is likely to be cheaper than the cost of taking legal action against those who have no option other than to trespass. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, said, the Bill’s provisions, whether by accident or design, will very clearly disproportionately impact an already vulnerable minority: the Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities. What would happen if the Government and local authorities made it a criminal offence for motorists to park their cars illegally and then did not provide enough spaces for motorists to park legally? There would be uproar.
My noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Bakewell told the Committee from their extensive experience about hostility towards Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. I have to say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that when he reads back what he said in Hansard it will be open to interpretation that, for every crime he described where he could not say who the perpetrator was, he implied that all those crimes were committed by Travellers, without any evidence that they were responsible for those particular crimes. That is why there is so much hostility towards these communities because speeches such as that can be misinterpreted as, “The noble Earl is saying that those communities are responsible for all these crimes, even the ones where we do not know who committed them.”
Earl Attlee (Con)
The only difficulty, of course, is that it is the countryside police offer who tells the victims that it was the Travellers.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, the noble Earl is far more responsible than a police officer because I can take him to police officers in London who will say that all crimes in London are committed by black people.
My noble friend Lady Brinton also reminded the Committee that there are existing laws to deal with these situations. That goes to the point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, raised. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has said that existing laws are adequate. The police say that more laws are not needed for this sort of offence. If the police are saying that, why are the Government bringing forward this legislation?
Rather than go through all these amendments, all I will say is that I agree with what my noble friends and other noble Lords have said. Part 4 should be removed from the Bill in its entirety because existing legislation is more than adequate.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Whitaker on her powerful and persuasive speech introducing her amendments and opening this debate, as we expected it would be. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, my noble friend has been a determined campaigner on behalf of the Gypsy and Traveller communities.
As has been said, Part 4 relates to unauthorised encampments, which it criminalises, creating an offence if someone resides or intends to reside on land without consent in or with a vehicle. The Bill also gives landowners a role in criminalising a person who is trespassing, strengthens police powers to deal with unauthorised encampments, prohibits a person re-entering land without a reasonable excuse within 12 months and gives the police the right to seize property, including people’s caravans, which could be a family’s primary residence. The Bill also amends police powers associated with unauthorised encampments in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act to lower the threshold at which they can be used, allow the police to remove unauthorised encampments on or partly on highways and prohibit unauthorised encampments that are moved from a site returning within 12 months.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I was waiting to hear this amendment being moved, which is why I have waited to make my contribution. If you had asked the community where I live—it is not a rural community, although we have a village green—what they thought of Travellers roughly five years ago, there would have been a fairly non-committal response. However, after an incident in which a significant number of vans were parked on the green, and large amounts of rubbish were collected and deposited on it, the attitude changed significantly. As a result of that, we had to build bunds or mounds to stop them coming on the village green. It did change people’s attitudes.
Let me make clear where I come from on this issue. I used to be a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gypsies, Travellers and Roma. I no longer am, because my point of policy difference with it was that, when illegal acts are committed by Travellers, they are not prepared to condemn them and say “Not in our name”, which to me was an important aspect. Of course, I am against discrimination towards Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. It is a small minority who commit significant offences; let me make that clear. With all due respect to the noble Earl, he was too sweeping in some of his statements; I do not associate myself with that. However, to pretend that there are not problems, even on official sites, is to deny serious reported incidents, including things such as modern slavery. Serious activities take place and we cannot just turn a blind eye to them.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Will my noble friend give way? He has just come to a very important part of his remarks. Every community is capable of committing crime, and therefore we have criminal and civil laws that apply to all communities rather than specific measures targeted in a discriminatory fashion.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness, but I think I made it clear in my contribution that I do not believe the Government’s proposals are right or necessary. Do not find a difference with me on those grounds, because it is not what I am suggesting.
If we really want to find a solution to these problems—I think one of the right reverend Prelates made a point about discrimination in education—lots of schools take real pride and make an effort in accommodating Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children. They are the examples of best practice which the Government should encourage. It is not true to say that all Gypsy, Roma and Travellers are illiterate and innumerate—far from it. In fact, one person I met who impressed me was a young woman from a Traveller family who had taken herself through university and become a teacher and an absolute credit to her community. We should beware of sweeping generalisations. They do not help us in these circumstances.
I am aware of the lateness of the hour, but I wanted to make this contribution. I like to think that my activities in support of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller group will not cause me to be labelled as unfairly prejudiced or discriminatory. Ever since I was capable of doing it, I have fought all my life against any form of discrimination, whether it is anti-Semitism, racism or discrimination against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller groups.
My plea to the Minister when she gets to her feet is to take into account the fact that there are some genuine concerns from a number of us about the nature of the government proposals and whether they will help the situation and are necessary—or whether the existing laws are such. I also do not believe that the nature of the amendments, if I take that of my noble friend Lord Rosser as an example, is a solution to the problem. That is why I suggest that, before we reach Report, the Minister convene a meeting, which might enable us to find a bit more common ground than appears to exist in the Chamber at the moment.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate on Clauses 62 and 64. I am grateful to have had discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and am happy to have further discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, before Report.
These clauses deliver on a clear manifesto commitment to tackle unauthorised encampments. It is worth quoting directly from the Conservative manifesto, as the commitment was in explicit terms. The manifesto said:
“We will give the police new powers to arrest and seize the property and vehicles of trespassers who set up unauthorised encampments, in order to protect our communities. We will make intentional trespass a criminal offence”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others have challenged me to say, if I was not talking just about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community, who I was talking about. It is anyone who sets up camp on unauthorised land and causes significant damage, disruption or distress. My noble and learned friend Lord Garnier gave us an example, and he was not even sure who the individuals were. When I go on holiday to Cornwall, I see examples of unauthorised encampments, and I do not know who the individuals are. It is a wider problem than just Gypsy, Roma and Travelling communities.
We have brought forward the measures in Part 4 because we understand the challenges many locations across the country face when individuals cause significant damage, disruption or distress to communities, businesses, and landowners. The financial cost of cleaning up sites and repairing damage can also be significant. It is not a sound assumption to say that landowners will have sufficient resources to be able to clean up after some of the damage that is caused to their land. The measures are a proportionate means of protecting the rights of communities. While we must ensure fair and equal treatment for Travellers, and recognise that the majority are law-abiding, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, said, we are equally clear that we will not tolerate law-breaking and we are determined to ensure that the police have the powers they need to support and serve their communities. That is why we are introducing this new criminal offence as a proportionate means of protecting the rights of communities.
It is very important to recognise that the threshold for the new offence is high. The act of taking a vehicle on to someone else’s land without their permission is not in and of itself criminalised by this clause, nor is an “unauthorised encampment” in itself an offence. There are several conditions to the offence, all of which must be satisfied for someone to be found guilty of the offence. Most importantly, the offence requires conduct or residence that causes, or is likely to cause, significant damage, disruption or distress. I would hope that no one in your Lordships’ House would condone such conduct.
I move now to the amendments. The three government amendments in this group, Amendments 134, 146 and 148, are simply clarificatory in nature so I do not propose to say more on them at this stage.
Amendment 133 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, would have the effect that no criminal offence is committed unless the police make the request to the trespasser to leave. This would remove the ability of a landowner to trigger the offence by requesting that trespassers leave their land, and would slow the enforcement process down, while using more police resource.
As I have said, the new offence targets only those who cause significant damage, disruption or distress and who do not leave when asked to do so. It is right that on those occasions where significant harms have taken place, enforcement action should be taken to protect citizens and businesses. This amendment would remove the ability for police to act more quickly where they need to in response to unauthorised encampments causing significant harm, disruption or distress.
Noble Lords have raised concerns that this means that those on unauthorised encampments could be criminalised simply because the landowner does not want them there or because they hold prejudiced views towards people. This is simply not the case. The police will need to continue to collect evidence to form reasonable grounds for suspecting that the offence has been committed, and the offence will apply only where specific conditions have been met. In addition, we expect that the police will continue to have regard to their duties under the Human Rights Act 1998 and to their duty to safeguard the vulnerable before and when taking enforcement decisions.
A few noble Lords referred to the word “significant”, specifically the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It is widely used in legislation, and examples are set out in the draft statutory guidance. This type of qualifying term is used for other offences without government guidance; for example, the Public Order Act 1986 refers to
“serious disruption to the life of the community”,
and Section 14A of that Act, on prohibiting trespassing assemblies, refers to “significant damage”.
On the Human Rights Act, the Government believe that the measures are compliant with the ECHR and the Equality Act 2010. We respect the rights of the Traveller community to follow a nomadic way of life, in line with their cultural heritage. Enforcement action will not be based on race or ethnicity. Anyone who causes significant harm, disruption or distress and does not leave when asked to do so will commit the offence.
Amendment 135 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, seeks to provide that the offence is committed only when a suitable site has been offered. There is no justification for causing significant harm, disruption or distress—the lack of availability of a pitch on an authorised site cannot be an excuse for such conduct. As I have said, the fact of the unauthorised encampment is not in itself an offence. If significant harms are being caused, it is only right that the police have powers to tackle those harms, and that those harms should incur enforcement action in the way that any other criminal behaviour would.
Amendment 136 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville—I know she has had to leave, or else she will not get her last train home—would require a senior police officer to conduct a welfare assessment before considering if enforcement action is proportionate. I can assure the Committee that, in making decisions around the seizure of property, the police will need to take into account welfare considerations and vulnerabilities, and, where possible, should liaise with local authorities regarding suitable accommodation, just as they currently do.
Therefore, we do not think that this amendment is necessary. The police already give full consideration to their responsibilities under their public sector equality duty, and to the potential impact that issuing a direction to leave, or utilising powers of arrest and seizure, may have on the families involved, before they reach a decision on taking enforcement action. Each case will be dealt with on its own merit and according to the evidence.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt. Perhaps at this point the Minister could say what is meant by not gold-plating these considerations, because it gives the impression that, ultimately, they can be put to one side.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that. The “gold-plate” quotation has been mentioned twice tonight, and I must confess that it was novel to me. I suspect that the answer is that, within anything such as the Equality Act or the Human Rights Act, there is interpretation—you could abide by every single aspect of it, or not. But I will write to the noble Baroness, because I think the Committee requires clarification on just what it means. It is too late to guess at this time of the night, so I will write to her.
Amendments 137 to 142, again in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, would remove the “likely to cause” condition of the offence. We think this is an important element of the offence because provision that the offence can be caused if significant damage, disruption or distress is likely to be caused enables the police to intervene where people are suspected of repeatedly causing significant harms. This is particularly relevant in cases where those who cause damage move a short distance away, only to enter other land and cause more damage. It is only right that the police can intervene quickly in these cases of suspected serial criminal behaviour.
I point out that an offence based on likelihood of harm occurring or similar is not unique to these provisions, nor is it a novel requirement in criminal law. As for other offences, the factual circumstances and evidence of each case will determine whether a “significant” level of damage, disruption or distress has been caused or is likely to be caused, and this will be for the police—and ultimately, of course, the courts—to determine.
Amendments 143 and 144, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, would limit the maximum penalty for the offence to a fine of up to £2,500. We think that, given the nature of the conduct covered by this offence, it should be open to the courts to impose a custodial sentence of up to three months. Of course, it will be for the courts to decide the appropriate penalty in each individual case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, tabled Amendment 145, which would seek to remove “insulting words or behaviour” from the definition of offensive conduct. As we indicated in our response to the JCHR, we believe that landowners should be protected from being insulted on their land, and the provision in Clause 62 mirrors that in the 1994 Act. It is only right that there is consistency within the law.
I turn now to Amendment 147, which would remove the vehicle seizure power from the offence. Seizure powers are already conferred on the police in relation to a person’s failure to comply with a police direction to leave land under the trespass provisions in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. It is right that police should have an equivalent power in the context of the new criminal offence where the level of harm is significant for the offence to be committed before police would consider using, and are able to use, seizure powers. If people do not commit significant harms, or leave when asked, they will not be caught by the offence and will not risk having their vehicle seized. Without the power to seize vehicles, enforcement action is likely to be hindered, and the harms can continue while people and vehicles remain on the land.
Police decisions to seize vehicles should continue to be taken in consultation with the local authority, where appropriate. As is the case for existing provisions, the local authority would need, where possible, to offer assurance that they have relevant measures in place to meet any welfare and safeguarding needs of those affected by the loss of their accommodation, particularly the vulnerable, before police take enforcement action.
We expect police will continue to undertake any enforcement action in compliance with their equality and human rights obligations and will continue to consider harm to local amenities, the local environment and the rights of nearby residents.
Where a decision is made not to charge the person, the police must return the property as soon as is practicable. If at any time a person other than the suspect satisfies the police that property that is retained belongs to the person at that time, and belonged to them at the time of the suspected offence, then the police must return the property to the person.
Amendment 149 seeks to reintroduce a statutory duty on local authorities to provide sites for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. The Government’s aim is to increase the provision of Traveller sites in appropriate locations and to maintain an appropriate level of supply. The planning system, taken as a whole, is capable of meeting the needs of the Traveller community. It places sufficient requirements on local authorities for what they must do to provide sites.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser said, a duty to provide sites was introduced in 1968. As more sites were needed, the basis on which the duty was introduced changed. Like the rest of the population, most Travellers aspired to own their own home and to live on a private, rather than a public, site. In recognition of this, planning policy seeks to promote more private site provision, while recognising that not all Travellers can afford their own site. Local authorities and social housing providers are able to bid through the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme 2021-26 for the funding of new sites.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked when the GRT strategy was due. I understand that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—now affectionately known as DLUHC—is working closely with other government departments to progress the strategy, which will be published in due course. I know the noble Baroness is going to roll her eyes at that because she does not like that term “in due course”. We remain firmly committed to its delivery.
The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, brought up the numbers. The Traveller caravan count is a count of caravans, rather than sites. None the less, it should be recognised that, in January 2020, there were 6,506 Traveller caravans on sites provided by local authorities and private registered providers in England. This was an increase of 10% on the 1994 Traveller caravan count. As of January 2020, the number of authorised transit pitches had increased by more than 40% since January 2010.
Finally, Amendment 151 seeks to provide that the guidance to be introduced under Clause 64 should be subject to the negative procedure, as recommended by the Delegated Powers Committee. We are carefully considering all the Delegated Powers Committee’s recommendations. We will respond to its report ahead of the next stage. In coming to a final view on its recommendation in relation to Clause 64, we want to take into account the Government’s broad approach to parliamentary scrutiny of statutory guidance such as this. In a letter to the DPRRC in October 2018, my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal said:
“There is a vast range of statutory guidance issued each year and it is important that guidance can be updated rapidly to keep pace with events. There is nothing to prevent Parliament from scrutinising guidance at any time. I certain exceptional circumstances it may be appropriate for guidance to be laid before Parliament or be subject to the negative procedure.”
It is our firm belief that the new offence provided for in Clause 62 is appropriately framed. It targets significant harms, not simply the act of residing in a vehicle on land without permission. As I have said, the new offence delivers on a clear manifesto commitment to strengthen the protection to communities from unauthorised encampments. I apologise to noble Lords for that quite lengthy explanation. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, will withdraw her amendment.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
From the Minister’s reply on behalf of the Government, I rather inferred that the Government were confirming that the police can seize a vehicle, even if it is a family home and leaves people homeless. I should like the Minister to confirm that this can happen under the terms of this Bill.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I am just looking for my wording now. I think that what I said to the noble Lord in reply is that the police should take into account welfare considerations where possible and should liaise with local authorities regarding suitable accommodation, just as they currently do. They should give full consideration to their responsibilities under the public sector equality duty, as well as to the potential impact that issuing a direction to leave, or utilising powers of arrest and seizure, may have on the families involved before reaching a decision on taking enforcement action. If I could just complete my last sentence, obviously each case should be considered on its own merits.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I hope the Minister will forgive me for saying this but that is a lot of words. I read into it that, under the terms of the Bill, despite all those words, the police can seize a vehicle even if it is a family home and results in homelessness, because nowhere did the Minister say that they cannot do so.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord is correct, but the police would have to take into account the various factors that I set out. Obviously, each case is different.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
I am grateful for the Minister’s attempts to sanitise Part 4, although I did not quite understand her explanation of the Home Secretary’s misleading remarks.
The hour is late. It would not be right for me now to take issue with every point the Minister made, although I would like to. She will have noticed the widespread concern evidenced in many thoughtful speeches about the import of Part 4. I would not say that those concerns have been assuaged by her response. She will also have noticed that stereotyping is still with us, here and there.
However, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for his appreciation of the general problem, although I do think that his one anecdotal example could be dealt with perfectly well by the present police powers. However, his suggestion that Clause 62 could attract a compromise in relation to site provision encouraged me to hope that the Minister will discuss a better solution before Report.
On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that the power under section 60C(1)(d) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is a power to require a person to leave the land in question, to remove property from the land or to do both.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that the powers of seizure in section 60D(1) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 apply to property that belongs to a person suspected of an offence under section 60C of that Act, is in their possession or is under their control.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expands the definition of when proceedings are commenced for the purposes of section 60D(6) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to cover when a person is charged under any provision of Part 4 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.